1978 novel by Tim O'Brien
Going After Cacciato is an anti-war novel written by Tim O'Brien and first published by Delacorte Press in 1978. The novel is set during the Vietnam War. It is told from the third person limited point of view of an American soldier, Paul Berlin. Cacciato, one of Berlin's squadmates, goes absent without leave (AWOL) to walk from Vietnam to Paris. The nonlinear narrative follows Berlin's imagined chase of Cacciato across Eurasia; it is interspersed with Berlin's memories of the Vietnam War prior to Cacciato's departure.
"Going After Cacciato" won the 1979 U.S. National Book Award for Fiction.
Plot and themes.
The main conceit of "Going After Cacciato" is that American soldiers in Vietnam were required to walk nearly constantly; by Tim O'Brien's estimation, the total distance walked in a standard tour of duty was as far as walking in a straight line from Vietnam to Paris.
Cacciato, an American soldier who is unintelligent but self-sufficient, happy, and untroubled by the larger questions of the war, goes AWOL. He intends to walk from Vietnam to Paris. Cacciato is pursued by Paul Berlin and the rest of the squad.
The protagonist, Paul Berlin, is a frustrated American soldier. While on watch duty one night, Berlin thinks about the past and daydreams about going to Paris. He remembers Cacciato's desertion and imagines a journey in which Cacciato made it successfully to Paris, pursued by Berlin and the squad the entire way. The courage it takes to chase one's dreams is a recurring theme which is often expressed through Paul Berlin's reveries.
Typical of many stories that deal with themes of psychological trauma, "Going After Cacciato" is ambiguous about the nature, order, and reality of events that occur. The chronology is nonlinear for most of the book. Surreal events occur, such as Cacciato flying off a mountain, or the squad falling into an endless tunnel complex and, finding no exit, simply deciding to fall out of the tunnels to escape.
Style.
The Famous Authors website writes, "His incorporation of metaphysical approach attributed a rich quality to his writing style. ... According to him, sometimes the fictional truth is more realistic than [the] factual one. It is because of the fact that fictional truth appeals to the emotion and feelings which makes the literature more meaningful."
As a Study Guide notes, the story is told in the third person from Paul Berlin's point of view. Paul Berlin's narrative jumps from his current situation to a (possibly) imaginary observation post where he is on guard duty, to another imaginary trip from Vietnam to Paris, chasing a deserter named Cacciato. Berlin's last name suggests the divisions in his thinking, moods, and desires; Berlin, Germany was divided by the victorious powers following World War II, and remained so at the time of the novel's writing.
Readers have found many passages puzzling; the LitCharts editors explain, "There are scenes in the novel that seem extremely realistic, scenes that require the suspension of disbelief, and some scenes that are nothing short of impossible — indeed, the plot of the book itself (a group of US soldiers travels all the way from Vietnam to Paris in search of a soldier from their platoon who has wandered off) sounds like a fairy tale. ... The issue, then, is understanding O'Brien's blend of the believable and the unbelievable, and incorporating it into our comprehension of the book... One of the most common phrases critics used to describe "Going After Cacciato", at least at the time, was 'magical realism.'"
An example occurs in Chapter 36 (entitled, fittingly, "Flights of Imagination")
A miracle, Paul Berlin kept thinking. It was all he wanted -- a genuine miracle to confound natural law, a baffling reversal of the inevitable consequences. ... A miracle, he thought, and closed his eyes and made it happen. And then a getaway car -- why not? It was a night of miracles, and he was a miracle man. So why not? Yes, a "car". Cacciato pointed at it, shouted something, then disappeared.
The reality of Cacciato himself has been put in doubt by some critics. Interior evidence suggests that Paul Berlin might be conflating Cacciato with himself. Paul thinks that
There was something curiously unfinished about Cacciato. Open-faced and naive and plump, Cacciato lacked the fine detail, the refinements and final touches, that maturity ordinarily marks on a boy of seventeen years. The result was blurred and uncolored and bland. You could look at him then look away and not remember what you'd seen.
He also sees Cacciato's face in the moon floating above the squad and as "fuzzy, bobbing in and out of mist" (p. 10) -- pretty much in any environment in which Paul Berlin finds himself.
Paul Berlin occasionally finds himself explaining or translating for Cacciato. When the men first leave their post and first spot Cacciato in the mountains, they see through binoculars that he opens his mouth to speak; then thunder roars. The other soldiers speculate that Cacciato is trying to emulate a chicken, trying to squawk and fly. It is Paul who tells the lieutenant that what Cacciato said was "Good-bye." (p. 11)
Florman and Kestler argue that "At many points, it's suggested that the story of Berlin's journey from Vietnam to Paris — in other words, the plot of the novel we're reading — is a story Berlin is telling himself as a way of coping with his fear and anxiety. It's as if the more fantastic parts of the book are playing out in one man's head — not because he believes they could really happen, but because he needs to believe in something."
Critical reception.
Richard Freedman, writing in "The New York Times" and suggesting that Cacciato is a Christ figure, said, "By turns lurid and lyrical, "Going After Cacciato" combines a surface of realistic war reportage as fine as any in Michael Herr's recent "Dispatches" with a deeper feel -- perhaps possible only in fiction -- of the surrealistic effect war has on the daydreams and nightmares of the combatants. To call "Going After Cacciato" a novel about war is like calling "Moby Dick" a novel about whales." Freedman sees influences by Ernest Hemingway and says, "...far from being a high-minded, low-voltage debate on the rights and wrongs of Vietnam, "Going After Cacciato" is fully dramatized account of men both in action and escaping from it."
References.
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