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entropy_mypants 's review for:
The Things They Carried
by Tim O'Brien
A bleak first hand account of an American soldiers experience surrounding the Vietnam War. Filled with guilt, shame, death, fear and grief.
What I found most compelling about this book was what it had to say about the power of story - how truth is secondary to emotion, and how something can be true without ever happening. I was originally put off by a fiction book presenting itself as non-fiction, but this was weirdly what made the book so strong. I don't think I've seen an unreliable narrator approached the same way as in this book, and I really liked it.
This book is definitely anti-war, but I wouldn't have minded if it was a little more scathing - it had little to say about war holistically, focusing more on a small company of soldiers.
I read this book travelling down through Vietnam, and wanted to pick up a book about the war. Sitting in a sleeper bus, seeing the sunset over rice paddies and reading this book definitely added to the experience for me.
What I found most compelling about this book was what it had to say about the power of story - how truth is secondary to emotion, and how something can be true without ever happening. I was originally put off by a fiction book presenting itself as non-fiction, but this was weirdly what made the book so strong. I don't think I've seen an unreliable narrator approached the same way as in this book, and I really liked it.
This book is definitely anti-war, but I wouldn't have minded if it was a little more scathing - it had little to say about war holistically, focusing more on a small company of soldiers.
I read this book travelling down through Vietnam, and wanted to pick up a book about the war. Sitting in a sleeper bus, seeing the sunset over rice paddies and reading this book definitely added to the experience for me.