The book that I read is called The Things They Carried by Tim O’Brien. As I read the book, I started to get confused by the flow of the novel. Every chapter had different stories about the war. It seemed to me as if a bunch of short stories had been compacted together. Nevertheless, by the middle of the book, the structure of the book seemed to get clear. I started to connect the stories of different chapters as if putting together a puzzle. And I what I enjoyed the most about this book is putting together the puzzle and finally creating the grand image.

     The novel that I am reading is called The Things They Carried by the National Book Award winner named Tim O’Brien.  This book is basically a memoir of the events that happened while the author was a soldier during the Vietnam war.  Every chapter has a title which foreshadows what the chapter will be about. The novel doesn’t follow the rhythm like other war stories. Every chapter has a different story with practically no transitions from the previous one. Although the book has an unusual structure, every chapter tends to bring up different views about the Vietnam war. There are no specific main characters, however the author mostly mentions the men who were in his platoon. Tim O’Brien was on the Alpha Squad during the war, along with the First Lieutenant Jimmy Cross, Rat Kiley the Medic and Kiowa (a native American soldier and a good friend who was killed in combat). As a reader, I believe this book is different compared to other thousands of war novels. This novel not only tells the truth but allows the reader to understand the definition of war by guts. The more I read, the more I seemed to understand how the soldiers might have felt during the war. The damp and hot environment of Vietnam, the never ending rain during monsoon seasons and the dark lively forests of Nam. I felt more close to the novel’s setting because I currently live in Vietnam. However, its hard to imagine PhuMyHung being a swamp, full of dead soldiers. After finishing the book, my perspective of Vietnam clearly changed. Before, I saw Vietnam simply as a tropical, tourist country with terrible traffic. However, now, as I walk past the river beside our school, I imagine the moments of combat which might have been held at the same location. I learned that many have died on the soil where I walk on everyday. I have learned that Vietnam is land where ghost wander at night. 

Welcome to SSIS Blogs. This is your first post. Edit or delete it, then start blogging!

Remember that most of the information in your blog profile will be automatically updated with the information in your Moodle profile. If you want to make changes to your information, it is better to do it in your Moodle profile.