just started reading "the things they carried" in my english class. not so bad, really. much better then the book we read before this, Huckelberry Finn, which i didnt like at all (not to diss on Mark Twain, but I dont think that was one of his better works. seemed like many stereotypes given flesh and blood and allowed to pose as real charactors).
anyway, this opens up the Vietnam War for exploration. any of you read "the things they carried"? I am only about 1/6th through it, and allready I think that the author (a something O'Brian, i think) has not, 35odd years later, gotten over what happened to him (and, more correctly, what he did about what happened to him). I dunno about you, but I just cant see where hes coming from. Maybe its becuase im lazy, maybe its becuase im stupid, but I just havent ever bothered thinking ahead about my future. so when o'brian goes on for pages and pages about how he had his life planed out, he would meet a nice girl and get maried and do all that dull stuff which the american dream is built upon, i just cant see where hes coming from. I mean, really. am i alone on this? am i the only one who has no idea whats happeneing from one molment to the next, and is not bothered by this fact? I cant say i love change, but I try hard to accept it and embrace it.
It seems like o'brian was keeping some very specific doors open in his life, and when a new one opened and shut all the others he couldnt handle it. he now makes a living writing books about how he couldnt (and cant) handle it. i just dont get it. i keep as many doors open as i can in my life, but its not like im aiming for one of them or something. eventually i will go through the doors i want to, and the ones i dont i can regret when im dead.
I am not saying that war is pretty, or that o'brian is a winey cribaby who should get over it. im sure that nam has his soul in its grip, and he is powerless agenst it. his world is real. my world is real. where they interesect is undefined.
and tobot, as per your sugestions i am actually gonna finish all the boring classics that we have to read this year, but your punnishment for making me take the high road of better education is that you have to listen to me whine (or prase) them all. |