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May 02, 2009

Isaiah rated it:

Let me tell you something about Tim O’Brien.

Tim O’Brien can write.

I don’t mean Tim O’Brien can express ideas well, or that Tim O’Brien knows how to make cogent points using the written language. Hell, I can do that. I can wake up hungover, drink a liter of coffee, and crank out an essay with a title like “Intertextuality in Victorian Memoir: the Solipsism of Affect,” or some such mumbo-jumbo, and it’ll make your average literature professor at The Community College of Se More...

26 comments like (27 people liked it)

Oct 15, 2008

Koeeoaddi rated it:

Paul Berlin goes to Vietnam and falls through a rabbit hole on a mission to bring back a member of his squad who's gone AWOL -- to Paris. Brilliant, hallucinatory and hypnotic, the narrative jumps around, jumbling continuity, reality, fear, duty and dreams as it deftly and completely messes with your head. Possibly the best novel about the war in Vietnam I've read, so far.

"He [Paul Berlin:] didn't know who was right, or what was right; he didn't know if it was a war of self-dete More...

1 comment like (3 people liked it)

Dec 16, 2009

Mike rated it:

After reading, The Things They Carried, I immediately ran down to the library to check out O’Brien’s earlier writing, Going After Cacciato. 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 really can’t see what was so special about this book that it was nominated for a bunch of rewards. I can only guess that there was a severe shortage of More...

2 comments like (4 people liked it)

Jan 24, 2008

Andrew rated it:

Similar in approach to The Things They Carried, but not nearly as successful, largely because in trying to get around the problem of how to write a war story about a war as metaphysically unhinged as Vietnam, O'Brien settles here on the weary kelson of the hallucinogenic, it-was-all-a-dream plot that, by its very architectonics, evacuates all the drama from the drama and leaves behind little but the words themselves. For a writer like Pynchon, or Joyce, this might succeed. But O'Brien's success More...

1 comment like (1 person liked it)

Nov 04, 2007

Sophia rated it:

The subjective nature of life and reality has driven people to seek objective counsel in religion, astrology, spirituality, or any other source that claims some kind of sturdiness in a world of uncertainty. Theodor Adorno, a twentieth century philosopher, suggests that literature shouldn’t play to this weakness of the mind for “completeness and continuity” which follows an “epistemological impulse”. Getting at truth means exposing different angles, even if they contradict. “Reality is fragment More...

2 comments like (4 people liked it)

Jun 09, 2011

Dan rated it:

The Things They Carried is still O'Brien's best, in my opinion, but Going After Cacciato is not far behind. The ease with which he elicits emotions and the deftness with which he changes them is amazing. When he describes a chopper ride into a hot LZ you can almost see, hear, and smell the experience. He can make painful passages (like Chapter 44) such an essential part of the story that you welcome the pain. Best of all is his ability to surprise you time after time with subtle twists and t More...

0 comments like (1 person liked it)

Nov 29, 2011

Ryandake rated it:

first up on the back cover of the book: "To call Going After Cacciato a novel about war is like calling Moby-Dick a novel about whales."

i'd like to officially eyeroll this guy (an NYT reviewer). it is a novel about war, and a really damned good one. a kind of strange war, where only our guys get killed (one exception, passed over pretty quickly). plenty of our guys get greased, but somehow the book seems to think it is impolite to talk about the ones our guys kill.

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May 05, 2011

Todd rated it:

I would probably give this about a 3.8, not quite a four, which is actually what the average rating is.

I bet this book was an entirely different experience before LOST came out, or at least before the series finale aired. I knew something completely wrong was happening, something fantastical, but I couldn't put my finger on it because I kept thinking that someone, maybe Berlin/may Cacciato, had died violently and Berlin/the squad was collectively making up this fiction. The whole imag More...

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Dec 05, 2010

Nick is currently reading it

12/6/10 First Post: Intro to book (Characters and Conflict) Read to chapter 16,

I went into this book having a certain passion for war-related works and that is why I find Going After Cacciato to be quite interesting. Paul Berlin is the main character in the novel and the reader is soon introduced to the other characters which make up the rest of the third squad. Other characters include Stink Harris, Murphy, Doc Peret, the Lt. and last but not least Cacciato, from whom the book g More...

1 comment like

Nov 10, 2010

Jon rated it:

This review has been hidden because it contains spoilers. To view it, click here

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Oct 22, 2010

Drew rated it:

“In October, near the end of the month, Cacciato left the war.” With this, Going After Cacciato, a novel about the Vietnam war, memory, and imagination, begins. In his novel, O’Brien tells the story of young Spec Four Paul Berlin and his squad’s pursuit of Cacciato, an AWOL soldier who decided to leave his squad and the war altogether, to and embark on a journey from Vietnam to Paris, a destination located nearly eight thousand, six hundred miles away. As the squad chases Cacciato, the thea More...

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Aug 28, 2010

Debbi rated it:

My first Tim O'Brien book was THE THINGS THEY CARRIED, a collection of stories based on his experiences as a soldier in the Vietnam War. I was so taken with his writing I decided to read JULY, JULY next. A novel about a class reunion that I thought might be too much like The Big Chill – but it wasn't.

So, knowing (I thought) what to expect, I picked up GOING AFTER CACCIATO. I guess I was expecting something like Saving Private Ryan, but it's not even close to that. In this book, O'Bri More...

0 comments like (1 person liked it)

Apr 21, 2010

Brandon rated it:

After reading Tim O'Brien's "Things They Carried" I was compelled to read "Going After Cacciato" after reading its constant reference in "Things They Carried". Like most of O'Brien's books, it is a fiction story about the Vietnam War, with a non-fictional undertone. The main character is Paul Berlin, who is also a character in "Things They Carried". Other supporting characters can definitely relate to those in "Things They Carried". The main More...

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Dec 24, 2009

Lindsey rated it:

After reading another book by the author, I decided to try O'Brien out again. The reason I only gave it three stars is because there were points where I was confused in the story. It was disjointed, which I am sure was intentional since you can draw obvious connections to what the soldiers experienced in the war of Vietnam with no clear fighting goals or objectives.

Favorite quote: He was a big man with moustaches drooping to his chin; his hair was black, he was a history teller: " More...

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Oct 05, 2009

Jason rated it:

This is a tough book to give five stars to. Not because it isn't worthy, but because it is bound to be misleading. Going after Cacciato begins innocently enough. We meet Paul Berlin, a private in Vietnam and we meet his squadmates and we begin to see the struggles and the triumphs of these men. Then Cacciato, a happy idiot along the lines of Chancy the gardener (from the film Being There) who decides he's had enough and he's going to walk the 8,600 miles to France. Thus begins the chase and thus More...

0 comments like (2 people liked it)

Oct 31, 2011

Sandra rated it:

This is the third of Tim O'Brien's books I've read. Maybe I've read them out of sequence or maybe there is no sequence. This one was a winner of the National Book Award and other awards. Of the two - Going After Cacciato and The Things They Carried, I would have to say I learned more about the war and its effect on the heroes who served their country there. I'm not going to write a book about it, just suffice to say experiencing Going After Cacciato is a totally different kind of animal from The More...

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Aug 11, 2010

Jeff rated it:

My mind might just be odd, but the first time I read Going After Cacciato I completely missed the fact that we were dealing with fantasy and reality in the book. Wait, that might not be true. I completely confused what was fantasy and what was reality. By the end of the book I was very angry at the way everything turned out. I also hated Paul Berlin.

But I think that is why the book continues to be one of my all time favorites. Like all works of literature, it's going to strike e More...

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Oct 28, 2010

Francisco rated it:

I choose this book for my English Literature class from school, I got reviews about this book from my teacher and the lady who runs the library in my school. So, because of the good reviews I got, I decide to choose this book. I admit, Im not a person that likes to read that much, I basically do it if is necessary or if I'am very interested on the book.
This book was written by Tim O'Brien, a veteran from Vietnam War how writes about his experiences during the war. He More...

1 comment like

Oct 19, 2010

Claudia rated it:

Wow. I forget O'Brien's power between his books. This one is full of all the trademark elements: authenticity of place and time, finely-drawn characters, details that could only be shared with an author who had LIVED that life. His scenes of the boredom, the pick-up basketball games, and then the sheer terror of having to 'follow the book' and go down into those hell-holes of the tunnels, leave us little doubt he has experienced all this and more.

Berlin and his buddies go after sweet More...

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Nov 15, 2011

Jordan rated it:

Imagination is what writers work best with. Tim O’Brien takes this to a whole new lever in his novel Going After Cacciato. Cacciato is stationed in the Vietnam was at a security outpost, the reader is brought into the adventures of him and his command squad. Cacciato is stated to have “gone AWOL,” at least to his comrades, and essentially he has. Almost everything in this story is not real; we are placed in dream sequences that we think everything is what it seems, but it is not. Cacciato’s insa More...

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Feb 27, 2011

Tsung Wei rated it:

The Vietnam war has always been a fascinating subject. The atrocities of war, the profound effect on those involved, the blurring of the distinction between good & evil, right and wrong. I was hoping that this book might capture it but it does so only partially. I generally find a more "authentic" literary journey when the author has personally experienced the subject in an extra-ordinary way. No question that the author has experienced the Nam first hand and you can get that feeli More...

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Jul 22, 2010

Tulara rated it:

This review has been hidden because it contains spoilers. To view it, click here

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Nov 29, 2011

Matthew rated it:

Usain Bolt was put on this Earth to run, and so doing display to the rest of us just how beautiful and magnificent a human being can be when performing his very best. Tim O'Brien was put on this Earth to participate in and write about war, and so doing display to the rest of us just how ugly and depraved the human being can be when acting his very worst.

Going After Cacciato is a first rate novel that manages to detail the Vietnam experience while also taking the reader on a fun and More...

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Jun 14, 2009

Samir rated it:

After reading The Things they Carried in class I thought I would enjoy another book by Tim O’ Brien called Going After Cacciato. I enjoyed this book a lot because it is a war type book. This book is about the search for Cacciato and it becomes a journey to find him. Through mountains and desserts they search.
What surprised me about this book is how Tim O Brien describes each character and how there is something specific about each of them that make them different from one another. I More...

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Jun 10, 2009

Jesu rated it:

I love war books. This book takes place in vietnam and the story is told through Paul Berlin's eyes. Cacciato, a soldier part of Berlin's platoon goes "AWOL" (Absent Without Official Leave) and attempts to walk from Vietnam to Paris via Asia. Rather than simply trying to chase Cacciato, through the soldiers frustration he is somewhat hunted instead. The exaggeration of the distance from vietnam to paris is equivalent to the soldiers endurance. That the distance Tim O'Brien walked with More...

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Mar 25, 2010

Michael rated it:

In Viet Nam, war is at the worst, killing American men an vast numbers. With many of the men in his unit wounded or killed and the monsoon season causing havoc to the men's health, Cacciato decides thaw he's had enough killing. He walks away from his unit, deciding to walk to Paris.

There are symbols of hope and death, faith and despair, was and peace as we follow Cacciato's path. He has maps, and will travel through Laox, into Berma, India and other countries on his journey.

More...

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Jul 21, 2009

Dave rated it:

I'm still planning on getting to O'Brien's Vietnam memoir, and I hope it's as driven by honest insecurity as Going After Cacciato. This book was like a mix between Pynchon and Mailer, gritty detail and expansive imagination. O'Brien's demons skulk in the background, only able to be confronted in his middle shift guard duty as he watches and ponders the unlikely union between himself and the land of Vietnam. Paul Berlin, the main character, asks hard questions and avoids them at the same time, ra More...

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Feb 16, 2011

Kristina rated it:

I like the content of the book, but I really hate the way it is written. I have been told by so many people that Tim O'Brien is an EXCELLENT writer. I can't stand his writing style, personally. The third person limited really made me feel like I'm just being told the story but I like feeling like you're actually there, which any good writer should be able to do. The past tense just adds to that problem. In parts, O'Brien was telling of conversations. I HATE HATE HATED when he had a paragra More...

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Aug 26, 2009

Dolly rated it:

I'm not a big fan of war stories and even more so, I don't often read stories about the Vietnam War. But this book was highly recommended to me and shoot, it won the National Book Award, so I figured I'd check it out. It was a good book and a fast read, but I felt like I was constantly in a haze reading this story. I felt like I only had one foot in reality and I wasn't always really sure about what was going on, especially with all of the shifts back and forth in time. It was a real "A More...

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Jun 01, 2010

Jason rated it:

I will agree with many of the reviews already posted: anything by Tim O'Brien is worth reading, but if you're going to read him for the first time, pick up "The Things They Carried." "Things," actually written (or at least assembled) much later than "Cacciato," accomplishes perfectly O'Brien's goal: to eloquently make a statement about war by describing events and characters from a particular war. "Cacciato," I think, was written before O'Brien truly lea More...

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