Poll

3-3? Yikes!

I looked here to be influenced by reason to ease my indecision. Really love both.

The Fly requires more.

Before I voted I didn’t know what the score was. A close one to usher in the final days of Round 2!

Earlier in the tournament, I thought "The Things We Carried" might not be universal enough. From your votes, I see that isn't so and thus it gets my support here.

"The Things They Carried" is a powerful story about war. "The Fly" is a half-sentimental cliche about the sadness of losing someone in war followed by a strange act of cruelty. Voting for "The Things They Carried" is an easy choice.

For those who liked "The Fly", I wonder if you have seen an episode of the TV show M*A*S*H called "Say No More". In one story, a General sets up a command post in the M*A*S*H unit while his son, an injured soldier, is being cared for. At first it looks like the boy will be fine, but he has complications and dies. Hawkeye has to deliver the General the bad news. The General is very sad about his son's death and then almost without skipping a beat goes back to his duties ordering other soldiers into battle, many of whom will similarly be killed.

I'd vote for M*A*S*H over "The Fly", but "The Things They Carried" is better than both.

"The Things they carried" is a very powerful story about the people who fought in Vietnam.

If you were to pick a Mansfield story, there are many stories that are better and more representative of her writing - perhaps either "Prelude" or "At the Bay" or even "Je ne parle pas francais"

Cordelia wrote: ""The Things they carried" is a very powerful story about the people who fought in Vietnam.


About the Americans who fought in Vietnam.

I'm biased against any Vietnam War story which forefronts the American point of view at the expense of the Vietnamese's. Each one is another drop of water in the flood that drowns Vietnamese voices, here in America and around the globe.

But damn, if I had to choose one drop from that Kool-Aid flood to drink (I know, I know, never mix your metaphors), it would be "The Things They Carried."

That's not enough for me to vote handily for it over "The Fly," which I also thought was excellent. All that quiet drama. When have we ever thought twice about stepping on an ant?

I might flip a coin later today and change my vote.

I can’t let this fly. Fly is far more complex than two sons’ deaths and two fathers’ grief.

Some find the boss sympathetic, at least in the beginning. I do not. Not for one second. He is proud, vain, arrogant, condescending, self-centered, phony, materialistic. And symbolic of the industrial-military complex. What do a few deaths, here or there, matter, or the suffering of inconsequential flies, who reproduce daily in multitudes, if life continues uninterrupted for him, for some right way of life, for profit?

The proud, vain boss feels pleased comparing his superior mental and professional potency and his new, modern, plush surroundings, which he deigns to elaborate again, to doddering Mr. Woodifield in his circumscribed existence. “It gave him a feeling of deep, solid satisfaction to be planted there in the midst of it in full view of that frail old figure in the muffler.” “In full view” as if he is a parade, an exhibition, a general posing for his portrait.

The boss didn’t really know his son. His affection for the boy is limited to aggrandizing the boss and fulfilling his dreams. He can’t recognize his son in the photo, can’t see the resemblance because the son appears “grave”. “He decided to get up and have a look at the boy's photograph. But it wasn't a favourite photograph of his; the expression was unnatural. It was cold, even stern-looking. The boy had never looked like that.” His only memory of his scion is his “boyish look and his habit of saying, ‘Simply splendid !’” I can’t hear the somber son saying it, but I can hear the boss asking leading repeated questions requiring his son to concur. Sir, yes, sir. Splendid this cause.

He turns his grief for his son into a macho competition. “Time, he had declared then, he had told everybody, could make no difference. Other men perhaps might recover, might live their loss down, but not he. He grieves harder, better, longer because he’s a superior (officer). Except, he no longer grieves, has forgotten his son was dead and buried. “It had been a terrible shock to him when old Woodifield sprang that remark upon him about the boy's grave. It was exactly as though the earth had opened and he had seen the boy lying there with Woodifield's girls staring down at him.”

But, this captain of industry has not allocated time for the short visit to his son’s grave since the boy was killed 6 years ago, “For various reasons”. The son’s importance to the boss is selfish; the boy is his legacy, something to boast of as another accomplishment, a tool useful for expanding and retaining family wealth and power, a fulfillment of the boss’ dream. “How on earth could HE have slaved, denied HIMSELF, kept going all those years without the promise for ever before HIM of the boy's stepping into his shoes and carrying on where HE left off?

And the torture of the fly? Well, how much can that fly endure? Oh, you survived that bombing, that trench warfare, that gas cloud? Well, here’s another dose. You’re expendable, young fly/man. And after torturing the fly, the boss can’t recall he was supposedly grieving his son moments earlier.

I barely scratch the surface here, and I love The Things They Carried. Both are stories about the indecency of war, but Fly requires more of me.

Thomas wrote: "I'm biased against any Vietnam War story which forefronts the American point of view at the expense of the Vietnamese's."

I disagree that "The Things They Carried" does anything "at the expense of" the Vietnamese point of view. But also, Tim O'Brien is an American. He was an American soldier in the Vietnam war. Who else's perspective could he take? If he wrote about the perspective of Vietnamese soldiers, the criticism would be that he is trying to speak for them rather than let them speak for themselves. He probably did not do that because he does not know what their experience was.

If you saw the recent Ken Burns documentary about the Vietnam war, he has lots of people who were there telling their own stories - both Americans and Vietnamese soldiers. That is how it should be. The stories of the Vietnamese perspective should come from Vietnamese writers.

David wrote: "I disagree that "The Things They Carried" does anything "at..."

I'm with you, David. Totally.

First, my comment is not a criticism against The Things They Carried, it's an explanation for why I tend not to care for American perspectives of the Vietnam War. They're overdone.

Second, my comment is not a criticism of Tim O'Brien's decision to write the story he wrote. He is free to write whatever he wants. You're right, if he wrote it from a Vietnamese perspective, I would rail him for it unless he did it extremely, extremely well. But that doesn't mean he's not allowed to write it. (Side-note: I don't find Robert Olen Butler's Vietnamese voice deserving of any major criticism, because he does it well.) Beyond that, I don't see the point you're trying to make by saying that Tim O'Brien is an American, which is why he writes American perspectives. I was never disputing that. See my next point.

Third, The Things They Carried is not doing anything particularly offensive against (i.e., "at the expense of") the Vietnamese within the story, but external to the story, as I've said in my comments, it's just another drop in the flood of American-perspective stories that Americans and those too much in love with American art and media love to lap up just by virtue of the fact that they're written by Americans.

Fourth, stories of the Vietnamese perspective do come from Vietnamese writers. Rightfully so. How many Americans would really admit to caring about those perspectives? Very little, and wrongfully so.

I have nothing against Tim O'Brien. I loved The Things They Carried. It was an excellent story. That doesn't mean there isn't a problem here in the U.S. about the silencing of Vietnamese voices.

Another thing is, you may have misunderstood my point. I was nothing close to saying that Tim O'Brien should've written this from a Vietnamese perspective...that would be frankly gross. I'm criticizing American culture at large for overfellating American voices when it comes to this war. Which, considering how much more awfully the Vietnamese suffered (even just in terms of sheer numbers, over 1 million compared to, what, 60,000?) from the war (and still suffer today, hello Agent Orange?), you have to admit, it's not exactly just.

One might say it's not a competition. Well, somehow, Americans are still winning.

Ah man! I get busy and come back to see that the tables have turned!

I'm not disappointed that "The Things They Carried" is marching on here. I reread it relatively frequently and used to teach it since, at least when I taught, most students hadn't encountered it or anything quite so unconventional in its technique.

But Ctb has said well why I voted for "The Fly."

It's so interesting how the connections between the stories in some of these matches come out.

Yes, Trevor, some of these matches are eerie, as if you exercised some extravagant preordination.

I admire the way Katherine Mansfield so economically and subtly presents her anti-war position. Vote for "The Grave."

To the coin! When I looked last night The Fly was down at least a couple of votes. Can she win in overtime after such a late comeback?

Heads=The Fly
Tails=The Things They Carried

Coin flipping…

Heads!

The Fly advances!

If you haven’t read The Things They Carried, please do as it’s a masterpiece, but for Mookse Madness we keep Mansfield going on!

This is a bittersweet win.

Now Rasu is confusing titles.

"When a mission took them to the mountains, they carried mosquito netting, machetes, canvas tarps, and extra bug juice"

But it appears they did not carry a fly swatter. Would have come in handy here.

Ctb wrote: "Now Rasu is confusing titles."

Wait! Did Rasu mean to vote for "The Grave"? Is that a spoiled ballot? Should there be a recount? This is the 2000 US Presidential election all over again....

David wrote: ""When a mission took them to the mountains, they carried mosquito netting, machetes, canvas tarps, and extra bug juice"

But it appears they did not carry a fly swatter. Would have come in handy here."

Read that three times before I got it. I'm still in the boss's head. Fly? What fly?

David wrote: "Ctb wrote: "Now Rasu is confusing titles."

Wait! Did Rasu mean to vote for "The Grave"? Is that a spoiled ballot? Should there be a recount? This is the 2000 US Presidential election all over agai..."

Forgive me, it was late...I was succumbing to sleep..."The Grave"..."The Fly"... same difference.  At least I got the author right.

I know I was not the tieing vote ( I would have been crowing if I were), for I voted about half an hour before the polls closed and I could have sworn it was still down a vote or two.   I had already resigned myself to "The Fly" having been swatted away.  So some person or persons snuck in at the last minute and swayed the outcome or the results have been manipulated. I suspect it's the Russians. Where's Robert Mueller? Trevor, we need a Special Counsel.

But I am quite pleased with the coin toss results... Cue up Curtis Mayfield  -

Oh, Superfly
You're gonna make your fortune by and by
But if you lose, don't ask no questions why
The only game you know is Do or Die
Ah-ha-ha

For those that liked "The Things They Carried," I recommend the collection of the same name. The collection includes a variety of stories related to the war that read as a whole though not like a novel, with "The Things They Carried," serving as the introduction. My favorite is "On the Rainy River."