Tobias Wolff, my favorite writer, always intrigues me with his stories in a mysterious way, perhaps because he has followed in the footsteps of Raymond Carver. Anyway, this long story was not among his best works.

Wolff's writing style is unique. He has a talent for creating vivid characters and complex situations that draw readers in. His stories often explore themes of human nature, relationships, and the search for meaning in life.

Although this particular story may not have been his strongest, it still had its moments. The plot was engaging, and there were some interesting twists and turns. However, compared to his other masterpieces, it fell a bit short.

Overall, I still highly regard Tobias Wolff as a great writer. His body of work is impressive, and I look forward to reading more of his stories in the future.

This short novella is truly one of those remarkable slices of life that were so very commonplace during the eighties. That was the era when I last delved into the works of this particular author.

Interestingly, it also manages to touch upon, albeit in a somewhat peripheral manner, a frequent and significant subject of writing during that time - the Vietnam War.

Surprisingly, despite being set in that historical context, it did not feel dated to me at all. Instead, I found this novella to be a deeply sad and yet incredibly beautiful testament to the countless young men who were inexorably carried towards that fateful conflict.

Regrettably, by the end of the novella, they had not yet reached the full horror and chaos of the war, leaving the reader with a sense of anticipation and a poignant awareness of the inevitable hardships that awaited them.

It serves as a powerful reminder of the sacrifices and the toll that war takes on the lives of those who are thrust into its midst.

Overall, this short novella is a captivating and thought-provoking piece of literature that continues to resonate with readers even today.

Short, but Poignant



Tobias Wolff is renowned for his writing style that is always simple, direct, and relatable. He can be regarded as a modern-day Hemingway, yet he offers a more nuanced perspective on what it truly means to be a man. Just like the finest of Hemingway's short stories, "The Barracks Thief" gradually unfolds before your eyes. It exposes its essence to your witness, but it refrains from explicitly telling you what is precisely going on. The story progresses in a way that keeps you engaged and curious, making you eager to uncover the hidden layers. And then, suddenly, it comes to an end. It doesn't leave you with a complete understanding but rather an imprint, a lasting impression that lingers in your mind. This quality of the story is what makes it quite good. It challenges the reader to think and interpret, to fill in the gaps with their own imagination and understanding. Wolff's ability to create such a powerful and thought-provoking piece in a relatively short space is truly remarkable.

It was just okay. There didn't seem to be a real significant point to the story. However, perhaps that was precisely the intention.

It was simply meant to provide a brief glimpse. It was a quick read that indeed offers a peek into the lives of the army recruits during the Vietnam era.

One can imagine the challenges and experiences they might have faced. The story might not have delved deep into their emotions or the full complexity of their situations, but it did give a sense of what their daily lives could have been like.

It makes one think about the sacrifices and hardships endured by those who served during that tumultuous time. Overall, while it may not have been a profound or life-changing read, it did offer a small window into a particular moment in history.

The Foot Patrol Thief amazed me with just one word! I didn't expect to come across a story on the scale of Raymond Carver, but the first story I read by Tobias Wolff completely charmed me.

The Foot Patrol Thief is a novella, longer than a short story and shorter than a novel. To be honest, I don't remember many good examples of novellas.

Classic American characters are present in The Foot Patrol Thief, boys who have fled from troubled families and come together in an unfamiliar environment (the foot patrol).

The class system in a place like the foot patrol is even worse than in India, and people are ranked based on their time of entry and length of service in the army. So the new arrivals have to think about finding friends among the other new arrivals. This is how the small group of characters in the story is formed.

Tobias Wolff's engaging work in The Foot Patrol Thief is to place the characters in ordinary, everyday situations that suddenly become wild and strange.

Three soldiers who are forced to guard an important warehouse find themselves in such a simple yet terrifying situation that only an inquisitive and creative mind, like that of Carver or Tobias Wolff, can understand the significance of this ordinary situation.

Arrogant boys who are examples of bad Americans, those who think that nothing in the world can stop them, and then with a small incident everything falls apart for them and they realize their weakness and fear. In the end, nothing is left for them but loneliness, flight, and getting lost, each in their own way.

I read the translation by Bita Ebrahimi, which was published by Bidgol Publications. I trusted Bidgol Publications to read it because I didn't know the translator, and the result was really good.

It was a clean and well-written translation that best captured the dry and cold language, and there was not a single clumsy or incomprehensible sentence in the text. The sample reading of the book was also good, and I didn't notice any mistakes or errors in it.

Grown-ups start wars and children fight them. It has been this way always, and it still is so.

In the mid-1960s, when the United States went to war in Vietnam, the Army filled its boots with young men. Many of them were teenagers, some enlistees, and even more were drafted. None of them were aware of the horrors that awaited them.

In The Barracks Thief, a rich and elegant novel that can be read between lunch and dinner, three of these boy soldiers experience a series of events. At first, these events bind them in masculine bravado, but later they rend them apart, each bound for unenvisioned fates.

The soldiers – Philip, Hubbard, and Lewis – are archetypes of the era. They are misshapen souls who find no place in a society on the verge of rupture. The Army, at least, offers an identity. One enlists because he could think of nothing else to do. Another yields to a recruiter who tempts with talk of cheap beer and welcoming massage parlors. They do not make decisions so much as drift.

Wolff, who served in Vietnam as a lieutenant and is perhaps best known for his moving collection of post-war short stories, Back in the World, portrays the three soldiers as the inevitable result of a culture whose actions contradict its stated values. What could these boys be other than damaged, having come of age amid the shards of these contradictions?

The title reflects this incongruity: a soldier stealing from his peers denigrates the fundamental military concept that an infantry unit is a family whose members care for and protect each other. “What sort of man,” asks the platoon sergeant after the first theft, “would turn his back on his own kind?”

Against this backdrop, Wolff examines the randomness of life. How X triggers Y, and Y leads to Z, and Z may or may not be a place of comfort, or even the thing you thought you would ever be. But there you are.

After the barracks thief is caught, he realizes what his actions have cost him: “Nothing will ever be the way it could have been. Whatever happens from now on, it will always be less.” And when one of the trio breaks rank with the others, Philip wonders, “He may have had good reasons... Then again, maybe he was just too discourged to do anything else; discouraged and unhappy and afraid.”

For me, a man who was a child of those times, these words ring true. As Philip adds, “I didn’t set out to be what I am either.”

If you’re not who you intended to be – or even if you are (or think you are) -- The Barracks Thief might tell your story as well.

Wolff's novel delves deep into the psyche of these young soldiers, exploring their hopes, fears, and the choices they make in a war-torn environment. It shows how war can change a person, often in ways they never expected. The characters are complex and multi-dimensional, and the reader can't help but feel sympathy for them as they struggle to find their place in a world that seems to have gone mad.

The writing is beautiful and evocative, painting a vivid picture of the barracks, the war, and the lives of the soldiers. Wolff has a talent for capturing the essence of a moment and making it come alive on the page.

Overall, The Barracks Thief is a powerful and thought-provoking novel that offers a unique perspective on the Vietnam War and the young men who fought it. It is a must-read for anyone interested in war literature or the human condition.

I think what I meant by four stars is actually three and a half stars.

The text was very enjoyable to read and flowed smoothly. The beginning of the story was interesting as it didn't directly go to the narrator of the story but started with his father, and later the narrator changed in a section.

The story was about a guy who didn't exactly know why, but he went into military service and there he met two friends and gradually some thefts started in their barracks. Tobias Wolff (as he himself says in the last interview of the book) is someone who gives some details of the story to the reader and then leaves it to the reader to guess and draw conclusions and figure out why the characters act the way they do, and it doesn't clearly clarify the connection between the events for the reader. The characters in this story, whether they are tall or short, are soldiers who come to the military and want to go to Vietnam to fight, and it's obvious that they lost something somewhere, and when we see their inhumane actions, unconsciously for the first time we relate these actions to these losses. But maybe it's not like that and this is just a mental game that relates these two events to each other. But it's not completely unrelated.

The theft itself and when we understand the reason for the thefts, and the event that happens to the thief were also among the attractions of the story, but to avoid spoiling the story, I won't say anything about it here.

At one point in the story, American anti-war people protested against the war and the killing of innocent Vietnamese among these barracks, and the reaction of these soldiers and the confrontation that took shape between them and the protesters was interesting. Maybe it helped us understand why people do bad things and it's not the same as what they think. As if we participated in the process of cleansing the minds of these individuals. But the most important thing I saw in this story was people's indifference to what they were doing. Just because they were soldiers, they saw themselves as a group, and just being a group was enough for them not to think about their actions and the consequences for each other. A kind of herd behavior. And this was very dark. That everything, all this killing and looting, was so small, simple, and uniform; as we see in the last few lines of the book, there are some flash-forwards that pass over all these atrocities, just in a few lines. And then the story ends with a strange paragraph. A paragraph that seems to be indifferent to all these lives lost in the war. And this coldness was the coldness of reality. A coldness that exists and nothing can be done about it.

In the end, there was also an interview with the author that was related to the beginning of 2003, and the author talked about the position and functions of literature, its potential to create change in people, and the various ways of narration in different writers and himself.

I finished this novel on a flight to Kish. A one-day and one-night trip.

A simple story that reminds us that the world is more unpredictable than what we think.

Once upon a time, there was a young man named Tom. He had a plan for his life, a clear path that he thought would lead him to success and happiness. But as life often does, it threw him a curveball.

One day, Tom lost his job unexpectedly. He was shocked and devastated. His carefully laid plans seemed to be in shambles. But as he began to look for new opportunities, he discovered a passion for writing that he never knew he had.

Tom started writing stories and sharing them online. To his surprise, his stories became popular and he began to receive offers from publishers. What he thought was a disaster turned out to be a blessing in disguise.

This simple story shows us that we can never predict what the future holds. Even when things seem to be going wrong, there may be a hidden opportunity waiting for us. We should always be open to new possibilities and trust that everything happens for a reason.

The writing is truly remarkable, as it is perfectly composed in that distinct Cheever/Carver kind of vein.

It has a certain charm and style that immediately draws the reader in. The use of language is细腻 and evocative, painting vivid pictures in the mind.

The stories seem to unfold naturally, with a sense of authenticity and relatability.

It's as if the author has tapped into the essence of the human experience and is able to convey it in a way that is both profound and engaging.

Whether it's the exploration of relationships, the struggles of everyday life, or the pursuit of dreams, the writing captures it all with a unique perspective.

It's no wonder that this work is highly regarded and has the potential to resonate with a wide audience.

I truly relished Wolff's characters. They were so vivid and well-developed that they seemed to come alive on the pages. Each character had their own unique personality, motives, and flaws, which made them extremely engaging and interesting to follow. Along with the remarkable characters, Wolff's use of shifting points of view was also a captivating aspect of the book. It allowed me to see the story from different perspectives, adding depth and complexity to the narrative. This technique kept me on the edge of my seat, constantly eager to discover what each new character's perspective would reveal. Overall, I thoroughly enjoyed this book and I am now eagerly looking forward to the next Tobias Wolff book. I have no doubt that it will be just as精彩 and engaging as this one.

I really enjoyed reading it.

It was so engaging that when it ended, I thought, "Oh, I wish there was more!"

The story had a certain charm that kept me hooked from the very beginning.

The characters were well-developed and the plot was interesting.

I found myself completely immersed in the world that the author had created.

Each page seemed to bring something new and exciting.

It was a pleasure to read and I can't wait to see what else the author has in store.

I would highly recommend this to anyone looking for a good read.

It's definitely one that you won't want to put down.

Overall, it was a great experience and I'm glad I had the opportunity to read it.

This is a really nice little novella. It is written by the author of one of my absolute favorite shorts, "Bullet in the Brain".

The author has a unique writing style that immediately grabs your attention and keeps you engaged throughout the story.

The novella is filled with interesting characters and a captivating plot that takes you on a journey you won't soon forget.

It's the kind of story that makes you think and feel, and leaves you with a sense of satisfaction when you reach the end.

I highly recommend this novella to anyone who enjoys good literature and is looking for a short but impactful read.

You won't be disappointed!