– Notes and Quotes –   Tim O’Brien (1946-present) If I Die in a Combat Zone (1973)   “‘Snipers yesterday, snipers today. What’s the difference?’” (1) “‘Not me, sir. I been shot at too much today, no more luck left in me,’ Chip said.” (5) “. . . some men think the war is proper […]

  Reflections . . . on Tim O’Brien’s The Things They Carried: The perceptions posted on other participants’ blogs served as great inspiration for reply posting. With comparisons of The Things They Carried to the likes of Forrest Gump and The Hobbit, the influence of one work is put in conversation with other works. Written […]

  Foot and Thumb Notes on Tim O’Brien’s The Things They Carried: One may note the powerful symbolism in the stories such as a rabbit’s foot, and a thumb removed from a Vietnamese corpse. Superstition and the spoils of war . . . the heavy weight of trying to survive, animal parts as good luck […]

  Sequence: The Flashbacks They Recalled/Carried Notes on Tim O’Brien’s The Things They Carried: The suggestion may be made that the novel humanizes the soldiers. They carried innocence and experience. They carried the good of their humanity in conflict with the evil of their ways required to survive. O’Brien humanizes the soldiers with their obsessions […]

  – Notes and Quotes –   Tim O’Brien (1946-present) The Things They Carried (1990)   “The Things They Carried”   “Love” and “Spin”   “On the Rainy River”   “How to Tell a True War Story”   “Sweetheart of the Song Tra Bong”   “The Man I Killed” and “Ambush”   “Speaking of Courage” […]

  A Snap in the Wind The sun is shining. Wind blows at eight miles an hour. A green fairway paves a path. A man sleeps beneath a crooked tree. Plastic bags whirl wildly in a twisting breeze. Birds fly, lose control in wind waves, and fly right again. Slinging rubber with and against wind, […]

  Synthesis – The Things They Carried, Tim O’Brien: Like many war stories, O’Brien presents a struggle of the human condition. The narrator is drafted into selective service with the military, attempts to dodge the draft, changes his mind, and finds himself in the thick of the war in Vietnam. Like many people, the narrator […]

  Across the Avenue or Industry and the Old West A place, a single-story house, a cement yard, a cement sidewalk, a cement gutter, the rubber heels of two Italian leather Chelseas cozied into the right angle of the gutter’s dryness, but the vision across the asphalt avenue, a hacienda, is now seen for the […]

  Notes – “The Ghost Soldiers”, “Night Life”, and “The Lives of the Dead”: “The Ghost Soldiers” is a tale of revenge that becomes softened by rationale. The narrator contracts a case of “diaper rash” from enemy fire, and he nearly dies from shock as the inexperienced medic, Bobby Jorgenson, becomes too stunned to move […]

  Notes – “In the Field”, “Good Form”, and “Field Trip”:  “In the Field” sheds new light on the phrase “in the shit.” The shining beam of a soldier’s flashlight pointed at a picture of the soldier’s girlfriend is enough of a beacon to draw a rain of mortar fire on the shitfield of ancient […]

  Notes – “Speaking of Courage” and “Notes”: As the author points out later in the writing, the lake Bowker circles in his Chevy is  juxtaposed with the field in Vietnam where the platoon was deeply engulfed in human waste and mortar fire. The author illustrates the displacement that may be felt by veterans after […]

  – Notes and Quotes –   Alice Walker (1944-present), Everyday Use (1973)   The significance of the title reflects the pragmatism of using something because of the need or necessity for the circumstance rather than placing a value and heritage association upon the item to preserve for future generations. Because Maggie is used to […]

  Notes – “The Man I Killed” and “Ambush”: O’Brien makes his first enemy kill known, the experience is scarring, leaves him scarred, perhaps even intentionally he looks upon the corpse he’s made, and he means to burn the memory into his mind, so that he may never forget, and always carry the happening with […]