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Going After Cacciato
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December 2010 - Going After Cacciato
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Michael, Mod Prometheus
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Oct 11, 2010 05:28PM
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Looks interesting and similar to Catch-22
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I keep thinking of this title as Going After Cacciatore, one man's hunt for chicken :PInterestingly cacciato means hunted and cacciatore means hunter.
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Interestingly cacciato means hunted and cacciatore means hunter."
Doesn't every man hunt for chicken?
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When you guys say "hunt for chicken," is that the same as when American boys hunt for chicks?I've got the book on order at my local library, and will finish it well before the end of December, but for the first 10 days/2 weeks or so of the month, I have to herd my students thru final exams and wrap up the fall semester - I mention this just so you all don't think I suggested the book, and then dropped out or anything!
O'Brien's prose is lovely, in a hypnotic, sort of psychedelic way - I think you guys'll like it.
Mary-Jane wrote: "When you guys say "hunt for chicken," is that the same as when American boys hunt for chicks?Not that I'm aware of. The term "chicks" is used the same in Australia as in the US.
I was kind of wondering if it was some kind of local slang for something not normally discussed in polite society, too ;)I'll have to head to the library tomorrow and see if I can get a copy.
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That's OK - as I said, I might not finish it until right before Xmas anyhow.
I got a copy, I'll actually be starting this one ON TIME! :) Even though I haven't finished Hogfather yet, but I intend to. I hate starting books and not finishing them unless they're really bad.
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So far it's reminding me of Catch-22. Not as crazy as it was but the same disjointed, non-linear style. That's not a bad thing but I wouldn't say it's a good thing either. It took me a while to get used to that in Catch-22 and almost made me stop reading it.I'm more willing to stick it out this time but I hope it's worth it.
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I'm about 2/3 of the way through and I think it's pretty dazzling. It must be so hard for someone that young to go to war (and I know, they're ALWAYS young - that old lieutenant he keeps talking about is probably all of 40 years old,) and understand what the hell is going on - to articulate that confusion for somebody who wasn't there is even more remarkable. It stops my heart the way he describes the most gruesome sights in the most lovely, elegant language, as if to say that the human imagination can't be stopped, even by things as horrible as death and bloodshed, but that this very invinciblity in the face of mounting trauma is what can irrevocably scramble a soldier's brain.
I have to say once again I was not able to read the whole thing. I sort of skipped around a bit to try to get the gist of it because I liked the writing so well. The first few pages were kind of tough getting used to the style but after that it just sang for me. At Mary-Jane's suggestion I read chapter 44 before returning the book to the library, and it all sort of came together for me as a meditation on life, and the choices we make, the roads we choose to follow, to extend the metaphor of the whole chase to Paris. I plan to pick up more of O'Brien's books, "The Things They Carried" has been recommended to me by MJ and someone else as being really beautiful, albeit sad. I like the way O'Brien plays with language. I wish I had the book here to quote a fav passage but as I said I've already returned it.
A lot of high schools and colleges include "The Things They Carried" in their lit curriculums, so you should be able to get a gently used copy for next to nothing. Let me know when you pick it up!Speaking of Chapter 44, I read an interview with Tim O'Brien in which he said that one of his single greatest regrets in life was that he didn't have the courage to defect to Canada after he was drafted. He got as far in a rowboat at the Canadian border, but he turned around and went back, I think because the "Paul Berlin" in him won out. He takes no pride in that and I'm sure you're not surprised that he is in adamant opposition to the U.S. presence in Iraq.
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War is tragic, but I don't know anyone that has ever suffered the physiological aspects of war. I wonder if this makes it harder for me to relate to this story.
Australia didn't have much involvement in this war.
A fair question. I come from the middle generation of Americans - too young to have served in VietNam, mostly a bit to old to have gone to the first Gulf War, and I read this stuff out of sort of a sense of duty: my way of showing respect for the men and women who were put in harm's way while I was home, safe on the sofa or in the classroom. The first time I went to the VietNam War Memorial in Washington DC I was 26 years old, and when I saw all those hundreds of names of guys who'd never even made it to that age, I felt truly crappy, even though I knew on an intellectual level that it wasn't remotely my fault. There is not a whole lot I can do for those people, except maybe intellectually -to try & understand and show some respect, so that's what I do, and occasionally I drag my students and reading buddies along with me ;)If anybody wants to join this campaign with regard to the Gulf War, I recommend "Jarhead" by Anthony Swofford, and "American Music" by Jane Mendelsohn.
My brother gave all the sibs a book about American and Allied soldiers on D-Day (we all owe our existence to the fact that my father survived the invasion of Normandy)so that's on my list for 2011, as well.
I work with a lot of Vietnam vets, have others as neighbors, and had friends as a child whose older brothers were sent over there and fought in those jungles. I'm not sure that has anything to do with liking the author's writing style, though. Certainly I've read books about other wars (The Red Badge of Courage, All Quiet on the Western Front, etc.) that did not touch me or my immediate family and most of what we've read here has no personal connection. While Americans may feel more deeply affected by reading about Vietnam if memories are stirred, that's a different thing from simply liking or not liking the story or style. "Tipping the Velvet" by that definition would be lost on me since I don't know any cross-dressing lesbian performers in Victorian England, nor have I ever even been to England. Maybe war novels are just not your thing?
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Haha, I'm sure you're right ;)
