Recent Reading: The Things They Carried

The next meeting of the Around the World Book Club in January will be about Vietnam, and I just finished reading Tim O’Brien’s collection of Vietnam war stories

Books about war are not all intense descriptions of battle. In book 23 of the Iliad, Achilles organizes a series of athletic competitions to honor his fallen friend (in Plato’s time there was much discussion about whether they were lovers).

 

I am reminded of David Bellavia’s memoir House to House about the earworm he had just as the battle of Fallujah started:

The power of Christ compels you. 

What? Of all the thoughts to get through the logjam in my brain, this one pops out of nowhere. Just before going to Fallujah, I had watched the latest version of The Exorcist. Now that memorable line from the movie—the mantra of the priests as they battle Satan—sticks in my head like a bad song lyric. Well, if this is to be my dying thought, at least it’s not some vapid Madison Avenue marketing slogan. My brain could have picked “Drop the chalupa.” 

The power of Christ compels you. The power of Christ compels you.