Going After Cacciato
O'Brien, Tim
This novel is about soldiers trying to run away from the war and their duty, both in body and in mind. If this fictionalized account of a group of soldiers is being used by teachers in our district to educate the children about the Vietnam War, it’s a poor choice. Maybe it’s being used to demonstrate creatively confusing writing. There are three intertwined stories: the main character, Paul Berlin, is on sentry duty at an observation post for one entire night; the squad’s assignment of finding and bringing back an AWOL soldier, Cacciato; and Berlin’s hallucinatory 8,000-mile walk across Vietnam, Laos, Iran, Afghanistan, and other countries on the way to Paris, Cacciato’s intended destination. Several of the characters are imaginary and many scenes are in Berlin’s mind but this isn’t readily apparent. The chronology is purposely distorted. Berlin’s squad eventually goes AWOL in Paris on the pretense of continuing to look for Cacciato.
Several of O’Brien’s books seem to have a common thread.
- Truth, hope, and meaning in life are nonexistent: For teens who are contemplating suicide, this book sends a deadly message: Life and choice are meaningless anyway; go ahead and end it.
- Fact and fiction are confused: This book is especially unsuitable for readers who are not already well acquainted with the subject of Vietnam.
The following link discusses the use of this novel at the U.S. Naval Academy. "This novel is evidence of a 'shadow' de-facto Anti-Vietnam War Studies Program at the U.S. Naval Academy."
" This novel is first and foremost an anti-Vietnam War novel. The flow of the story reminds one of a tabloid version of Homer's 'Odyssey,' with adventure that only a vivid imagination can produce. But it is absent the redemptive and heroic struggle against overwhelming odds. And none of its characters display the virtues of the heroic Odysseus, his faithful and loving family, and his loyal supporters.
Instead, since O'Brien's is an anti-Vietnam War novel, nearly all of its characters are base. Indeed, the thread of the novel has a deserter, Cacciato, who simply rises out of his foxhole and 'walks' to Paris -- away from the war, away from the killing, and into What? We never find out. But along the way, we are informed of all of the nitty gritty details of America's involvement in an unjust war."
Excerpts:
• Words used throughout the book include: bitch, shit, Jesus Christ, fuckin’, bastard, for Christ sake, Jesus, son of a bitch, shitting, fucking, good shit, shit, sorry ass, happy-assed, bad shit, piss tube, shitter, shithead, fucker, dink, gook.
• There were jokes about the postcard pictures of Christ that Jim Pederson used to carry.
• Lootin’ weather, he liked to say. The dark an’ gloom, just right for rape and lootin’. Then someone would say that Oscar had a swell imagination for a darkie.
• Dumb as a month-old oyster fart.
• The lieutenant blinked, coughed and handed the spent roach to Oscar...who extinguished it against his toenail.
• Gay Paree, bare ass and Frogs everywhere...
• (Referring to a character who looks as if he has Down Syndrome): It’s the Mongol influence. See how the eyes slant? Pigeon toes, domed head? My theory is that the guy missed Mongolian idiocy by the breadth of a genetic hair.
• Like winning the Bronze Star for shooting out a dink’s front teeth...the time he shot that kid. All those teeth.
• Took out his pouch of makings, rolled a joint, inhaled, and passed it along.
• The time he dragged that dink out of her bunker...
• Hapstein’s queer. No, man, Hapstein’s just good fun.
• The wind don’t suck, it blows...So does PFC Prawn, when he gets the urge.
• Dinks from Dinksville, Damsels from Gooktown.
• I had him...right by the balls.
• Screw a monkey, man.
• Did their women really carry razor blades in their vaginas, booby traps for dumb GIs?
• Screwed and skewered. Cops up the ass.
• A condom is a skullcap for us swingin’ dicks…And to lead men you got to be a swingin’ fuckin’ dick...You a swingin’ dick, Berlin?
• Various graphic descriptions of:
a man getting shot through the nose
a soldier blowing off his foot with a mine then dying of a heart attack
a soldier with a leech on his tongue
a soldier who is tunnel-shot
a soldier going temporarily crazy and shooting a water buffalo until chunks of meat fall off
a young man’s beheading, others