The Things They Carried is one of those books in my life by which I define time. There is the time before I read it, and then the time after. I read it the summer after I graduated from college, that time when we think we know everything, but somehow know, deep down, that we really don't know anything at all. I read it with many of friends, and reading it somehow empowered us as young, aspiring writers, while it chastened us for our incredible luck at being born when we were and having grown up, as we had, in circumstances that sheltered us from any fear that we would ever be engaged in military service. That same summer I heard Tim O'Brien read from the book at the Breadloaf Writer's Conference in VT, and he challenged my notions of fiction and storytelling and what is "true." I read his novel Going After Cacciato in that ensuing year when I was struggling to find my place and decide "what I would do with my life." O'Brien's stories of war and his craft in telling those stories brought an incredible and very necessary perspective to that particularly self-absorbed time in a young 20-something-year-old's life. For a time, I made every man I was serious about dating read The Things They Carried. When I met the man I would eventually marry, I was further humbled to realize that in the years that I was blissfully studying English literature in a liberal arts college in NE, he was living on the other side of the world, working as a member of the US Navy.
This year is the 20th anniversary of The Things They Carried and today Tim O'Brien was interviewed on NPR's Talk of the Nation. Below is that interview. If you have not read The Things They Carried - I cannot recommend it highly enough - if you read it for your book group, you will not lack for discussion. Here is the reading group guide. Listen in now.
Wow, I can't believe it's been 20 years and I just read the book. Boy, am I late to the game on that one.
Posted by: bermudaonion (Kathy) | March 25, 2010 at 07:57 AM
I read TTTC in high school, and I think I may have been too young to really absorb it like you did. When I read Going After Cacciato in college, it blew my mind and completely changed everything I thought about war and war literature. It's still one of my favorites. I should really re-read TTTC.
Posted by: Erica | March 25, 2010 at 09:29 AM
I just recently posted about his reading at D.C.'s politics and prose: http://www.savvyverseandwit.com/2010/03/tim-obrien-gets-to-emotional-core-at.html
I love this book and how it generates discussion and emotion and more than that...touches deep to every reader's core.
Posted by: Serena (Savvy Verse & Wit) | March 25, 2010 at 10:12 AM
I couldn't agree with you more about The Things They Carried. It's a life-changing book. Thanks for posting this!
Posted by: Vicki | March 25, 2010 at 10:59 AM
I'm ordering this book this week--cannot wait. Liberal arts college in Nebraska? I live there so I'm always curious when someone has a tie to "my" state!
Posted by: Lisa | March 25, 2010 at 01:26 PM
You'll love it Lisa - and sorry, that NE was for New England, not Nebraska. Specifically, Vermont. Thanks everyone for your comments!
Posted by: Book Club Girl | March 25, 2010 at 10:17 PM
I had to study a short story of O'Brien's for school a while ago--the title story, in fact--and it blew me away. I've hunted down the collection since then, and I've grown so fond of the man. :)
Posted by: Sasha | March 28, 2010 at 04:24 PM
Hanging my head that I haven't read THE THINGS THEY CARRIED. Thanks for the link to the NPR piece.
Posted by: Dawn - She is Too Fond of Books | March 30, 2010 at 03:18 PM