Tim O'Brien received the 1979 National Book Award for Going After Cacciato. Among his other books are In the Lake of the Woods, Tomcat in Love, If I Die in a Combat Zone, and July, July.
"The Things They Carried is as good as any piece of literature can
get . . . It is controlled and wild, deep and tough, perceptive and
shrewd." --Chicago Sun Times "In prose that combines the sharp,
unsentimental rhythms of Hemingway with gentler, more lyrical
descriptions, Mr. O'Brien gives the reader a shockingly visceral
sense of what it felt like to tramp through a booby-trapped jungle,
carrying 20 pounds of supplies, 14 pounds of ammunition, along with
radios, machine guns, assault rifles and grenades. . . . With 'The
Things They Carried, Mr. O'Brien has written a vital, important
book--a book that matters not only to the reader interested in
Vietnam, but to anyone interested in the craft of writing as well."
--Michiko Kakutani, New York Times "[B]elongs high on the list of
best fiction about any war....crystallizes the Vietnam experience
for everyone [and] exposes the nature of all war stories."--New
York Times, "Books of the Century" "With The Things They Carried,
Tim O'Brien adds his second title to the short list of essential
fiction about Vietnam. . . . [H]e captures the war's pulsating
rhythms and nerve-racking dangers. But he goes much further. By
moving beyond the horror of the fighting to examine with
sensitivity and insight the nature of courage and fear, by
questioning the role that imagination plays in helping to form our
memories and our own versions of truth, he places The Things They
Carriedhigh up on the list of best fiction about any war."--New
York Times Book Review
"The integrity of a novel and the immediacy of an autobiography . .
. O'Brien's absorbing narrative moves in circles; events are
recalled and retold again and again, giving us a deep sense of the
fluidity of truth and the dance of memory." --The New Yorker
"Rendered with an evocative, quiet precision, not equaled in the
imaginitive literature of the American war in Vietnam. It is as
though a Thucydides had descended from grand politique and strategy
to calm dissection of the quotidian efforts of war. . . . O'Brien
has it just right." --Washington Post "Powerful . . . Composed in
the same lean, vigorous style as his earlier books, The Things They
Carried adds up to a captivating account of the experiences of an
infantry company in Vietnam. . . . Evocative and haunting, the raw
force of confession."--Wall Street Journal "O'Brien has written a
book so searing and immediate you can almost hear the choppers in
the background. Drenched in irony and purple-haze napalm, the
Vietnam narrative has almost been forced to produce a new kind of
war literature. The Things They Carried is an extraordinary
contribution to that class of fiction. . . . O'Brien's passion and
memory may have been his torment all these years, but they have
also been his gift. . . . The Things They Carried leaves
third-degree burns. Between its rhythmic brilliance and its
exquisite rendering of memory--the slant of sunlight in the midst
of war, the look on a man's face as he steps on a mine--this is
prose headed for the nerve center of what was Vietnam."--The Boston
Globe "The Things They Carried is as good as any piece of
literature can get. . . . The line between fiction and fact is
beautifully, permanently blurred. It is the perfect approach to
this sort of material, and O'Brien does it with vast skill and
grace. ... It is controlled and wild, deep and tough, perceptive
and shrewd. I salute the man who wrote it."--Chicago Sun-Times
"This is writing so powerful that it steals your breath. ... It
perfectly captures the moral confusion that is the legacy of the
Vietnam War. . . . The Things They Carried is about more than war,
of course. It is about the human heart and emotional baggage and
loyalty and love. It is about the difference between 'truth' and
'reality.' It is about death--and life. It is successful on every
level."--Milwaukee Journal "O'Brien's stunning new book of linked
stories, The Things They Carried, is about the power of the
imagination. . . . I've read all five of O'Brien's books with
admiration that sometimes verges on awe. Nobody else can make me
feel, as his three Vietnam books have, what I imagine to have been
the reality of that war."--USA Today "O'Brien succeeds as well as
any writer in conveying the free-fall sensation of fear and the
surrealism of combat."--Time "The novel is held together by two
things: the haunting clarity of O'Brien's prose and the intensity
of his focus. . . . O'Brien's stories are like nobody else's. His
blend of poetic realism and comic fantasy remains unique. ... In
short, critics really can't account for O'Brien at all. At least in
part that's because his Vietnam stories are really about the
yearning for peace--aimed at human understanding rather than some
'definitive' understanding of the war. . . . Just by imagining
stories that never happened, and embroidering upon some that did,
O'Brien can bring it all back. He can feel the terror and the
sorrow and the crazy, jagged laughter. He can bring the dead back
to life. And bring back the dreaming, too."--Entertainment Weekly
"One hell of a book . . . You'll rarely read anything as real as
this." --St. Louis Post-Dispatch "Tim O'Brien's The Things They
Carried carries not only the soldiers' intangible burdens-grief,
terror, love, longing--but also the weight of memory, the terrible
gravity of guilt. It carries them, though, with a lovely, stirring
grace, because it is as much about the redemptive power of stories
as it is about Vietnam." --Orlando Sentinel "The Things They
Carried is distinguished by virtue of the novelty and complexity of
its presentation. Mr. O'Brien is a superb prose stylist, perhaps
the best among Vietnam War novelists. . . . The imaginative
retelling of the war is just as real as the war itself, maybe more
so, and experiencing these narratives can be powerfully cathartic
for writer and reader alike." --Atlanta Journal & Constitution "The
search for the great American novel will never end, but it gets a
step closer to realization with The Things They Carried by Tim O'
Brien." --Detroit Free Press
"There have been movies. And plays. And books. But there has been
nothing like Tim O'Brien's The Things They Carried.. . . O'Brien's
vision is unique. . . . All of us, by holding O'Brien's stories in
our hands, can approach Vietnam and truth."--San Diego Union "His
characters and his situations are unique and ring true to the point
of tears. His prose is simply magnificent. . . . Unforgettable
."--Minneapolis Star Tribune "O'Brien's new master work. .. . Go
out and get this book and read it. Read it slowly, and let
O'Brien's masterful storytelling and his eloquent philosophizing
about the nature of war wash over you. . . . The Things They
Carried is a major work of literary imagination."--The Veteran "In
The Things They Carried, a matchlessly literary book, O'Brien casts
away any least pretense and writes straight from the heart. . . .
The Things They Carried is an accomplished, gentle, lovely
book."--John Mort, Kansas City Star
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