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In Tim O'Brien's novel Going After Cacciato the theater of war becomes the theater of the absurd as a private deserts his post in Vietnam, intent on walking 8,000 miles to Paris for the peace talks. The remaining members of his squad are sent after him, but what happens then is anybody's guess: "The facts were simple: They went after Cacciato, they chased him into the mountains, they tried hard. They cornered him on a small grassy hill. They surrounded the hill. They waited through the night. And at dawn they shot the sky full of flares and then they moved in.... That was the end of it. The last known fact. What remained were possibilities."
It is these possibilities that make O'Brien's National Book Award-winning novel so extraordinary. Told from the perspective of squad member Paul Berlin, the search for Cacciato soon enters the realm of the surreal as the men find themselves following an elusive trail of chocolate M&M's through the jungles of Indochina, across India, Iran, Greece, and Yugoslavia to the streets of Paris. The details of this hallucinatory journey alternate with feverish memories of the war--men maimed by landmines, killed in tunnels, engaged in casual acts of brutality that would be unthinkable anywhere else. Reminiscent of Joseph Heller's Catch-22, Going After Cacciato dishes up a brilliant mix of ferocious comedy and bleak horror that serves to illuminate both the complex psychology of men in battle and the overarching insanity of war. --Alix Wilber --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.
Review
--Miami Herald
"A novel of great beauty and importance."
--Boston Globe
"Stark . . . rhapsodic. . . . It is a canvas painted vividly, hauntingly, disturbingly by Tim O'Brien."
--Los Angeles Times
"As a fictional portrait of this war, Going After Cacciato is hard to fault, and will be hard to better."
--John Updike, The New Yorker
It was a bad time. Read the first page
Concordance
Front Cover | Copyright | Excerpt
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Most helpful customer reviews
1 of 1 people found the following review helpful
5.0 out of 5 stars
Lives up to the hype - close to a masterpiece,
By Gregory G. (Colorado) - See all my reviews
This review is from: Going After Cacciato (Paperback)
This book is the perfect blend of fiction based on a very-real factual setting for the Vietnam War and a form of 'magic realism' akin to Gabriel Garcia Marquez to tell a powerful story and make a powerful condemnation of the war. What's most impressive is that this book was written before O'Brien had cut his teeth on later more successful books like 'Things They Carried.'Some reviewers have complained about the distortion caused by the intertwining storylines and shifts in time and focus, but they are not muddled at all and the book is very easy to maintain. This is what elevates the book beyond mere storytelling or fictionalized factual accounts. You can read other reviews for a synopsis of the story - my two-cents is that this book lives up to the hype and works to perfection. O'Brien is one of only two fiction writers still in their 'prime' so to speak and putting out books somewhat regularly that I will look for and buy (other being Phillip Roth).
4.0 out of 5 stars
A war story women can read,
By
This review is from: Going After Cacciato (Paperback)
This is a different kind of war story, one that women can read without being grossed out by all the guy stuff. O'Brien's writing elevates the telling of Vietnam war events to poetry and art, even in the face of bodies blown to bits by land mined. For instance, at one point he goes on for, oh, maybe 10+ pages commenting on the silence, the lack of anything scary happening, the quiet jungle, the unseen and unfelt enemy. And it began to bug them all, making them edgy and crazy and nervous. And still, page after page, he only talks about the fact that nothing happened.Then, the last sentence of the chapter: When Pederson stepped on the land mine and blew to bits, it was something of a relief. For my money, that kind of telling of war stories can't be topped. Read it; you won't regret it. And read The Things They Carried, too.
2.0 out of 5 stars
Going After Cacciato,
By A Customer
This review is from: Going After Cacciato (Paperback)
This was a boring book to read. It was confusing by flipping between story lines. By the end of the book I just wanted to get it over with. The ending(last few chapters) were sheer torture to read. I have no idea how this book could have gotten any award, or be on any recommended reading list.
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