Onerous

I really don't have too much to say about the February book club selection, Tim O'Brien's The Things They Carried.  I did not like it.

It perfectly illustrates my theorem that the more favorable review quotes in the front of a book (here eight pages!) the less worthy the writer.  How could this be a Pulitzer Prize finalist?  Is America and its literati still so guilt ridden about the Viet Nam War that is still atoning by "giving a medal" to one of its aging veterans?  Does few words always evoke Papa?

It was this book that urged me on to finish Ali Smith's lectures, hoping I could find something structurally to say positively about the book.  Clearly, Smith convinced me that this is a book of short stories (a) because the author writes about each tale as momentous and disconnected, larger than life; and (b) because none of the stories are set with any regard to larger society.  O'Brien through his soldiers is bigoted, racist and aloof.

He wants you to understand ... why else would he bring his ten year old daughter back to a field where one of his buddies drowned?  It didn't mean anything to her, and even less to me.

This was not my favorite war, and is not a favorite book.  I didn't even go to book club, sorry L.