October 05, 2023

#58 🪖 The Things They Carried by Tim O’Brien

1 hour 5 minutes

About the Book
A classic work of American literature that has not stopped changing minds and lives since it burst onto the literary scene, The Things They Carried is a ground-breaking meditation on war, memory, imagination, and the redemptive power of storytelling.
The Things They Carried depicts the men of Alpha Company: Jimmy Cross, Henry Dobbins, Rat Kiley, Mitchell Sanders, Norman Bowker, Kiowa, and the character Tim O’Brien, who has survived his tour in Vietnam to become a father and writer at the age of forty-three.

About the Author
Tim O'Brien (born October 1, 1946) is an American novelist who served as a soldier in the Vietnam War. Much of his writing is about wartime Vietnam, and his later work often explores the postwar lives of its veterans. O’Brien is perhaps best known for his book The Things They Carried (1990), a collection of linked semi-autobiographical stories inspired by O'Brien's wartime experiences. In 2010, The New York Times described the latter as “ a classic of contemporary war fiction.”In addition, O’Brien is acclaimed for his war novel, Going After Cacciato (1978), which received the National Book Award.

About the Show

Hosted by novelists and entrepreneurs Daniel Breyer & Jeremy Streich, Good Scribes Only is a podcast for curious minds to explore, challenge, and think differently through books. In Season 4 we’re traveling through the 20th century, decade by decade, because Dan really wanted to see what the world was like before plumbing was a common thing.

Episode Notes

0-5 min — Introduction

5-15 min — Casting the actors

15-20 min — Plot summary begins

20-25 min — Post modernism and stories

25-30 min — Real truth vs story truth

30-35 min — Brotherhood and camaraderie

35-40 min — Anthropological explanations

40-45 min — Loneliness in a modern context

45-50 min — Comedy as a coping device

50-55 min — Problems with memory

55-60 min — Schizophrenia of war