Hello

Picked up The Things They Carried yesterday from the library and read the first chapter this morning.

I enjoyed it. Starting to get a feel for Lieutenant Jimmy Cross. What I am grateful for is that he got rid of what he was carrying. The pictures and the letters from Martha. He has too much to carry as it is, and to me that was an extra burden. He was creating illusions in his head and it was affecting his men as well as himself in a negative way. I think by unloading like he did in that foxhole he can focus better on his men.

Sound insensitive? I don't think so.

Barb

I finally got my copy of this book in the mail and started it this morning. I am very impressed with the writing style of this book and the talent O'Brien has by using these repetitive phrases and lists without it getting tedious or boring. Even his use of many short, simple sentences almost seems poetic.

He effortlessly weaves the emotions and stories into the lists and I did start to wonder if the story was partially biographical.

Saffron, I was very interested in the Greek concept of truth. I think the word truth is very misused by our society, or very misunderstood.

Saffron said ..

"I really like this explanation of the mixing of truth and fiction in a novel. The bold is of course mine. O'Brien uses metafiction masterfully. He opens the door on a philosophical discussion that is activity being debated in History departments everywhere. Who's version of history gets recorded? Who gets to do the recording? What exactly is the truth? Who's version of what happened are we going to record as history? And the biggest question of all, can any one person actually tell the factual "truth"? And his question: Are the facts the only, the whole truth? In later chapters O'Brien illustrates the problem of truth telling beautifully."

I started Things They Carried last night and the first thing I noticed was this weaving of truth and fiction. Reminded me of another book I read recently, Colony of Unrequited Dreams which is posted here under the Additional Fiction section, and is similar in his respect.

Thinking back to the Vietnam war, one of the public themes of that conflict was truth versus fiction, disclosure versus cover up. One of the most graphic examples of this element of the Vietnam war was the deliberate manipulation of the 'truth' by government and media, "Manufacturing Consent" as it were.

Damifino wrote:Hello

Picked up The Things They Carried yesterday from the library and read the first chapter this morning.

I enjoyed it. Starting to get a feel for Lieutenant Jimmy Cross. What I am grateful for is that he got rid of what he was carrying. The pictures and the letters from Martha. He has too much to carry as it is, and to me that was an extra burden. He was creating illusions in his head and it was affecting his men as well as himself in a negative way. I think by unloading like he did in that foxhole he can focus better on his men.

Sound insensitive? I don't think so.

Barb

I don't think you sound insensitive. I remember feeling some relief when Jimmy burned Martha's letters; but what is he really burning? Is Jimmy Cross culpable in any way for Ted Lavender's death?

I remember feeling some relief when Jimmy burned Martha's letters; but what is he really burning? Is Jimmy Cross culpable in any way for Ted Lavender's death?

In his mind he is because he realizes that he has not really been 'there' for his men, his mind has elsewhere, daydreaming about Martha and therefore not doing his job the way he should be. Burning the pictures was symbolic for him as a way of commiting himself now to what he should be concentrating on.

I had a little different take on this. It struck me how O'Brien started the book and the list with Martha's letters and as I read more chapters I felt this wasn't done by accident, but rather was very deliberate. I believe the women in the book are very symbolic.

Martha, IMHO, represents innocence and how it was stolen from these men and from America.

Lt. Cross is obsessed with Martha's innocence, aka virginity.
Her letters talk about poetry and poets, filled with romantic notions and ideas, and she never addresses the war except to tell Jimmy Cross to take care of himself.


I think this mirrors the attitude of most Americans stateside. There was a romancing of the war. A certain innocence about what the war was really about.

I felt Lt. Jimmy Cross' burning of the letters and pictures represented the death of his innocence. He felt guilty for Lavender's death. Felt he was responsible. His innocence was destroyed.

Pamela

imnosalinger wrote:
I felt Lt. Jimmy Cross' burning of the letters and pictures represented the death of his innocence. He felt guilty for Lavender's death. Felt he was responsible. His innocence was destroyed.

Pamela

I was thinking along the same lines when I read this chapter. I also think the women in the book are use symbolically.

My take, for what it's worth, is that there is literary irony in Jimmy Cross taking responsibility for Lavender's death. Yes, he "Carries the responsibility for his men" in addition to "humping his love for Martha up and down the hills," and eventually, yes, he cannot carry both of those things and so has to put one down, but that the impetus for him to do so is something so ultimately random (if Lavender died because he walked into the woods to pee, should Cross then order his men not to pee anymore, because that's when they get you?), it makes it really sad, because he essentially jettisons the last shred of humanity he has with the vain hope that it will keep his men safe. Which it will not, of course. People die in war; in Vietnam, as O'Brien writes it, they die with no other causality than that they happened to be in a jungle full of people who wanted to kill them.

shrewdape wrote:My take, for what it's worth, ...........(if Lavender died because he walked into the woods to pee, should Cross then order his men not to pee anymore, because that's when they get you?)

Worth every bit as much as mine, probably more.
I think that it was not really random for Jimmy to blame his preoccupation of Martha because that is what was occupying his thoughts when the moment came, it is also a way for him to accept the reality of his situation and give up hope of a dream. If he had blamed 'peeing' he would in essence be blaming Lavender himself for his own death and setting down the responsiblity he was carrying for his men.

Well, I don't know where the chapter actually ends - I'm doing it on audio - I'm halfway through the second disk - just at the point where he leaves the old man's place and decides to head home and join the war.