Of course, the title story, The Things They Carried, is brilliant: the listing of each piece of equipment and their weight, all contributing to that sense of dread too large to name.
Then, in “On the Rainy River” (Story # 4), self reads something that seems so basic, so elemental, so sensible, that she can’t believe no one’s quoted it before?
- The only certainty that summer was moral confusion. It was my view then, and still is, that you don’t make war without knowing why. Knowledge, of course, is always imperfect, but it seemed to me that when a nation goes to war it must have reasonable confidence in the justice and imperative of its cause. You can’t fix your mistakes. Once people are dead, you cant make them undead.
Stay tuned, dear blog readers. Stay tuned.
Allan G. Smorra said,
June 15, 2018 at 1:42 pm
This is a great book. Thanks for the reminder to re-read it.
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anthropologist said,
June 15, 2018 at 2:24 pm
It IS a great book. And it’s very apt for these times. I’m also planning to re-read IN THE LAKE OF THE WOODS.
Allan G. Smorra said,
June 16, 2018 at 2:24 pm
Another good one of his.
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