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| Tim O'Brien (1946- ) |
On Monday evening we take up "The Things They Carried," the title story of Tim O'Brien's 1990 story collection based on his tour of duty as an infantryman in Vietnam in 1969-70. O'Brien occasionally interjects himself into the twenty-two stories in the collection, although mostly they are about his fellow soldiers. The book's title page states it is a "work of fiction by Tim O'Brien." The dedication, however, states "This book is lovingly dedicated to the men of Alpha Company, and in particular to Jimmy Cross, Norman Bowker, Rat Kiley, Mitchell Sanders, Henry Dobbins, and Kiowa," all of whom play roles in the title story and in fact throughout the collection. O'Brien speaks of a "story truth" that underlies events, and you the reader might find the notion of "story truth" to be an excellent point of departure as you approach this narrative of the human tragedies of war.
