The prose style of Going After Cacciato if fairly simple. It contains lots of repetition and straight forward language characteristic of soldiers and war. Of course the style is the only thing that is simple about this novel. I wanted to call the story itself relatively simple with incredibly deep currents and complex ideas underneath it, but that is not exactly correct. The narrative is centered around Paul Berlin, an American soldier from Des Moines, Iowa fighting in the Vietnam war. From there it gets more complicated. Much of the plot is revealed slowly and more towards the middle of the novel. We are introduced to Paul Berlin and some other members of his company including Oscar Johnson, Doc Peret, Harold Murphy, Stink Harris, Eddie Lewis and Lieutenant Corson pursuing yet another member of their company, Cacciato who has gone AWOL in a supposed attempt to walk to Paris. The chronology jumps around from there and we are not quite exactly sure how their chase ends except they seemingly have Cacciato surrounded on a hill after pursuing him for several days. Later Paul Berlin is on watch duty in and observation post, passing the tedious time by imagining how the chase had ended. So begins the central crux of the novel, what really happened and what only happened in Spec Four Paul Berlin's mind and more over, which is more meaningful? As the novel progresses, we also learn some of the history leading up to Cacciato's departure to give the reader a much more complete picture of Paul Berlin and his situation.
Going After Cacciato contains allusions to a number of other war novels from previous eras including; the central debate of the Red Badge of Courage, the absurd nature of Catch-22, Hemingway's short, descriptive prose as well as others like Johnny's Got a Gun which I haven't read. Yet it also contains the elements and themes that are unique to Vietnam War novels, which is what I want to explore a little in this blog post. There were many elements of this novel which felt cliche-ed to me. I would never call this book a cliche because it is probably what set the standard and was the real thing which resulted in the cliche, but now that we are 37 years beyond Vietnam, I have been beat over the head with some of the details to the point that they loose their meaning. Unfortunately this novel becomes a victim of my over-exposure. For example, it has gotten to the point that we are making parodies about these Vietnam war stories. Recently the movie Tropic Thunder came out as just one of those parodies and a lot of thematic characteristics of Going After Cacciato appear in the film.
Despite those cliches there are more than a few enduring questions raised by the novel and many underlying themes that are incredibly compelling. As we talked about in class today, when reading this novel you have to keep an eye out for the dualities. Some of the big ones are East vs West and a some of the character pairings, also at what point does their mission to bring home a deserter become an act of desertion itself? Also some of the religious parallels and implications are staggering in their scope. Cacciato becomes, at once, a representation of both Christ and Buddha as the group pursues him from East to West. The questions raised consist of some of the usual war questions, what is the purpose of war and what is the nature of courage, but of course with the usual Vietnam twist. Besides those there are also some very interesting debates about the nature of obligation and the importance of purpose in war, it also touches upon the nature of reality and how important dreams and your imagination is.
I was most interested in watching the development, if any, of Paul Berlin's attitudes and character through-out the novel. The majority of the novel takes place in his imagination which made some of my classmates question whether any actual development could occur, but in my opinion, that is the best place to see any evolution that Berlin undergoes. From this vantage point, I analyzed the other characters as representatives of parts of Berlin himself, or people in general, which allows them to be static and one-sided as I think they tend to be. I see Doc Peret as a representative of rationality. I initially wanted to label him as logic, which he still might be considered, but I think that analysis is incomplete. He is logical in the sense that he believes what he sees and even though he is a doctor, he believes medicine is "what works" rather than actual science. He is blind in that way and willing to rationalize an explanation from the evidence he has. He tries to make sense out of what he sees instead of speculating on what could be unseen but still relevant.
In that mode, Stink Harris personifies the violent, unthinking side of human nature. He doesn't understand what is happening and cannot control himself but he is characterized as a "fighter" and "scrappy." A scene to back this characterization up was his inability to stop shooting the water buffalo after being startled. In psycho-analytic criticism, I would call him the ID. He is all action and reaction without any higher minded principle.
The brief view we have of Harold Murphy causes me to classify him as a sense of duty or obligation in a very concrete sense. As in, he is bound by duty because of the consequences of not fulfilling it rather than a more high minded ideal. He leaves the group after they vote to follow Cacciato farther than they would actually be allowed to. He is essentially banished after the other characters vote to continue. He has voiced his opinion, made his stand but is overridden and as such, he disappears. Once the group crosses over into Laos, they are only chasing Cacciato as a pretense, they are really escaping the horror of Vietnam, as they are forced to admit to the SAVAK officer in Tehran.
Lieutenant Corson represents an older romanticized notion of war. He constantly makes comments about how this is not his war and soldiers don't fight with the same heart that the did in the past. He is worn down by the mindlessness of Vietnam but still believes enough in his soldiers not to waste their lives unnecessarily. He also represents a certain wisdom and common sense that is wasted in Vietnam. He only becomes effected when the return to more civilized lands.
Oscar Johnson is a representation of masculinity and a survival instinct. By default, those qualities make the other enlisted men look to him for leadership, not only because he is their sergeant but because he is a man who will survive the war. He is the first to suggest getting rid of Lieutenant Martin and is quick to suggest trying to catch Cacciato to flip him for their own safety. It is a kill or be killed world to Oscar. He forces Paul Berlin to see the ugly side of survival.
In that way Oscar Johnson is set up in a duality with Lieutenant Martin. Lindsay Martin is representative of abstract duty. His version of war is unlike any other character and he believes in the rules that govern war in the face of all contrary evidence. His insistence that the men follow standard operating procedure by checking the Viet-Cong tunnels before blowing them, needlessly endangering his men's lives, is nonsensical in the field. Yet he sticks to it because he believes in the abstract ideas laid down in the safety of a classroom. Just like the rules don't translate to the field, Lindsay Martin is unable to maintain his grip on his soldiers and loses his life because of it.
Eddie Lewis represents a humor and how it is used to deal with war. He is quick to joke about death and some of the uglier things around him. Yet he is ultimately ineffective and is constantly told to shut up by the other soldiers. Despite the absurd nature of the war, the soldiers still want certain things, like death, to still be treated with respect. When Eddie makes jokes about Buff's death and how he looked like a praying Arab, Doc Peret and Oscar turn on him and begin making fun of him for his supposed expertise in praying Arabs.
Cacciato is innocence. He is the child-like innocence that remains deep within us but is worn down over time. He cannot comprehend much of what is going on, so it slides by him without effect. Even so, he cannot stay in Vietnam for too long and eventually decides it is time for him to leave and walk to Paris. So essentially Paul Berlin and company are pursuing innocence as they leave the horror of the war behind him. Also men like Stink Harris and Oscar Johnson need to get rid of Cacciato for their own survival. Innocence is the natural enemy of the violence of Stink and the cynical nature of Oscar.
These thoughts are pretty quick sketches of a possible way the novel can be interpreted. I think there is a lot more to be worked out here for it to be a passable theory but there is validity. Since most of the action takes place in Berlin's mind, all these characters could very well be stand-ins for the various parts of himself which struggle to co-exist and process what he is seeing. It really is a great book and has a lot of depth. I think trying to develop any other theories in this post would be a mistake, so I will leave it here. Keep a look out though, because I think I will come back and do another post about Cacciato which explores some of the religious parallels in this novel.
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