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Other Resources
Remembering War
NPR's Talk of the Nation, May 26, 2003 . The experience of war can hardly be forgotten, but the way soldiers remember it can change over time. Host Neal Conan and three guests discuss war memories: Anthony Principi, Secretary of the Department of Veterans Affairs; Tim O'Brien, Author of The Things They Carried; and Tony Taylor, Director of the Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder program at Bay Pines Veterans Administration Medical Center in Bay Pines, Florida
Writing Vietnam
conference of April, 1999
Tim O'Brien and other writers read from and discuss their works based on personal experiences in the Vietnam War. (The Brown University Department of English and Creative Writing Program )
How to Tell a True War Story from The Things They Carried
"In a true war story, if there's a moral at all, it's like the thread that makes the cloth. You can't tease it out. You can't extract the meaning without unraveling the deeper meaning. And in the end, really, there's nothing much to say about a true war story, except maybe "Oh." True war stories do not generalize. They do not indulge in abstraction or analysis.
"For example: War is hell. As a moral declaration the old truism seems perfectly true, and yet because it abstracts, because it generalizes, I can't believe it with my stomach. Nothing turns inside.
"It comes down to gut instinct. A true war story, if truly told, makes the stomach believe."
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One Book, One Philadelphia: Tim O'Brien's The Things They Carried
We know that reading changes lives, but can books change a city? The answer is a definite "yes," according to the Free Library of Philadelphia and the Office of Mayor John F. Street. For three years now, residents of the Delaware Valley are being urged to read one book. This year's "collaborative, community initiative promoting reading, literacy and community," is rallying around Tim O'Brien's The Things They Carried.
The Things They Carried, was a finalist for both the 1990 Pulitzer Prize and the National Book Critics Circle Award. In this collection of fictional stories about American soldiers in Vietnam, O'Brien depicts the men of Alpha Company: Jimmy Cross, Henry Dobbins, Rat Kiley, Mitchell Sanders, Norman Bowker, Kiowa, and of course, the character Tim O'Brien.
Read the book and check the Free Library of Philadelphia's One Book page for program details.
Listen to the interview with Tim O'Brien on 91FM's Radio Times from February 24, 2005.
And listen to two vintage interviews from WHYY's archives:
Tim O'Brien's interview on Fresh Air with Terry Gross - February 22, 1990. Host Terry Gross asked the author how naming the protagonist Tim O'Brien helped him in writing The Things They Carried:
"Although the events of the book are invented, the emotions and the passions of the book are from my heart. And by typing sentences with the word 'Tim' in them, I found myself going down deeper and deeper and deeper into my memories of Vietnam, and coming up with a lot more. This book is the first book I've ever written that seems to touch my own heart. And I hope it will touch the reader's heart too."
Listen to the entire interview...
On October 24, 2002, after the publication of July, July, Marty Moss-Coane hosted Tim O'Brien on WHYY's Radio Times and discussed the way in which the Vietnam era impacted the writing of an entire generation. This novel is set at a 30th college reunion, at which O'Brien's characters reflect on the turbulence of their youth and confront the sometimes painful reality of their middle-aged years.
"I'm a sentence guy. I can't stop picking at the scabs of sentences trying to refine them and make good sentences."
Listen to the entire interview...
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