The Things They Carried

I found myself in close proximity to a bookstore the other day. Went in and browsed around. Found a copy of Tim O’Brien’s The Things They Carried. Bought it. Brought it home. Read it. I’m glad I did. It’s a short lovely book about the Vietnam War. Memory. Loss. Death. Dying.

Given that the war ended nearly fifty years ago, I’m not sure how many people really care. But they should. War is war and how it affects us and how we deal with it is important. O’Brien was a reluctant visitor to the war, but he went, and survived. This book is about that survival both during and after the war.

It’s hard to tell in reading the book how much is truth and how much is fiction, but that seems to be the point of the book, and very much to the point of even everyday living where we tell stories to help us survive the good and the bad times. Memory is a funny thing, and not ha-ha funny. And I’ll read this book again because I love the rhythm of the writing and it makes me wonder how I would have fared humping it through the jungle if I had been made to go.