The Things We Carry

To date, I've enjoyed Tim O'Brien's book The Things They Carried the best so far as Vietnam writings go. I'm not sure if it could be properly called a novel, or essays, but I tend to read things as fiction anyway, so it doesn't bother me any. It's some of the finest prose pertaining to wartime situation that I've read, though not all of the stories contained happen in the Jungle, but a serious book too in its somewhat dreaminess, not like Catch-22 (which was about World War II but still somehow funny) or Matterhorn (which got too big for its britches and was equal parts too serious and too slangy), or The Short Timers (if you've watched "Full Metal Jacket", you know The Short Timers) or Generation Kill (book and miniseries are about equivalent).

The title is both literal and figurative. What I've been thinking about is the same way.