Going After Cacciato (Flamingo) by O'Brien - Tim (2010) Paperback

I liked his "The Things They Carried" better (both books the reverberations of the author's experiences in the Vietnam War) though it at times seemed as if it too was searching for significance. To me the literary form "magical realism" is merely a cover for lack of coherence or as a way to segue from one idea or story line to another unrelated one. In "The Things They Carried" O'Brien stresses that the truth or falsity of any war story is beside the point and that might easily have served as the preface to this earlier book. Ostensibly about the pursuit of a soldier gone AWOL heading for Paris and the unit that pursues him some, all or none of the story may be grounded in fact or entirely in the imaginings of one man on guard duty at night in coastal Vietnam. Some scenes are vivid, some ruminations - political and cultural - are engaging but much of the reading was, like the story it presumes to depict, a slog.

I occasionally found this book difficult to follow, mainly because of the jumps in time. O'Brien uses flashback every other chapter, and the transitions are not always clear. And it was hard to tell whether Cacciato was some imaginary AWOL soldier (at least toward the end), rather than an actual man the soldiers were chasing. Moreover, I got confused when Berlin hooks up with Sarkin Aung Wan, and she accompanies the men for hundreds of miles to Paris. Was she part of Berlin's dream, or did she actually go along with them? I often wondered.
The prose is excellent, almost therapeutic. I enjoyed reading the book out loud while my wife and kids were upstairs sleeping. The writing was smooth and lyrical, the images bold and colorful. For instance, this passage continues to replay in my mind: "...their socks rotted, and their feet turned white and soft so that the skin could be scraped off with a fingernail, and Stink Harris woke up screaming one night with a leech on his tongue." At times I felt as though I was there with the soldiers, suffering with them.
How is one affected by war? Each soldier in Going After Cacciato is affected differently, and O'Brien, himself a Vietnam veteran, shows that some men shrink with fear, others rush forward with clenched teeth, and still others run away. War has a way of doing that, I hear.

I believe a good novel should not present the details in an obvious manner, but should make the reader examine the details and deduct what happened. If you feel similarly, you are likely to enjoy "Going After Cacciato". Though I do not feel it is Tim O'Brien's best work, it is entertaining and surreal in blending hallucinations with the absurd.

When Cacciato goes AWOL and attempts to walk from Vietnam to beautiful Paris, orders are given to track him down. Cacciato lets it be known that he would go to Paris if given the chance, yet nobody believes he will make it that far. Told from the perspective of Paul Berlin, the trail goes from the battle from to the Middle East before arriving in Paris. The story ends apparently on the hill with Cacciato surrounded. We only know that Berlin is told that it is over.

O'Brien captures modern warfare perhaps better than any other writer. The perspective he gained from his experience in Vietnam adds an intangible quality to his storytelling. You know he was there, and some of the things he saw were like this. This story is fiction, but you have to wonder what parts of the book may not be fiction.

Tim O'Brien, Going After Cacciato (Dell, 1978)
...P>Going After Cacciato is both the story of a troop of soldiers sent to pursue Cacciato, a comrade who deserted, and the story of one member of that troop, PFC Paul Berlin, spending the night in an observation post. For those who haven't yet read it, I won't spoil it by saying how those two stories intertwine. Cacciato has somehow glommed onto the odd idea that it's possible to walk from Vietnam to Paris, and has decided to set out doing just that. The soldiers follow him, reaching a critical point when they cross the border into Laos, and ultimately decide to keep going. They get farther and farther from Vietnam, but find that the shenanigans of the war stay with them pretty much wherever they go; as a Viet Cong officer they meet in Laos tells them, "the land is your enemy."
In that sense, yes, it is most certainly a novel about the Vietnam War and how it sticks in the heads of veterans long after they've left the field (though some of the tricks O'Brien pulls toward the end of the novel undercut that). And it is a good one; the very absurdity of the plot is enough to keep the reader flipping pages. But if one is looking for the definitive Vietnam War novel, one is probably better served searching out Gustav Hasford's brilliant short novel The Short-Timers (upon which the film Full Metal Jacket is based, albeit loosely) or, perhaps, Lucius Shepard's Life During Wartime.
Not to say Cacciato is not well-written, engaging, fun to read, and an overall darn fine book. It is all of those things, and I have spent far more of this review denigrating the buildup than the actual book (as my rating will surely convey). Tim O'Brien is a solid writer, his characters are well-developed (though some of the supporting cast is two-dimensional; they're not in the book long enough to get a good feeling for them, really, and by the end one understands why this is and finds it somewhat justified), the plot moves along at an acceptable pace, and the surrealism of the premise is original in the extreme. Just don't let the buildup get to you. ****

Rather late in Tim O'Brien's "Going After Cacciato" we read,

"These were hard lessons, true, but they were lessons of ignorance: ignorant men, trite truths. What remained was a simple event. The facts, the physical things. A war like any war. No new messages. Stories that began and ended without transition. No developing drama or tension or direction. No order."

One could picture O'Brien sitting at his typewriter (late at night and frustrated) knowing that men have encountered, thought about, written about, and been tortured and confused by war many times before, but yet still being compelled to write about it, but not really knowing what or how. That there is nothing new to say, and no new way to say it, about something as old as time was clearly a difficult place to start for a writer. Thus, of the myriad of purposes or possibilities of a novel, O' Brien's is to reckon with his experience, to give readers what is there, even if its coherence is not obvious. And when the experience is war, there is ample confusion to reckon with.

At the center of "Going After Cacciato" is Paul Berlin, a grunt in Vietman, not exactly horrified, nor contemplative, nor heroic. He could be, and probably was, any normal chap from any normal small American town. Berlin, if anything, is passive, not really a protagonist, but the departure point of our observation, a portal to the war. And it is from his patrol at an "observation post" that we witness many different slices or episodes of Berlin's experience. What is and isn't "real" in this experience is not quite clear, something the novel itself points out. Only "possibilties" exist. These possibilities make up, among other things, a trek on foot to Paris in pursuit of an AWOL comrade named Cacciato. This takes them through India, Afghanistan, Iran, Turkey, among other places. Our understanding of Berlin emerges as he is postioned in contrast to his fellow squad members. These include the cocksure Oscar Johnson; Sidney Martin the man of order, rules and will power; Lieutenant Corson, the sympathetic martyr; and Sankin Aung Wan, a source of comfort, confidence, and a possible love interest. Along the way they, their search becomes a lot wider than for Cacciato.

Yet this novel is not about characters. It seems best to read it while watching Berlin's shifting reality, from day-dream to battle, from observation to abstraction. I particularly enjoyed O'Brien's ability to juxtapose the things-as-they-are, raw, "hard observation" of war, with a philosophical inquiry into war as experienced. While O'Brien might call his philosophizing trite, it certainly isn't. He clearly grapples with fundemental questions that no doubt have been asked before (why don't men run?), but only because they are the real mysteries of our existence. What the philosophizing is is refreshingly free from any high brow pretense, which is often used to obfuscate rather than engage essential problems and questions. O'Brien's questions are real, from his own experience. He doesn't need to dress them up.

O'brien's method is not a literary game. I really believe that him to be struggling with his experience, rather than using was as a template for literary wizardry. And when style flows from substance rather than being in search of it, the results are rewarding. In "Going After Cacciato", part of the challenge of war is to recognize which of the endless possibilities actually materialized. One thing that has materialized is a great book.

Having recently read Tim O'Brien's "The Things They Carried", I was expecting a work of similar quality. Alas, I was let down. "Going After Cacciato" is confusing at best as the reader is dragged from the real world to the surreal in seemingly alternating chapters.

On face value, the story concerns Cacciato, a US Army private in the Vietnam War, who chooses to go AWOL and walk from Vietnam to Paris. However, this madly surreal story simply provides the palate for O'Brien to outline some of the horrors of war. And all wars involve horrors. Vietnam was no exception.

By using the technique of alternating between the surreal and the real, I found that O'Brien only succeeded in confusing and often irritating the reader. Surrealism has its place but its use in this novel causes matters to slide into the absurd.

This novel is not the great war novel that other reviewers suggest. It is simply a work that takes too much for granted. Having written one great war novel in "The Things They Carried" does not mean that another work on the same base subject matter will inevitably follow. "Going After Cacciato" is over rated.

Although the military sent me to Vietnam to die (my MOS was forward observer and the artillery duel at Ben Het was in full swing), fate sent me to a small command in Saigon instead and I survived. I've read several books about that horribly wrong war, but this is the only one that truly reflects my experience in all of its paradoxical absurdity. God bless Tim O'Bried and to hell with the United States of America and its interventionist wars.

Going After Cacciato has some astonishingly harsh, violent observations about war and the men who fight them, but for a "war" novel it has a surprisingly deft touch. There are moving passages about love and friendship, home and domestic life. Really, the full range of human expression about life is explored in this novel, and not merely the situational elements of Vietnam. The imaginative passages of chasing Cacciato becomes for O'Brien an escape valve for the war, a way to play out, in a vast space of complete possibility, what war and peace mean, and its ultimate cost on the people who wage it.

If you read "Going After Cacciato" after reading Tim O'Brien's "The Things They Carried," prepare for a minor disappointment. The novel is at it's best during those stand-alone chapters that read like short tales from "TTTC." O'Brien's meditation on duty and obligation versus the desire to flee is fine, but somewhat light. Written in 1979, it almost feels as if he is being too careful about not offending anyone as he brings up the distasteful subject of the Vietnam War. It would be particularly inappropriate for teachers to assign this novel to their students to understand what the Vietnam War was like for the soldiers who fought it. For that task, I highly recommend THE THIRTEENTH VALLEY by John Del Vecchio and FIELDS OF FIRE by James Webb.

Usually when I read tha various citations of critics on the back of a novel they're way off. But in the case of Cacciato they couldn't have been more correct. Tim O'brien packaged the dreams and hopes of anyone living in an irrepressably miserable situation. I was a bit disapointed with the ultimate outcome of the novel but, as one reviewer here so aptly stated, his prose is excellent. I can't think of any other novels that make me pine to see the places within them. The colors, sensations and experiences are absolutely vivid. This is a must read for anyone. It is certainly the All Quiet on the Western front of our day.

Further example of the mastery with which O'Brien writes every one of his novels. The words are so beautiful that you forget you're reading about Vietnam. This is a gripping and intensely told tale of personal convictions and soldierly duty. Read this book. Read every O'Brien book. His words are inspiring and thgouth provoking. Hie style is truly original and he has risen to the rank of the greatest writer of his generation. I give this novel my highest recommendation to any one interested in Vietnam or just reading good literature.

Usually when I read tha various citations of critics on the back of a novel they're way off. But in the case of Cacciato they couldn't have been more correct. Tim O'brien packaged the dreams and hopes of anyone living in an irrepressably miserable situation. I was a bit disapointed with the ultimate outcome of the novel but, as one reviewer here so aptly stated, his prose is excellent. I can't think of any other novels that make me pine to see the places within them. The colors, sensations and experiences are absolutely vivid. This is a must read for anyone. It is certainly the All Quiet on the Western front of our day.

Further example of the mastery with which O'Brien writes every one of his novels. The words are so beautiful that you forget you're reading about Vietnam. This is a gripping and intensely told tale of personal convictions and soldierly duty. Read this book. Read every O'Brien book. His words are inspiring and thgouth provoking. Hie style is truly original and he has risen to the rank of the greatest writer of his generation. I give this novel my highest recommendation to any one interested in Vietnam or just reading good literature.

I read this book immediately after having read O'Brien's later Vietnam novel The Things They Carried, which I also highly recommend.
The story is gripping, the characters well-drawn, and the descriptions of jungle warfare, the endless drudgery and fearful monotony of the soldier's day-to-day lives, and the adventures they endure make for powerful and unputdownable reading; however I was left wondering what was real and what was only imagined.
Highly recommended, yet not for those who like their plots neatly tied together.

Although 'Going After Cacciato' owes greatly to Heller's classic WWII novel 'Catch-22,' it is a very worthwhile read in its own right. 'Cacciato' describes, simultaneously, the pursuit of an AWOL soldier interwoven with the musings of a common solider (Spec-4 Paul Berlin) during a full-night watch. Berlin imagines how the war could be escaped (by fleeing 8600 miles across Asia and Europe to Paris) as he relieves the traumas associated with casualties in his unit. O'Brien brilliantly captures the empty, purposeless fumbling of Vietnam with vignettes such as "world's greatest lake country" (crater holes filled with monsoonal rain). The sardonic and cynical humor of the men and the remorseless meaninglessness of the war are sharply contrasted with the occasionally ethereal and drug-like escape that is conducted only in possibility.
Overall, a very worthwhile read.

Going After Cacciato presented a well written narrative, expressing his view of the Viet Nam War, portrayed by a rifle platoon. To maintain sanity, one soldier (Berlin) muses over their pursuit of a deserter (Cacciato) to Paris.

You realize that it's more or less Berlin's imagination speaking when they fall into a hole somewhere in Laos and make their way underground to a manhole cover in Mandalay. Up to that point, they may actually be going after Cacciato. The story is complex -- emotions of a young man, a stranger in a strange land.

Four stars for solid writing and plot building.

"Ignore the bad stuff, look for the good." Paul Berlin, our mostly reliable narrator of an unreliable and surreal war, remembers these words from his father when the two of them camped out along the Des Moines river one summer, when the chief threat was probably no more than a mosquito bite. He recalls these words on a night march not long after watching one compatriot die from fright and another couple shot to pieces in a forced tunnel search by their implacable lieutenant. As much as Paul Berlin wants to wake up from the war, the reader is drawn to the vividly sketched details of this dreamscape. There is a surreal quality to Tim O'Brien's writing (rather than wait for Godot, the soldiers chase the ghost of an enigmatic private) that mixes brisk humor with desultory maiming and death. It's as immediate and unembellished as the ground these soldiers walk, crouch, crawl, recline, and fall on; a Vietnam "Catch 22".
O'Brien pretty much dispenses with plot in order to communicate (in penetrating detail) the haze of war. The soldiers straggle through a boobytrapped landscape on their way to Paris, ostensibly to bring back their defected comrade (rendered by O'Brien as a cipher, a Pillsbury Doughboy who should have boarded the bus for summer camp, but instead was shipped to Vietnam), but realize after awhile that Cacciato, in his naive way, is fulfilling their own fantasy of escaping from this unwinnable war - a goading from Cacciato to follow in his footsteps.
This long day's journey into night is lightened by O'Brien's quirkily drawn characters (like trigger-happy Stink Harris and tough, sometimes sly, Oscar Johnson) and the fracturing of time. Rather than one long descent into hell, the reader is kept on his toes as O'Brien jump cuts between different time frames, delivering alternating moods and foreshadowed action parceled out with the patience of a surgeon who knows how deep to cut and when to remove the bandages. You trust him not to lop off your leg....and then you hit a mine in the text. The best fiction lets you stand in; here you get a ringside seat and the certain knowlege that all bets are off for these characters.

Hey all you book readers! Try reading, "Going After Cacciato," by Tim O'Brien. It's a great war novel about a group of soldiers that are ordered to chase down a deserter. The setting starts in Viet Nam, continues on into South Asia, and finally ends up in Italy. Take note; this is all on foot. Tim O'Brien uses a lot of humor in this story. It sure kept me reading. If war novels don't interest you, or bore you to death, Tim O'Brien will change all that. He changed my attitude about reading. Before I discovered his work, I didn't even think about putting my hands on a book. I will admit, there are a lot of authors and books out there that aren't that good or don't fit your taste. All you have to do is match yourself up with one or more. The results are astounding. I have faith that O'Brien's writings can appeal to the young people out there who suffer from this anti-reading syndrome.
Believe it or not, O'Brien actually helped improve my writing skills. From reading so much, I developed composition skills that have breezed me through the last two years of high school with an A to B grade point average. I'm not trying to brag, but going from a fail to an A student based on reading alone made a reader and a believer out of me. So I leave you with this review in hopes of getting through to at least one person. And remember, a book a day keeps the illiteracy away.

Going After Caccaito is a smart and original war novel that while at times chaotic, both in plotting and language, gets its characters and energy so right, that these annoyances can be overlooked easily.
9/10. Great.

With this novel, Tim O'Brien captured the spirit of the frustration, camadarie and confusion of the war in Viet Nam as seen by the foot soldier. Cacciato, the protagonist of the novel becomes the driving force of a quixotic attempt to rescue him desertion. In the loyalty of the platoon, the care of one in the relationship to all, mark this novel.

At once surreal, graphic and hyper realistic, Going After Cacciato is a book that marked Tim O'Brien as a major American writer. His depictions of the carpet bombed former jungles, the mindless, twisted jungles, and the trek of the platoon as it chases Cacciato across two continents will rewards its reader.

I cannot recommend this book highly enough.

Despite an ending that to this reviewer was less than satisfying, this novel of the Vietnam War depicted fully-realized, interesting characters that captured the futilty and horror of war. All in all, a satisfying reading experience.

The main character, Paul Berlin, was a regular kid that was floating through life without clear purpose. When he dropped out of junior college, he was drafted to fight in the Vietnam War.
It is from Paul's perspective that we experience "Going After Cacciato."
As mentioned in the other reviews, the story is told in three interweaving parts. The different storylines are clearly delineated by the chapter titles, so don't let this method of story-telling scare you off.
I would recommend that you read this book with a friend. There are many points of discussion, including whether or not certain events take place entirely in Paul's imagination. Another interesting topic is what, ultimately, is more important: your opinion of yourself or the opinions that others hold about you.

This book is really intense. I mean when you read it, it makes you feel like you were one of the American soldier fighting for your country and your life. Every chapter has a very exciting and keeps you on your toe scenes. This is why I think this book compares to the movie Predator. This book is simply breath taking and a Vietnam war story masterpiece......

This novel has unfortunately been lumped in with other writings about the Vietnam Waw, being overshadowed by books which more completely and accurately describe that experience (e.g. Dispatches or even O'Brien's other works). But get beyond that simple limited interpretation of this novel, and it becomes a latter-day Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, with Cacciato as dim-witted but idealistic Tom Sawyer and Paul Berlin as the cynical but good-hearted Huck Finn. Too bad that a movie hasn't been made out of this; it wouldn't even have to involve the Vietnam War. But in the event that never happens, take the time to read this novel.

The Vietnam war continues to bring back painful memories to millions of Americans. Few artists have captured the essence of the war as accurately as Tim O'Brien. In his book, Going After Cacciato, O'Brien tells the tale of Spec Four Paul Berlin and his squad's pursuit of an AWOL soldier named Cacciato. Cacciato decided to leave the war and head for Paris...conveniently located 8,000 miles away. As the squad chases after Cacciato, O'Brien dives into Berlin's first experiences with the war, exposing the fear, courage and attitudes of everyday soldiers. While appearing humorous in nature, which it is at some points, Going After Cacciato is much more than a lighthearted adventure. It takes on the heavy subject of war and its effects on every day soldiers with an intelligent zeal and brutal truthfulness.

O'Brien structures his book in an odd manner, jumping between the chase after Cacciato and flashbacks to various "war stories" involving Berlin and his squad. While at first somewhat jarring, as he usually jumps right when some major action is occurring, eventually it makes for a more interesting and exciting read. The war stories and the Cacciato plot work well together, mixing action sequences and thoughts on war and warfare, so that every chapter (or every other chapter) is fresh material. The inclusion of the war stories also accomplishes two things: 1) It includes Vietnam in the novel, as the majority of the Cacciato sections of the book occur outside of Vietnam; and 2) It gives O'Brien a chance to explore the lessons of war, an opportunity which he takes at every turn.

The majority of the lessons learned in the "war stories" involve the death of a squad member. It's no secret that they died, in fact many of the deaths are alluded to from very early on in the book. Their significance comes not from their death, but from the circumstances surrounding it. From simple lessons such as, " `don' never get shot' " to brutal truths about squad assimilation, and the disturbing yet-sadly-ironic "ultimate war story", O'Brien covers the full threshold of emotions and experiences a soldier can go through during war time. O'Brien's major themes become apparent through these stories as well. His comment on loyalty, procedure, and the value of human life, for example, is brought up repeatedly through story of how "Lieutenant Corson came to replace Lieutenant Sidney Martin." In addition to bringing up his desired themes through the war stories, O'Brien also utilizes the character of Paul Berlin to illustrate the books numerous broader subjects.

Paul Berlin will often question the war and life in general through a stream of consciousness at different points in the novel. These pages take the readers inside the mind of a soldier where they experience his thoughts, fears, hopes, and dreams. Here Berlin considers the disturbing events he and the others witness, "They did not know how to feel. Whether, when seeing a dead Vietnamese, to be happy or sad or relieved...They did not know how to feel when they saw villages burning. Revenge? Loss?...They did not know good from evil". Here he questions the issue of "courage. How to behave. Weather to flee or fight". These pages are often the most intellectually stimulating, and the most haunting. The conclusions that Berlin reaches reveal only a small portion of what it was like to be in Vietnam, but they become some of the most memorable pages within the book.

One of the most appealing aspects of the book is how is it is to read. O'Brien's style is quickly digested and helps to create vivid images within one's head. His ability to paint a picture of war and warfare puts the reader right there with the squad. In one particularly invigorating part of the book, the squad is dropped in a "hot zone". O'Brien repeatedly describes the aircraft gunners firing over and over, "The gunners fired and fired. They fired at everything....and the gunner kept firing...the gunners kept firing", vividly creating the effect of machine guns blazing as the men enter the combat zone. O'Brien's humor also comes out in his descriptions. One of the characters describes the rain-and-human-filled bomb craters a war zone as the "Worlds Greatest Lake Country" (eventually Cacciato attempts to go fishing in such a crater), providing a perfect sarcastic description of the soggy, bombed out fields that comprised the Vietnam battle zones.

For all that Going After Cacciato accomplishes, it has only one fault: It attempts to tackle too many ideas at once. The lists of themes and ideas that O'Brien explores in the novel number in the 20's, and that's a conservative estimate. His attempt to comment on so much in only 300+ pages leaves the reader a bit confused and overwhelmed. If O'Brien were to scale back on a few of his ideas, he could more thoroughly develop each one, thus making the book more effective as a whole. That aside, Going After Caccito is absolutely marvelous. An intelligent blend of humor, drama, memorable characters, situations, and a thorough discussion on the effects of war, Cacciato is more than deserving of it's praise.

Going After Cacciato contains many elements of reality from the Vietnam War, in which the characters are set in this environment filled with death, loneliness, and war. O'Brien portrays this journey through forms of elaborate use of description in this novel. He describes the jungle setting and many other details of this mission so in detail that the reader is visualizing themselves pushing through the overgrowth in search of this so-called man, Cacciato. The novel Going After Cacciato portrays the division of the reality of war and the fantasy state of mind of the soldiers and is a good adventure through the cruelty and reality of war.

Tim O'Brien is a really well defined writer. "Going After Cacciato" has to be his most well done novel yet. The characters are well described,and the langauge O'Brien uses makes all the scenery of Vietnam seem real. This is one of the best books I've read for a long time

Personally, I found this book fun to read. Centered around Paul Berlin, a soldier in Vietnam, him and the squad are ordered to retrieve an AWOL soldier named Cacciato, who gets the idea he wants to walk to Paris; which happens to be 8,000 miles.

O'Brien has a way of "painting the picture" for the reader. For instance, six pages consist of detail about a quiet forest. O'Brien likes to forshadow, and use flash backs as his literary devices.

Berlin, tired of the war, wants to escape using his imagination. Him and the others, including Sarkin Aung Wan (Vietnamese "girlfriend"), like the idea of walking to Paris. Through many trials and tribulations (inprisonment by the government because of no passports, ambushes, etc.), the team trecks on. Many times Cacciato is almost caught, but he sets numerous booby-traps to escape his hunters.

The story is a war-fiction. It takes place in three parts: first is the war itself, Paris, and the Observation Post. I would definetely reccomend reading this book. I'm not going to ruin the ending, but Tim O'Brien is today's M. Night Shyamalan.

This book depicts the mental and emotional landscape of the Vietnam war with subtlety, brutality, fantasy, dark humor, and a crafted blend of clarity and confusion (among lots of other things you will just have to read the book to find).

Loved it. What a great story. My only disappointment was I would have liked the story to go into detail in some spots where it condensed but I realize that would have made the book very long. In my view no bad thing. Read it.

Going after Cacciato is a complex story that has three distinct parts. The first being that of Paul Berlin setting out on the mission of Going after this other soldier named Cacciato. The entire book takes place in one night as Spec Four (military name of Belin) stands the watch on the first night of looking for him. He remembers flashback stories of when he first arrived in Vietnam, then jumps to his imaginary story of chasing Cacciato all the way to Paris, and finally back to reality with what he is doing on the watch itself. Beautifully written and very moving, Going after Cacciato is well worth the read!!!

Expecting the best of O'Brien after reading his other novels, I was sorely dissapointed. Something which I cannot put my finger on and that was so successful and in both of the aforementioned books seemed to be lacking in this novel. Perhaps this novel contained, at times, too much narrative. O'Brien's powerful themes were wasted in this book, rather IN THE LAKE OF THE WOODS was a better and more artistic display of responsiblity, perception, and misperception as themes, while THE THINGS THEY CARRIED was more shocking and raw in terms of the Vietnam foot soldier's life and mentality. Though worth the investment of time, a better experience could be extracted from one of O'Brien's other novels.

"Going After Cacciato" is a highly rated book. It's a national book award winner and dubbed, " A novel of great beauty and importance" by The Boston Globe. Tim O'Brien is a highly rated author as well, having won more than just this award and the interest and loyalty of many readers. This book is no acception.
"Paul Berlin paid attention to detail. He saw sunlight that lasted until dusk. He saw grain unloaded from small river junks. He saw a monkey dancing at the end of a leather leash. He saw the river darken, the sky turning pink, the city beginning to light itself. And he believed what he saw."(p104)This is very representative of O'Brien's writing style and the style of the book. To me it just points out how little faith soldiers have in a war. They hope for a god, but they don't believe anything until they can see it.
The reason I only this book three stars is not because of the writing itself, and certainly not because of the story. I just personally dislike the way in which the book tells its story. You find out information just before you need it and it has three stories going on at once. It's close to impossible, at some points, to tell when the stories become separate because they all seem to bleed together.Also if you know anything about war, parts of the tale are highly unbelievable, and the end comes as no shock. I would reccomend that this book be read by persons having patience and willingness to read the book through to the end, despite its slow start.

I was totally confused through most of the book. But I really liked it. I was drawn into the book. I couldn't and still can't figure out if this whole thing happened or if it was in one soldier's imagination (in the book).

I was totally confused through most of the book. But I really liked it. I was drawn into the book. I couldn't and still can't figure out if this whole thing happened or if it was in one soldier's imagination (in the book).

Whether or not this novel is important as a Vietnam novel seems to me to be irrelevant, or at least unimportant to me. "Going After Cacciato" is not simply an allegory of war, but also of the human instinct to join a group or cause. Cacciato represents individualism, self-interestedness, and idealism . He is, himself, and ideal or an aspiration. O'brien's novel changed the way I understand my reality. It challenged me to think outside of the group I was a member of and consider the legitmacy or appropriateness of membership. Read this book.

School decided to suggest this book. It was the ONLY war novel on a list of like 30, mabye 20 books. So I decided to get it. I found the worst part is basically the rapid changes that appear in the book.
Paul Berlin is pretty cool, he was the only character I actually liked though. Oscar was alright, Doc was fine, and Eddie was alright too. Cacciato is boring, he isn't even really a main character. As for the changes, there are so many, and there are things left out. Ok so sometimes they don't even tell you if a guy dies, and like 2 chapters later you read about him and think he is alive. Then you learn that you just went back in time. Huh? Alot of times in the book you will be reading, thinking you got it, then they talk about something completely different, and don't even tell you that it is a flashback of Paul Berlin's life. First page of the book tells you Stink woke up with a leech on his tounge, never read it in the book. Also, Stink is like a jumpy character. At one point he slaughters a water buffalo and just shoots it until it is mutilated. A few chapters later, we learn that Stink HATES blood, and he can't stand the site of it. Excuse me? You just told me Stink devoured a water buffalo with bullets and watched as skin flew off, now Stink hates blood?
The action is the thing that let me down though. There is practically none. Water buffalo getting shot, guy shooting helicopter, ending fight, that is it. Those 3 things are the only fighting in the book, and the only action. The first one is one page long, the second one is like 3 pages long and is extremely confusing at first, and the third one leaves you with no ending only that a guy was shot in the stomach. Lets not forget that explosion of the jail, oooo that was not spectacular. This novel doesn't really have anything to do with fighting, and is really just another depressing book. I mean it isn't depressing as some others, but alot of it is about the hardships they face.
The ending is unsatisfying, and is almost a way of screwing over the reader. You read the whole book, then learn that there was really no point to reading the book, cause there is no ending to what the book was about. Confused? Wait until you read Going After Cacciato.
"Wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, hold up, you gave the book 3 stars, Mdizzio." Sure I did, that's because it used foul language, im not trying to promote the use of foul language, but it was a definite pick me up over the stories in school that never used any real language. Well, with the exception of Huck Finn. I really just like how the characters don't act like angels 24/7.

Going After Cacciato is a fiction novel of the Vietnam War. A group of soldiers tried to catch a run away soldier who filled with dream of going to Paris. Searched and followed behind him with the adventures, sadness, love, hope, and and understanding of people in different ways. The book confused me bacause an author set up a story that work back and forth, but I would recommend that you read this book since the main point of this book is to believe in hope.

this book is very well written and enjoyable. It isn't a book about war at all. There are 3 very interesting and seperate stories being told simultaneously.It is still very organized even though there are 3 different stories being told. Highly recommended book!

Truly the best book I have ever read. So gripping you will never want to put it down, even when you are done. So surprising I had to read the ending three times! So amazing you will want to read it over and over.

On March 25, 2003, I read The Things They Carried, by Tim O'Brien, and thought it a superlative book, rivaling that other great book of Vietnam short stories, A Good Scent from a Strange Mountain. I have read 55 winners of the National Book Award for fiction and since this won that prize when I found the book I looked forward muchly to reading it. But I was totally disappointed to find it is a fantasy, bearing no relationship to anything actual--the Vietnam soldiers go in a tunnel from Vietnam to Burma and on to Paris, while at the same time slogging in Vietnam. I read all the good things said about the book and it reminds me of the people who were impressed by the Emperor's new clothes till a little boy said he had none on. I suppose I am as dumb as the little boy but I honestly could see nothing worth being enthused about in this book.