What they were wearing

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What They Wore (Originally The Things They Carried ) is a collection of related stories. The author Tim O'Brien describes the experiences of an American platoon in the Vietnam War , but the book also contains many meta chapters that deal, for example, with the writing of war stories. The book was first published in 1990 as a hardcover by Houghton Mifflin . The book contains mostly fictional stories, although the main character is named Tim O'Brien like the author . A film called A Soldier's Sweetheart was made over a story of the book, Sweetheart of the Song Tra Bong , and is starring Kiefer Sutherland .

prehistory

Before the book was even published, a number of unrelated stories appeared in several magazines. The Things They Carried , Sweetheart of the Song Tra Bong , The Ghost Soldiers and The Lives of the Dead could be read in Esquire , and On The Rainy River first appeared in Playboy Magazine .

Summary of contents

In the first chapter all soldiers except the main character Tim O'Brien are described and what the respective characters have to wear . The first half of the story deals with physical objects, weapons and memorabilia, for example, while the second half deals with more abstract things, such as fear and responsibility.

The character Tim O'Brien later tells of the experiences when he was called up as a soldier for the war: He drove north to the Canadian border in order to be able to escape there. He describes himself as a pacifist and is politically left-wing. In the end he decides against it because he doesn't want to lose his honor and family.

Several characters are killed during the story. In the very first chapter you learn about the death of Ted Lavender, then the death of Curt Lemon, who is carelessly played with grenades, and Kiowa's death, who could not free himself from a mud field, are discussed in more detail. The guilty Norman Bowker committed suicide many years later. This is portrayed on a meta-level in one of the many stories set around 1990; the fictional Tim O'Brien is portrayed here as a writer who wants to process his experiences in the Vietnam War as an author. In the last chapter he also goes into his childhood and explains the background to his lack of courage to go against the current.

This meta-chapter also addresses the principle of how to write and understand war stories. According to the character Tim O'Brien, the actual and objective truth differs from the truth that has happened. In his opinion, war stories can be made up to express deeper truths like feelings. You do not lose important truth content in the process.

Awards

The Things They Carried was a finalist for the Pulitzer Price and the National Book Critics Circle Awards . He won the French Prix du Meilleur Livre Etranger . The book is widely seen as the most important literary work on the Vietnam War .

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