Going after cacciato how many pages

He knew in his society, and many of the men under his own command, did not share them. But he did not ask his men to share his views, only to comport themselves like soldiers.

He secretly urged him on. For the sake of mission, yes, and for the welfare of the platoon. A bit of rah rah! And what did it all mean? After the war, perhaps, he might return to Quang Ngai. Years and years afterward. Return to track down the girl with gold hoops through her ears.

Bring along an interpreter. And then, with the war ended, history decided, he would explain to her why he had let himself go to war. And who did? Who really did? Oh, he had read the newspapers and magazines. Who really knew? So he went to the war for reasons beyond knowledge. Because he believed in law, and law told him to go. Because it was a democracy, after all, and because LBJ and the others had rightful claim to their offices.

He went to the war because it was expected. Because not to go was to risk censure, and to bring embarrassment on his father and his town. Because, not knowing, he saw no reason not to trust those with more experience. Because he loved his country and, more than that, because he trusted it.

Yes, he did. Was this so banal? Was this so unprofound and stupid? He would look the little girl with the gold earrings straight in the eye. He would tell her these things. He would ask her to see the matter his way. What would she have done? What would anyone have done, not knowing? And then he would ask the girl questions. What did she want? How did she see the war? What were her aims — peace, any peace, peace with dignity? Did she refuse to run for the same reasons he refused — obligation, family, the land, friends, home?

And now? Now, war ended, what did she want? Peace and quiet? Peace and pride? Peace with mashed potatoes and Swiss steak and vegetables, a full-tabled peace, indoor plumbing, a peace with Oldsmobiles and Hondas and skyscrapers climbing from the fields, a peace of order and harmony and murals on public buildings?

Were her dreams the dreams of ordinary men and women? Quality-of-life dreams? Material dreams? Did she want a long life? Did she want medicine when she was sick, food on the table and reserves in the pantry?

Religious dreams? What did she aim for? Does gen-x or gen-y or gen-z get it? Is it just the baby boomers who remember Vietnam? And who waded into Iraq and Afghanistan in spite of that? Is Going After Cacciato just nostalgia, a lesson unlearned? Is this book from best left in ? I have July, July on my bookshelf to read one day. But I seem to keep coming back for more.

Three stars for this one with some significant chunks of four star quality. Any book that suggests the absurdity of war has some star quality as far as I am concerned. Feb 23, Helen rated it it was amazing. First things first. If you want to read a book about the war in Viet Nam, only one, make it this one. It's , and Cacciato, a soldier in the US Army, has had enough.

He deserts, leaving clues for the other men in his unit indicating that he's decided to walk to Paris. Now they're obligated to go after him, to follow him until he's captured. And if that happens to take them to Paris, that's fine with them. On guard duty at First things first. On guard duty at the top of a tower, he watches the sea, reviews his experiences so far, and tries to run away inside his head, far far away, from all the terrible things he's seen and done.

To find the good mixed in with all the bad, as his father suggested. I read about World War II all the time. There were two sides. One was good and one was evil. The good guys knew what they were fighting for. The bad guys…well, the very best one can say about them is that they were led by bad men. It is a war that is easy to understand, to appreciate. And when soldiers died, they died in the service of something greater than themselves, a mission to save humanity from unspeakable madness.

But the Viet Nam War was something else. I am left with a kaleidoscope of sensory overload. The feel of high, unmoving green grass brushing against my legs, the fetid smell of the rice paddies. The fatigue from the endless march, the red dust of the dirt path on my boots, the mercury color of the sky and sea, the awful knowledge of the terrible ways a man can die.

The unreadable expressions on the faces of the people we are there to help. The alien landscape, littered with enemy corpses, pitted and charred after the US Army firebombs it. The sound a personnel mine makes when a man walks over it. The pervasive gnawing of fear. Apr 14, Dan rated it it was amazing Shelves: national-book-award-fiction. This novel won the National Book Award for Fiction in We learn that the squad is determined to hunt him down even across the continent.

One of the most powerful chapters in this novel, or any other war novel, was entitled Landing Zone Bravo. Pedersen, one of the squad members, is scared of heights and freaks out as they head to the landing zone.

When the chopper lands the crew chief has to shove Pedersen out of the chopper into the rice paddies. The whole area is taking heavy fire. Pedersen is shot in the leg moments after landing and then shot again. He is unable to continue. It seems that he has been shot inadvertently or even intentionally by the gunners from his own chopper. Pedersen composes himself and begins to shoot back at the chopper as it leaves the zone. He makes several directs hit into the fuselage leading the reader to believe that it may crash.

Instead the chopper flies over Pedersen and he continues to fire until the chopper is just a shadow against the setting sun. This chapter and others highlight the plight of the infantryman and the lack of a clear line between the VietCong soldiers and American soldiers as they experience many of the same horrors. The writing here borders on the beautiful and flows really well. May 20, Jonfaith rated it really liked it. It is one thing to run from unhappiness; it is another to take action to realize those qualities of dignity and well-being that are the true standards of the human spirit.

I read this on a whim during a transition period. I appreciated its swagger. The premise is simple and fantastic, an infantryman frustrated by the lack of progress at the Paris Peace Talks, decides to walk there from Vietnam and his peers pursue him to save him from his own idealism. Apr 22, Mike rated it did not like it. And maybe my expectations were too high, but I was very disappointed in this writing. The Things They Carried was written in such a sophisticated manner.

Going After Cacciato seemed jagged and forced. I can only guess that there was a severe shortage of novels in when it was published. Oh no, I got the message. View all 3 comments. Apr 15, John rated it really liked it Recommends it for: People who enjoyed the novel, Catch Recommended to John by: Joe. Shelves: subject-vietnam. I have a hard time reading war stories or watching war movies and not feeling angry or upset afterward.

There are a couple exceptions. War stories that are about death and horrific violence, but also about life, about falling in love, and fucking, and relationships, and the people that came before you, and the people that will come after you, and things that we are ashamed of, and things that are vulgar, and things that you understand spiritually One monstrous, medly.

Terrible and beautiful. An excerpt from, 'Going After Cacciato. The protagonist, PFC Paul Berlin, and a group of new recruits have just arrived in Vietnam to begin their tour of duty. A small, sad-faced corporal in a black cadre helmet waited until they settled down, looking at the recruits as if searching for a lost friend in a crowd. Then the corporal sat down in the sand.

He turned away and gazed out to sea. He did not speak. Time passed slowly, ten minutes, twenty, but still the sad-faced corporal did not turn or nod or speak. He simply gazed out at the blue sea. Everything was clean. The sea was clean, and the sand and the wind. They sat in the bleachers for a full hour. Then at last the corporal sighed and stood up.

He checked his wristwatch. And again he searched the rows of new faces. I hope you paid attention. PFC Paul Berlin, who wanted to live, took the exercises seriously. Nov 06, George rated it really liked it Shelves: national-book-award-winner. An interesting, memorable war novel set in the late s in Vietnam.

Paul Berlin was drafted to be a soldier in Vietnam. He recalls his experiences as a soldier in Vietnam, mainly focussing on his comrades and the tragedy of seeing a number of soldiers he knew die. Paul reflects on his life and his lack of purpose and learnings through his war experiences. Whilst at an observation point in Vietnam, he drifts off to sleep and dreams about the tracking down of a fellow soldier named Cacciato, who An interesting, memorable war novel set in the late s in Vietnam.

Whilst at an observation point in Vietnam, he drifts off to sleep and dreams about the tracking down of a fellow soldier named Cacciato, who had disappeared.

Cacciato had always stated that he was going to go to Paris. Berlin with his Lieutenant and five other soldiers follow Cacciato in order to capture him and bring him back to their camp. It was a Tuesday; I think it was around 1pm.

It was one of those wonderful, finite number of weekdays when I didn't have to work. As we ate and drank beer, Kareem told me about the book he'd been reading and enjoying, The World According to Garp , by John Irving, which I've never read.

Heard the title a few times over the years, heard the name John Irving, didn't know one had writt Annals of Coincidence , entry 1: I met Kareem a few days after New Year's in New York, at a restaurant we both like. Heard the title a few times over the years, heard the name John Irving, didn't know one had written the other.

After eating, I suggested we go looking for a bookstore that I remembered being located around that general area. It was so cold out that after five minutes you wanted to go inside- somewhere, anywhere. But we found the bookstore; it's a long, narrow place below street level with wooden shelves and a trailer in the back. The only thing I've ever read by Tim O'Brien is The Things They Carried , which I remember thinking was just okay, except for the one unforgettable anecdote about a guy who somehow gets his American girlfriend to come over to Vietnam.

She the girlfriend starts to spend time with members of the special forces, and after a few weeks goes out on patrol with them. Tongues or maybe ears. I assumed this book was also nonfiction about Vietnam.

Once we were seated, I opened the book and read the first few lines aloud: "It was a bad time. Billy Boy Watkins was dead, and so was Frenchie Tucker The possibility reminds me of two people: Richard Swanson, who a few years ago tried to walk from Seattle to Sao Paulo, for the World Cup, and was hit by a car and killed in Oregon; and Bowe Bergdahl, the soldier who walked off his base in Afghanistan and was held by the Taliban for five years.

My sympathy is instinctively with someone like Bergdahl not knowing the full story , and so my fear about this book is that it won't challenge that sympathy; and that Cacciato will be some romantic, childlike, Forrest Gump kind of character who is too pure for the war. We'll see. Oh, here's the coincidental part. A few days after purchasing the book or after Kareem purchased it for me, rather , I noticed this little yellow banner along the top: "Winner of the National Book Award for Fiction.

And possibly something else that should have indicated to me that it's a novel. Just for fun, I went online and looked up the list of National Book Award winners, for fiction.

Going After Cacciato won the award in , beating out four other nominees, including The soldier is not a photographic machine. He is not a camera. He registers, so to speak, only those few items that he is predisposed to register and not a single thing more.

Do you understand this? So I am saying to you that after a battle each soldier will have different stories to tell, vastly different stories, and that when a was is ended it is as if there have been a million wars, or as many wars as there were soldiers.

I loved that book I mean, I still love it. It was assigned reading for my junior-year English class, and I thought I would hate it because I'd never been a fan of war literature. However, I was soon to learn that Tim O'Brien is not the typical war-lit writer.

It was a book that took place during war, but the story is really is more about humanity. More than that, it also changed the way I think about storytelling. Anyway, let's explain the story a bit. Going After Cacciato is about a young soldier in the Vietnam war, who decides to get up and leave in the middle of the war and walk all the way to Paris. As the title of the novel implies, a group of his fellow soldiers decide to go after him. Of course, what follows is a crazy journey.

The best part of this book is Tim O'Brien's writing. I just can't get over how well he writes. It's just so powerful, so simple and yet so complex, so full of emotion and imagery. He really puts you right into the story, and he makes you see things in a different light. On top of that, I love how surreal this story is. There's a certain, almost dreamlike quality to it, where at times it's not quite clear what's real and what isn't.

However, as I've said, this book ultimately wasn't as meaningful to me as The Things They Carried was. I'm not sure what it was about this book I think maybe what I liked more about The Things They Carried was that it was made up of shorter stories that all connected in some way, and each of those stories was concise and had a strong impact.

And even though there are different little stories throughout Going After Cacciato , it does still follow a more conventional storyline.

And it's not like that's a bad thing, but I felt that it wasn't quite as compatible with O'Brien's style. I don't know, maybe that's just me. Basically, I thought the focus of this book wandered a bit and there were parts where I was a little bored. However, O'Brien never fails to captivate me with his writing and with the strong imagery he creates. May 16, Abe rated it it was amazing Shelves: favorites.

Mild spoiler that reveals no details I don't think I'll ever get over this book. I did not see this book's resolution coming. I had no idea what I was getting into. The very mention that this book has a twist, I believe, is a spoiler in itself. Hence the spoiler warning. Twist is an unsuitable word for what Cacciato does.

A twist calls to mind a last second reveal of the true antagonist, or some such detail for shock value at the very end of a story. This book does something so much mightier. Cacc Mild spoiler that reveals no details I don't think I'll ever get over this book. Cacciato upends your world.

The twist ranks among the most emotive narrative ploys I've ever read, perhaps better even than Life of Pi. The book's story, indeed the whole art of storytelling and literature and human imagination, is given new understanding. It simultaneously magnifies and diminishes you. More thoughts to come. Nov 06, Irene rated it liked it. The quality of the writing carries this war novel. It is obvious why it won a prestigious literary award. But, while I appreciated the literary merits, I did not understand what was happening in the narrative.

At the heart of this book is a journey from Vietnam to Paris. When an American soldier goes AWOL, several members of his squad are ordered to pursue him and bring him back. This section is filled with magical elements. At the same time, we are given chapters with the narrator in typical, r The quality of the writing carries this war novel. At the same time, we are given chapters with the narrator in typical, realistic military situations, including a very long night watch filled with internal thoughts.

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Publisher description. LC Subjects. Vietnam War, -- Fiction. War fiction. Citation formats are based on standards as of July Citations contain only title, author, edition, publisher, and year published.