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Title: Going After Cacciato by Tim O'Brien ISBN: 0-7679-0442-7 Publisher: Broadway Pub. Date: 01 September, 1999 Format: Paperback Volumes: 1 List Price(USD): $14.95 |
Average Customer Rating: 4.02 (54 reviews)
Rating: 4
Summary: The Second - Best Vietnam Novel
Comment: I really don't want to short-change this novel. It is definitely a true-to-life, highly-charged account of what it was like to be a part of the lunacy that was Vietnam. I like the way that it starts out in the real world and descends into the undergrowth of the subconscious, similarly to Coppola's "Apocalypse Now" and Kubrick's "Full Metal Jacket." The allusions to The Naked and the Dead and to Catch 22 are also on-the-mark. An even more contemporaneous comparison would be to "Saving Private Ryan," obviously, though the motives of the reconaissance teams would not be comparable, morally speaking.
What prevents the five star award is that I've read another Vietnam War book that is so far superior to this account, that I can't in good conscience award them equal status. Meditations in Green, by Stephen Wright is so superior in terms of scope and artistry that I have to reserve my full endorsement for that novel. O'Brien is a highly competent author. On the other hand, Wright just might make it to the highest rungs of the literary ladder, breathing the same air as Faulkner, Fitzgerald, and Hemingway as far as American mountaineers are concerned. O'Brien may have to be content with breathing the slightly thinner oxygen of Mailer and James Jones. Which might not be so bad, since most of us mere mortals are down here taking in corbon monoxide.
Rating: 4
Summary: A New Perspective On War
Comment: "For just as happines is more than the absence of sadness, so is peace infinitely more than the absence of war." This quote from Tim O'Brien's Going After Cacciato represents the basic theme of the book. O'Brien uses a strange man named Paul Berlin to illustrate the realities and illusions of the Vietnam war. Through Berlin's imaginative trek to Paris he presents views for and against the war. Although the characters and plot are not real, the book leaves a disturbingly realistic impression of war. The book flows like a person's thoughts, through imagination and real events to bring a complete picture of the psychological effects of Vietnam. At times this gets confusing but overall the effect is new and different. This is not just about war either. The themes of non-conformity and finding inner peace could be applied to many aspects of life. And most of all O'Brien shows that although Berlin leaves the war, it is not absent from his life because he has not yet found peace.
Rating: 5
Summary: Lives up to the hype - close to a masterpiece
Comment: This book is the perfect blend of fiction based on a very-real factual setting for the Vietnam War and a form of 'magic realism' akin to Gabriel Garcia Marquez to tell a powerful story and make a powerful condemnation of the war. What's most impressive is that this book was written before O'Brien had cut his teeth on later more successful books like 'Things They Carried.'
Some reviewers have complained about the distortion caused by the intertwining storylines and shifts in time and focus, but they are not muddled at all and the book is very easy to maintain. This is what elevates the book beyond mere storytelling or fictionalized factual accounts. You can read other reviews for a synopsis of the story - my two-cents is that this book lives up to the hype and works to perfection. O'Brien is one of only two fiction writers still in their 'prime' so to speak and putting out books somewhat regularly that I will look for and buy (other being Phillip Roth).
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Title: If I Die in a Combat Zone : Box Me Up and Ship Me Home by TIM O'BRIEN ISBN: 0767904435 Publisher: Broadway Pub. Date: 01 September, 1999 List Price(USD): $13.95 |
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Title: The Things They Carried by TIM O'BRIEN ISBN: 0767902890 Publisher: Broadway Pub. Date: 29 December, 1998 List Price(USD): $14.95 |
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Title: In the Lake of the Woods by Tim O'Brien, Penguin USA Paper ISBN: 0140250948 Publisher: Penguin USA (Paper) Pub. Date: September, 1995 List Price(USD): $14.00 |
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Title: Tomcat in Love by Tim O'Brien ISBN: 0767902041 Publisher: Broadway Pub. Date: 01 September, 1999 List Price(USD): $14.95 |
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Title: Northern Lights by Tim O'Brien ISBN: 0767904419 Publisher: Broadway Pub. Date: 01 September, 1999 List Price(USD): $14.95 |
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