Love and Spin

   I actually enjoyed Love.  My dislike of this book is slowly fading away. Many years after the war, Cross goes to visit Tim O’Brien at his home in Massachusetts. They both catch up with coffee and cigarettes. As they were reminiscing, they come across a photo of Ted Lavender. Ted confessed that he never has forgiven himself for Lavender’s death. To his and my surprise, Tim feels the same way. It must be really hard to carry around so much grief and guilt for so many years. In a weird kind of way, I felt guilty and sad for Ted Lavender’s death. Like I was there and I didn’t or couldn’t help him. With the help of some gin, they began to laugh and reminisce about the some good times. Like when Dobbins used to wear his girlfriends stockings around his neck. As the night progressed, Tim asked about Martha. When he did that, I went “OH NO”. I didn’t know how Cross was going to take it but, he seemed pretty calm about it. He tells O’Brien that they met up at a college reunion in 1979. On that night of the reunion, he admitted to Martha that, on the night of their only date, after they watched Bonnie and Clyde, he wanted to take her home and tie her to her bed so he could touch her knee all night long. That was very, very creepy and I wouldn’t know how to respond if I was Martha. She plainly replied saying, that she doesn’t understand how men could do things like that. The next day, she apologized and gave him another photograph and told him not to burn it. Cross tells O’Brien that he still loves Martha. As O’Brien walks Cross to his car, he tells him that he would like to write a story about some of what they’ve talked about. Cross agrees, saying that maybe Martha will read it and come begging for him. He asks O’Brien to make him out as a brave and good leader. He then asks O’Brien for a favor—that he not “mention anything about—.” O’Brien then promises that he won’t.
   In the chapter Titled Spin, Tim shares many stories of the War. Some were pleasant, but most were not at all. Like when, Mitchell Sanders sits under a tree, picking lice off his body and depositing them in an envelope addressed to his Ohio draft committee. That was quite horrible to picture. Then, O’Brien stops to talk about himself. He says that he is forty-three years old and a writer. He believes that these bad memories continue to live on and never stop happening. He daughter pleads that he should write about, “a little girl who finds a million dollars and spends it all on a Shetland pony”. I totally agree with her, because a pony is a much better topic than war. He begins to reminisce about other things that happened in the war like; an old Vietnamese man whom they call a “poppa-san” guided them through the mine fields. Afterwards, they all embraced him for keeping them alive. The chapter gets more depressing by the turn of a page. O’Brien then goes deeper and deeper into his memories from the war. They all were about death, which made me quite sad. Spin is not my favorite chapter at all.

The Things They Carried- Chp 1

   In AP Literature, we are a reading a novel called, The Things They Carried by Tim O'Brien. To be completely honest, I'm not to excited about it. It's a book about war, the Vietnam War to be exact. I’m not really into war, death, killing, and all the other components that are associated with war. So, I'm not exactly thrilled about this. Clary said that before reading this novel, she wasn't into war either. This book must be pretty good if it changed someone's whole perspective on a subject like this. I’m trusting her and her judgment of this book. She seems to really enjoy it, so it must not be too bad. But then again, she really loves Macbeth, and I don’t like it very much. Maybe I shouldn’t go by her or anyone else’s  judgment, and just follow my own. That’s what I am going to continue to do, for the rest of the reading: follow my own judgment.
   Anyway, when I began to read the first chapter, it brought back the feeling when we first were assigned to read this book; the feeling of boredom and disgust. I didn’t expect the first page to start off talking about something else other than war. This changed my feelings a bit. But by page four I was hooked! All the things they had to carry for survival blew my mind! I never knew that soldiers had to basically carry their homes with them. Not just physical, but emotional baggage too. All their feelings and dreams, added extra weight on to the 100 plus pounds they were already carrying. When I finished reading chapter one, I had to close the book and find something to get my mind off of it. About twenty minutes later, I found myself on You Tube, looking for footage on the Vietnam War. I guess the whole point of this blog, is to thank Clary for making us read this book. I’m really enjoying it so far!!
<3 LBD