Going After Cacciato

infobox Book |
name = Going After Cacciato
title_orig =
translator =


author = Tim O'Brien
cover_artist =
country = United States
language = English
series =
genre = War novel
publisher = Doubleday
release_date = January 1978
media_type = Print (Hardback & Paperback)
pages =
isbn = ISBN 0-440-02948-1 (first edition, hardback)
preceded_by =
followed_by =

"Going After Cacciato" is a war novel written by author Tim O'Brien and winner of the National Book Award for fiction in 1979. This complex novel is set during the Vietnam War and is told from the point of view of the protagonist, Paul Berlin. The story traces the events that ensue after Cacciato, a member of Berlin's squad, decides to go AWOL by walking from Vietnam to France, through Asia. Cacciato, an Italian word pronounced "cah-chah-to" by Italians but "catch-ee-ah-to" by Americans, means "hunted"/"caught" in Italian.

Plot introduction

Typical of many stories that deal with themes of psychological trauma, "Going After Cacciato" contains distinct ambiguities concerning the nature and order of events that occur, which often requires readers to look beyond superficial appearances conveyed by the narrator's language. It is a chronologically unsatisfying book.

The main idea of the story is, by O'Brien's estimation, that being a soldier in Vietnam for the standard tour of duty entails constant walking; if one were to put all the walking in a straight line, one would end up in Paris, where Cacciato is going.

It is important to note that Cacciato is always portrayed as self-sufficient and happy. It is Cacciato who is hunted, pursued throughout the imagined story of the book. The final pages feature the juxtaposition of two statements, by Sarkin Aung Wan and Paul Berlin, which contrast the early American view (think Emerson and Thoreau) of independence and happiness against the modern view of obligations placed on the individual to conform to society. The obligations lead to complicity in atrocities -- Cacciato marches to the beat of a different drum, and is freer, and happy.

Paul Berlin, the main character, is a frustrated soldier who during the entire novel, focuses on every minor detail he encounters, whether in the past or in the would-be chase. In the chapter "A Hole On The Way To Paris," the characters escape the endless tunnels by "falling out" just as they fell in; this allusion to "Alice In Wonderland" helps to reveal the story as fiction.

Characters

*Paul Berlin - Narrator/ Protagonist basically dreams up the whole story
*Sarkin Aung Wan - Burmese refugees saves the squad many times such as the time they were lost in the Vietcong tunnel complex
*Cacciato - Soldier who goes AWOL (to Paris).
*Frenchie Tucker - Dies in a tunnel, Shot In the Nose
*Bernie Lynn - Dies after following Frenchie Tucker into the tunnel
*Eddie Lazzutti
*Stink Harris - Leads party; is "Trigger Happy"
*Harold Murphy - Another soldier in Berlin's squad. He carries the "big gun" which most likely is the M60 machine gun Murphy leaves early on since he feels the mission is worthless and the penalty for it is too much.
*Buff - Short for WaterBufflow is known for his big size. He dies while the platoon is trying to cross a field. Berlin commonly refers to his death as "life after death" because his eyes remained in his helmet after he died.
*Cpt. Fahyi Rhallon - One of the Savak that try to arrest the squad because they do not have passports.
*Billy Boy Watkins - One of the casualties in Berlin's squad. Watkins is referred back to many times, often accompanied by a short song that the squad sung frequently about his death. Watkins died after he stepped on a defective mine. Although he was not wounded, he was in such a bad state of shell-shock that he died. Doc Peret says that it was a heart attack. Watkins, especially via his song, demonstrates how soldiers cope with the death around them, sometimes subliminally morphing tragedy into comedy to lessen the fear.
*Ready Mix - Died during an assault of a hill in the Highlands.
*Doc Peret - the squad's medic
*Lt. Sydney Martin - The old lieutenant of Berlin's squad; insisted on following SOP (Standard Operating Procedures). One of the SOPs in Vietnam was to search all tunnels before detonating them; Martin enforced this rule sternly. None of the men in the squad wanted to search tunnels after seeing Tucker and Lynn die. The men in the squad attempt to plead with Martin, but he sternly restates that they must search tunnels before blowing them. In the end, all the men in the squad agree to kill Lt. Martin. The exact manner of death is never stated, except that Lt. Martin died in the tunnels.
*Lt. Corson- Frequently referred to simply as Lieutenant. He takes command of the platoon after Lieutenant Martin, the de facto leader of Berlin's squad. It is stated that he was once busted down twice from a higher rank, once fairly and once not. As the story moves on the "Lt." is too old for the war and wants to go back to his country. He is always "sick", says Doc, and the sickness is called homesickness. When the squad reaches India he is cured when he meets a woman who had once studied in Baltimore, Maryland but he is quickly sick again as the squad moves on with him.
*Rudy Chassler
*Jim Pederson - A religious man, who dies in a paddy after being shot multiple times by the side-gunners in the Chinook that dropped the platoon there.
*Oscar Johnson