Tim O'Brien's Speech

The speech that Tim O’Brien gave about his book The Things They Carried was very interesting to me. The book I found a little tedious and hard to get through, however, hearing Tim O’Brien talk about his reasons for why he wrote what he did. Many aspects of the book were very confusing to me and I didn’t fully understand his purpose behind them, but after hearing him explain what the story meant to him and his reasons for writing it in that way, I had a greater appreciation for the overall story. It was really enjoyable to see the joy that O’Brien had in writing this story and talking about what it meant to him. When O’Brien gave audience members the chance at the end of his speech to come ask him questions, I was amazed by the interesting questions that people had for him. I think O’Brien was too; he had long intricate answers and expressed his appreciation for their questions. This experience was shocking to me because it was so much better than I expected it to be. Although I didn’t enjoy reading the book The Things They Carried at the time it was an overall enjoyable and pleasant experience now that I look back on it.