"To compensate a little for the treachery and weakness of my memory, so extreme that it has happened to me more than once to pick up again, as recent and unknown to me, books which I had read carefully a few years before . . . I have adopted the habit for some time now of adding at the end of each book . . . the time I finished reading it and the judgment I have derived of it as a whole, so that this may represent to me at least the sense and general idea I had conceived of the author in reading it." (Montaigne, Book II, Essay 10 (publ. 1580))

Wednesday, July 29, 2015

The Things They Carried (Tim O'Brien, 1990)

I believe this is a considered a novel, and properly so.   But O'Brien mixes in his own Vietnam experiences and the effect is really powerful.

I was a bit too young to grasp much of anything about the war while it was taking place - a constant topic, but we never talked with any returning veterans or did much of anything beyond following news accounts and listening to politicians blather on.  The author here permitted my imagination to kick in.

Part of the effectiveness - his Midwest roots.  The story of Norman Bowker is heartbreaking.

Recommended.
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