SOURCE: Streitfeld, David. “Never Done.” Book World—Washington Post (19 May 1991): 15.

In the following review, Streitfeld examines O'Brien's revisions to the paperback edition of The Things They Carried.

In the hardcover edition of Tim O'Brien's The Things They Carried, published last year, there is a scene where the narrator, called Tim, goes back to Vietnam with his 10-year-old daughter Kathleen. They go on a sidetrip to Quang Ngai, where Tim finds the field his friend Kiowa died in—a stretch of ground that for 20 years “had embodied all the waste that was Vietnam, all the vulgarity and horror.”

As Kathleen watches, Tim takes Kiowa's hunting hatchet over to where the field dips down into the river. “Right here, I thought. Leaning forward, I reached in with the hatchet and wedged it handle first into the soft bottom, letting it slide away, the blade's own weight taking it under.”

In...