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

Discussion in 'Sports and News' started by Pringle, Feb 11, 2007.

  1. busuncle

    busuncle Member

    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.
     
  2. i haven't read any of O'Brien's nonfiction, but i enjoyed Tomcat in Love
     
  3. Double Down

    Double Down Well-Known Member

    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.
     
  4. Jinga_Thomson

    Jinga_Thomson Member

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

    Yawn New Member

    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.
     
  6. Oz

    Oz Well-Known Member

    I don't subscribe to Esquire, but I might have run out of reasons not to. Great read.
     
  7. OK.
    He's mine.
     
  8. Pringle

    Pringle Active Member

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

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

    Deeper_Background Active Member

    Or buy him a $400 bottle of wine.
     
  10. leo1

    leo1 Active Member

    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.
     
  11. Pringle

    Pringle Active Member

    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?
     
  12. Football_Bat

    Football_Bat Well-Known Member

    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.
     
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