Esquire article: "I miss Iraq. I miss my gun. I miss my war"

I have yet to find anyone that agrees with me, but maybe there are a few out there... I found Tim O'Brien's "fiction" to be inauthentic, pretentious, pseudo-intellectual tripe. The Things They Carried (originally published in Esquire) might be among my five least-favorite books of all time.
Like I said, though, I've never run into anyone who didn't think it was phenomenal, and I had a friend who considered it his favorite book. So to each his own.

 

i haven't read any of O'Brien's nonfiction, but i enjoyed Tomcat in Love

 

No offense, busuncle, but we can never be friends. How you could find that book pretentious, or pseudo-intellectual, I have no idea. O'Brien's fiction is many things, but pretentious isn't one of them. If you think it's inauthentic, that's fine, but I'd be interested to hear what it is you do like.

And Write and drink, you may be the first person I've ever heard say they liked Tomcat in Love. I'm an O'Brien diehard, and I hated that book.

 

This is among the most disappointing posts I have read in some time, busuncle. It's a good thing we have not met.

 

Liberals know no bounds. To attack a military man.

I guess if he had burned his uniform and flag, you'd hail him as a hero.

 

I don't subscribe to Esquire, but I might have run out of reasons not to. Great read.

 

OK.
He's mine.

 

Do you have any clue who Tim O'Brien is? Any?

"The Things They Carried" ain't exactly a John Wayne WWII movie.

 

Or buy him a $400 bottle of wine.

 

that was a great article. i read it last night before bed. earlier sunday i caught a few minutes of the movie 'jarhead' on HBO. i never read the book - and didn't even watch the movie from beginning to end - but the theme of missing war (while not missing the dying, obviously) is a common one. i guess jarhead expresses the same thing even though part of the theme was how they never even fired their weapons in desert storm.

mockenhaupt just did a better job of expressing this theme than anyone i've read in a long time.

 

Let me get this completely straight (my apologies for making the second post on this post, but I'm dumbfounded) ...

Because Tim O'Brien fought in Vietnam, his work is above literary criticism? That is what you're saying, correct?

 

I'm calling bullshit because the only person who would call his weapon his "gun" is an artilleryman.

Anyone who saw FMJ knows what I'm talking about.