You are a human animal.

You are a very special breed.

Or you are the only animal.

Who can think, who can reason, who can read.

Hi, this is Michael Silverblatt.

I'm here today to talk to Tim O'Brien,

the author of a new book of short stories,

just published by Houghton Mifflin,

The Things They Carried.

Tim O'Brien is the author as well of going after Cacciato

and the nuclear age.

And is it if I die in a combat zone?

That's right.

Right.

When I was reading this book, which brings to date an ongoing involvement with the Vietnam War and with its aftermath,

I was led to think of the fairy tale

where the witch puts a spell on three sisters, one of whom, whenever she speaks, because she's

such an ugly gossip, is condemned that when she opens her mouth, frogs hop out.

I thought about that the fate of being a man condemned to recite the Vietnam War

and, you know, to find it coming back in book after book.

What's your feeling about that?

In many ways, this book is about being condemned to write this war out.

...