Cross-posted on FB as well:
Just had my heart opened and cracked into many pieces, with my innards ripped out gently and inexorably by Tim O’Brien. [Finally got around to reading (and just finishing) “The Things They Carried.” Read it in spurts over the past couple of days, in between grading, cooking, grading, fending off an intruder, grading some more, dealing with people at work, grading some more, then saying, “The hell with grading- I want to read something GOOD, dammit!”].
Did I mention that I think Tim O’Brien is a god? War stories or not, this book is as tender, as beautiful, as merciless, as inexorable and as visceral as the writing of Gabriel Garcia Marquez, of Vladimir Nabokov, of Jhumpa Lahiri and of Arundhati Roy.
Now, I have to go back to about fifty or so short stories written by young people. Many of these are not half-bad. They badly need a full-time grammar and punctuation coach though, some of them. Still, I always like stories by kids even the most pointless ones.
The academic school year is pretty much done by tomorrow afternoon. I’ll believe it only when it’s over.
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