Cannonball Read 17

Sticking It to Cancer One Book at a Time

“They carried all they could bear, and then some, including a silent awe for the terrible power of the things they carried.”

The Things They Carried by Tim O'Brien

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Somehow, despite being an English major in college and a big reader my whole life, this is a classic I had never heard of or come across. I discovered it in a very weird way, which I’ll detail after my brief review. (Isn’t reviewing classics weird? What else can you add to the narrative?) This finalist for the Pulitzer is a vibrant, gripping meditation on war, specifically, the Vietnam War, and I’m glad it’s been a focus in the American education system over the years, […]

The Things They Carried

The Things They Carried by Tim O'Brien

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I first read this book in college because it had been assigned in a class I almost took, and then regretted that I didn’t take. Once I read it, I immediately read several more of Tim O’Brien’s books. Later, he visited my college and gave a talk, an incoming student conference, and I was dismayed that he recycled so much from his books for his talk. I get it now. And that’s what has been the experience of rereading this book. I last reread it […]

In the Lake of the Woods

In the Lake of the Woods by Tim O'Brien

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This is a reread from about 20 years ago for me. I first read this in college after reading The Things they Carried for the first time and going on a bit of a Tim O’Brien binge. What’s interesting to me now about that binge is that there’s probably three Tim O’Brien you can read and understand as a young person, but then the rest you probably need a few decades to reflect on. As much as I liked this book when I read it […]

Am I crazy?

The Nuclear Age by Tim O'Brien

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There’s still a part of me that wants to close out Tim O’Brien’s catalog. There was once a part of me that REALLY wanted to. Like a lot of people I read The Things They Carried when I was young (about 20) and thought it was amazing. I still do. Then I read If I Die in a Combat Zone and Going After Cacciato and thought they were amazing. I still do. In the Lake of the Woods? It’s really good! Tomcat in Love? Oh no! And it fell off […]

It’s incredible, it really is, isn’t it?

If I Die in a Combat Zone by Tim O'Brien

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Even taking this book on its own, outside of context, it’s a pretty amazing memoir. It’s horrifyingly graphic when it comes to the violence it depicts; it analyzes its own use of language and imagery to decide what does and doesn’t make sense; it engages with both biblical history and American history to make sense of the particular vulgarity of 20th century wars — post WWII — and through an extension of its argument works backwards through all wars; it challenges (imperfectly) the de facto […]

I was a coward. I went to the war.

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But this too is true: stories can save us.  I’m forty-three years old, and a writer now, and even still, right here, I keep dreaming Linda alive. And Ted Lavender, too, and Kiowa, and Curt Lemon, and a slim young man I killed, and an old man sprawled beside a pigpen, and several others whose bodies I once lifted and dumped into a truck.  They’re all dead.  But in a story, which is kind of dreaming, the dead sometimes smile and sit up and return […]



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