In class on Friday you spent five to ten minutes responding to these prompts: 1. explain your understanding of the end -- "The End of the Road to Paris," "The Observation Post," and "Going After Cacciato" & 2. explain how you got to that understanding.
Then we had rich conversations about your responses to the prompts...and more. (I enjoyed it and hope it wasn't so bad for you.)
Follow up on the class conversation with a blog post. Explore possibilities. Construct meaning. Ask questions. Follow up on what others have said and have written. What did you notice? What might it mean?
Post your comment(s) by class time on Monday, March 7. I look forward to reading your take.
Andrew Mizzoni
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I am beginning this discussion by saying that I was not in class on Friday so I therefore do not know what the discussions topics were about. I however can give you my input about the book. I first off would like to say that I enjoy the book because of how its jumps around from story to story. It keeps you interested in the book because there’s a series of different stories and not just one story from beginning to end. After reading the book I wonder did Cacciato want to be caught. In several instances in the book I feel that he was giving away his position to the group as if he wanted to be caught. The game of cat and mouse that exists between Cacciato and the rest of the group is a clear distinction that the group is running away as well. I am sure that everyone that has read the book would agree with me. Why would the group continue their trail all the way to Paris and they have had many opportunities to catch him. I believe that they are using Cacciato as a scapegoat to escape from the war themselves. They are finding women and beautiful cities to reside in while stating that they are doing a serious duty to help the war. Harold Murphy I believe had the right mind in leaving the war. He understood that the mission was pointless and that they were themselves going AWOL as well.
The last thread I wanted to open was that I find myself having trouble determining what is realistic from fantasy in the book. There is no clear indication of what is going on and what is just a make believe of Paul’s imagination. I don’t like how vague it is however I do believe that there is not wrong answer to anyone’s interpretation of the story.
Personally, I really enjoyed this book. The majority of the time I had very little trouble understanding what was going on, and when I was confused I just kept hope that the end would explain it for me, and it did. The ending of the book really made it for me. My interpretation, as I said in class, is that when Paul was shooting at Cacciato on that mountainside only a day or so after they left, he was ripped out of reality because of his fear, and the grand adventure that they went on was his way of making ammends with the things about the possibilities that scared him (his issues with manhood, responsibility, etc.) The part in the hotel in Paris when Paul demands to go in for Cacciato with Oscar is his final way of proving his manhood. He is brought back to reality when he shoots at Cacciato in the Paris hotel. That is the pivotal moment where he realizes all of his fears and comes back into reality. But thats just my take and I agree with Andrew when he says that there is no wrong answer. This book was designed for everyone to have their own interpretation and for each person to take from it what they will.
ReplyDeleteIn the end of Going After Cacciato, we learn the truth about the journey to Paris- that it never actually happened. Although many things are left unanswered we discover that the men actually do follow after Cacciato when he departed for Paris, but that they encircled him in the mountains instead of continuing the chase. We also learn that Paul Berlin faints of the Biles when the men attempt to capture Cacciato, and it is at this point where we lose sight of the concrete facts and enter the realm of possibilities. In class on Friday we discussed this crucial point as the hinge between Paul Berlin's fantasy and his reality. His insecurities about failing his troop under pressure is what drives the parallel plot line to it's climax in Paris. From that scene, we make the leap back to reality and are left to puzzle out the facts ourselves.
ReplyDeleteWe also brought up an interesting question; is the trip to Paris a dream or an imagined story? What is the difference between the two? We didn't work through to an answer, but I think that it is a combination of the two. There are definitely elements of Paul's subconscious working in ways that we might expect in a dream, but many of the details are so lifelike that it seems they were composed by his conscious. This is just something to think about as we continue our class discussions on the book!
As we discussed in class on Friday Tim O’Brien gave us a lot of hints as to what was happening in the book and it was up to us if we laid it all out and figured it out for ourselves or waited until the end to find out that the whole mission of going after Cacciato was just an imaginative story inside Paul Berlin’s mind. I liked this book a lot because all the different aspects of it whether it be the actual going after Cacciato, the Observation Post or Berlin’s past in the war made for one big puzzle that we were meant to figure out. I’m the type of person that likes puzzles and I like to piece things together so eventually I did become a little suspicious. It’s funny that AJ pointed out how it was odd that the men continued to follow Cacciato despite the fact that it meant they were too going AWOL on the war that was still going on just to capture one deserter, even though he wasn’t in class because I remember that point being brought up as something that raised our suspicions to the falseness of the story. Because I never actually figured out before reading it that chasing after Cacciato was just a figment of Berlin’s imagination, one thing did get to me when I was trying to piece together the puzzle as to what was actually going on in the story and that was the Observation Post. I understood that it was a place where the men stayed overnight and that Berlin was on patrol most of the time, but I didn’t get where it fit in with the book. Everything else fit in whether it was Berlin’s past or present, but I couldn’t piece in the Post. Was it just one night in the chase of Cacciato or many and what exactly were they doing on that one random post. It was actually the end, and a little talking in class on Friday, that made the Observation Post a lot more clear to me. This must have been the place where Paul Berlin made up the chase. It didn’t fit in going after Cacciato because it wasn’t actually part of it at all but just the place where the story was fabricated. The Observation Post was a part of the real war and a place where Berlin made a better alternative for himself. I agree with Kara that the whole thing was a way for Paul to escape his fear and I believe his thoughts at the Observation Post did just that for him.
ReplyDeleteAndrew I agree with you in that the group uses Cacciato as an excuse to escape the war. And to explain the fantasy versus reality, Berlin (like most soldiers) obviously is not suited for the war. The imagined journey to Paris is his coping mechanism to deal with his unsuitability to and the horrors of war. Just the fact that they are escaping the war and heading to Paris (think of all the treaties) establishes the absurdity of war. The imagined journey and the Vietnam War are not so different: they are both seemingly impossible to conquer. With their equipment it would be impossible to reach Paris. This is related to the soldiers’ unsuitability to their task in Vietnam. They can not even differentiate their enemy (the Vietcong) from innocent civilians, let alone traverse the Vietnamese jungles. Berlin struggles with his duties as a soldier, which is noted in his desire to one day return to Vietnam with a translator to explain his actions. When we learn all this and about how Berlin was drafted into service, we realize that O’Brien is trying to comment on the inner conflict a person experiences between their responsibility to their nation and their own natural rights (think about the division between W. & E. Berlin in reference to Paul’s stance). He specifically explores this in Sarkin Aung Wan and Berlin’s speeches (pages 317-21). In the speeches (or speech, considering Aung Wan is a figment of Berlin’s imagination), Berlin states that he feels obliged to carry out his war duties over his pursuit of happiness, despite his desire to be free from war. He does this due to his fear of losing his rights and reputation if he goes AWOL and the probability of being exiled from his society. Although Berlin constantly states and exemplifies his lack of courage and believes he is a bad soldier, it is his fear that drives him to carry out his duties (see the last Observation Post). Adversely, Cacciato has no fears and goes AWOL in pursuit of his natural rights, and we are left to believe as a reader that he fails in his journey. Through all of this O’Brien creates an image of the trap that Americans encountered in the draft. By touching upon all the soldiers who injured themselves to escape the war and suggesting a similar feeling among all of the soldiers (even the LT in the last chapter) to escape the war, O’Brien successfully states his view on the actual war. No, not the one in Vietnam, but the one within the soldiers who are manipulated by there governments into carrying out immoral acts, and whose refusal to accept their duties results in imprisonment. (I heard once that soldiers refusing to fight in WWI were shot by their superior officers but I don’t know if this occurred in Vietnam. Anyone know?)
ReplyDeleteI found this book very easy to read and very easy to get into, but not entirely easy to understand. Before I read the book, I read the back cover, which lets you in on the detail that reality and fantasy are skewed in this novel. I knew that while reading this book I would be stressing over trying to figure out what’s real and what is imagined, so I took a different approach to it. Like I said and wrote about in class, I looked at every event in the book and saw it as reality and figured that something at the end would show what was real and what wasn’t, which it did. However, there is still some confusion, which was mostly brought up in class with everyone’s different take on the book. Edan said in class that he thought Paul Berlin was dreaming or dozing off in the observation tower and that’s when he dreamed the journey on the road to Paris. I think this is a good theory and I also think that the sequence of the chapters can support this theory because you can look it like every time the chapters go from the observation post to another chapter, its Paul Berlin dreaming or also reminiscing about the past. But I also think that this theory posts a lot of questions. If he imagined the journey when he was in the observation post, then what happened when he woke up on the hill? That’s why I’m a bit hesitant to jump on the theory. I think that following Cacciato to Paris was imagined when Paul Berlin was overtaken by his fear when he was shooting at Cacciato, and that was the hinge between what was real and was imagined, as said in class. Then you have to ask yourself, what role does the observation post play in this theory? And that’s where I’m stuck. Hopefully in class people can give more insight and we can all puzzle this out.
ReplyDeleteReading the book Going After Cacciato was like reading a pro longed dream. At first the plot line seemed to be realistic as Paul Berlin and his squad is assigned to go after Cacciato, a cheerful deserter who teases them throughout the journey always being just out of reach. As the book progresses through the book, the reader is quickly swept back and forth between the journey to Paris and the observation post. I soon realized that the observation post was used as a view point into reality as Paul Berlin whipped up this fantasy to himself to pass the time of his watch at a coastal military installation of some kind. The most bizarre part of the book to me was when Paul’s squad was walking on a road and then suddenly falling into the Earth and finding themselves prisoners in a underground tunnel complex that I’m assuming is meant to reflect the tunnels made by the VC during the Vietnam war. And then they crawl through these tunnels and somehow end up in Mandalay? Many issues are bought up in the book as well. For example is it worth following orders if you know those orders will get people killed like when the LT ordered Frenchie to search a man hole and gets him killed and then gets Bernie killed trying to retrieve Frenchie’s body. Personally I didn’t like the book at all. It was way too surreal for me. It was frustrating to dart between the journey to Paris then going to Paul Berlin’s war experiences and then going back to the observation post.
ReplyDeleteMy theory kind of goes along with most of these previous explanations. I think that externally, the entire story, from the end of the first chapter on, takes place on the observation post. Berlin is keeping watch, and reaching such a stupor that he keeps nodding into and out of reality. He starts to relive his memories of the war, unknowingly create a resolution to the hunt for Cacciato, then snap back to the watchpost. Basically what I'm saying is that most of the book is either memories or imagination. One of his biggest battles is dealing with the guilt of leaving war. He has two sides: soldier Paul Berlin, and human Paul Berlin. I think that Sarkin Aung Wan is directly Berlin's subconscious. She directly contradicts soldier Paul, looking at the war from an altruistic perspective. One of the chapters even has the two deliver their parts of the situation in a courtroom style debate. For me, the two moments that most clearly hinted at a dream, were the breakout from prison in Tehran, and that debate towards the end. Berlin shoots at Cacciato at the end, gets shot himself and wakes up near the observation post the next morning. One, thing that interests me is how the other characters are introduced (through both memories and his imagination). It may be important to keep in mind that the characters are Berlin's impressions of their real-life selves, so it may be fun to compare them between reality, his memories, and his dream.
ReplyDeleteAndrew and Sean I totally agree that Cacciato is used as a scapegoat or some way of getting away from war itself. We can see this idea between reality and fantasy from how the journey is imagined as a way to escape the horror and misfortunes of war. This contrast of real and imagination is found in many places. Tim O’Brien uses characters and the structure of the book to show a greater difference between experience and fantasy. The ending of the book gives a reality check by showing the difference between the “Observation Post” and “The End of the Road to Paris”. I find that it was all somewhat a dream or a fantasy of Paul Berlin’s created from his imagination. Throughout the book we see in the way it is set up, the contrast between the reality/experience chapters (Observation Tower) and the fantasy/journey chapters (Going After Cacciato). The experience almost sometimes sets up or creates a story for the following fantasy chapter. We also see the contrast in reality vs fantasy in the conflicting characters of Doc vs Paul Berlin and Lieutenant Corson vs Sidney Martin. Doc is a realist while Paul is attracted to fantasy and imagines the journey to escape reality. Corson is old with experience and has seen the reality of war while Sidney Martin is new and young. We are hit with the reality that Paul Berlin is a daydreamer and his imagination has created this better place to be than war. He shows this optimism of being able to chase after Cacciato wanting it to never end. This hope or this stretch to get away from war is then brought back to reality to only be opened up wide again. The book takes us down a sometimes ridiculous journey that stretch reality wide open but then we find out that they are really back to the events in the first chapter and reality is compacted again easier for us to understand for we can throw he following aside as a dream. But the book does not end at all with narrow understanding but is almost instantaneously opened up with an even wider understanding of reality and fantasy. We are left with the fate of Cacciato unanswered and the question: Does Cacciato make it to Paris? Is this left open as the optimism and hope of getting to Paris that we see from Paul Berlin or is it left as reality that only a fool would even try to make that journey. We have to really look into what the imagination tells us about reality. I think in this book it shows that many times we get a better idea of reality from the creation of fantasy than we do from reality itself.
ReplyDeleteKelly Benson
ReplyDeleteLike we mentioned in class on Friday, the whole book seemed to be a little to unusual to be real. I was following along in the book fairly well until the part where they fell into a mysterious crack in the earth, and like we said, it felt like a piece of Alice in Wonderland. From that point forward I was very skeptical in what was real and what was imagination, and jokes on me because the whole thing was imagination. Now the way that the story was written gave this certain vibe to me that made me think the author had experienced a little too much war. The Vietnam war was the worst war in history for the troops returning home, they were mentally messed up from watching their troop mates blown to pieces be a road side bomb. So to understand that Tim O’Brien himself had been a troop once made me think; maybe he saw something that can’t be unseen and it has played with his mind. Now where I saw his effects of war portrayed in the book would be all of the Observation Post chapters and the encounter with the buffalo. Where the Observation Post chapters talked about training, preparing and the first days of war, the part where Stink Harris takes down the buffalo is a very distinctive memory. In the book, Stink went crazy shooting at the buffalo multiple times and wouldn’t stop until his outburst was through, which was an indication that he’s been cooped up over in Vietnam for too long and saw too many deaths that he had to find a way to let it all out. Maybe Tim O’Brien had the same thing happen to him, where he lost it all and took his bottled up pressure and let it out on something innocent. So what I liked in this book was the imaginative part and the somewhat surreal part. Because like Mr. Cook said, no writer just writes unless they can relate.
Tom M.
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Looking at the ending of “Going After Cacciato”, it’s hard to understand what was actual reality and what was made-up fantasy. Throughout the entire book, the lines between what is real and what is not seemed to blur on multiple occasions. While the book itself was easy to read, I found myself asking myself what this book was about and what was even going on a myriad of times. Did Cacciato ever make it to Paris? Was he ever gone? Did Paul Berin and the others even chase him or capture him or fail in doing so? When we talked about our “Alice in Wonderland” theory in class, as Kelly pointed out, I have to agree that fantasy and wonder play a major role in this novel. As I pointed out to myself while writing notes in class, there are different types of “crazy” after dealing with war. For crazy is as sane and “normal” as anything else is, therefore you can be “crazy” in any route you take. After battling in war, you can be either a military fanatic, or one who walks away from all things battlefield altogether, or completely and utterly mentally incompetent. I feel like Cacciato is more of the latter. It’s hard to understand, especially during the ending if the journey to Paris is a dream, a story, or an actual occurrence. And is the whole story in Cacciato’s mind, or Paul, or someone else? Many aspects come in to play, leaving it up to the reader to take their own interpretation. The Observation Deck and the Paris chapters especially proved this. Going back to the “Alice in Wonderland” theory, it’s hard to believe that what was actually happening to the men in the novel actually occurred, sometimes the events seemed too unrealistic, too dream-like to be true. However, maybe the fantasy aspects lied only within the mind of Paul Berlin or Cacciato, or any other specific characters, leaving the rest of the story as reality and the fantasy elements to be purely of the narrator’s subconscious. It’s a thought. I’m still confused, but I’m okay with it. Sometimes you can’t analyze everything to understand something, you just have to take it as it is and deal with it, and that’s what I’m doing with the somewhat perplexing ending of “Going After Cacciato”.
In finishing this book I would have to say that though it was quite confusing at times, it was an interesting read. I often had trouble understanding the multiple plots and the different events that were going on throughout but many of my predictions I made as I read, were answered when I got to the end. When we were first introduced to Sarkin, from the beginning she seemed peculiar or unrealistic to me. That being said, my first thoughts of her being a part of Paul’s imagination world set in. From there I continued to second guess the character Sarkin for she remained to me, ambiguous. When I finally made it to the end of the novel Tim O’Brien informed the reader that yes, Sarkin was a part of Paul’s imagination world. And from there I think that it is up to the reader to decide or infer why O’Brien choose to do that. Well, I think that O’Brien creates an imaginary world through Paul to show how Paul deals with or copes with the war. After all, they are in the midst of the Vietnam War. Paul made up his own plot and setting while at war as his way to get away from the harsh factors the wars brings. However, I don’t find it abnormal for him to do something like this. I’d say it’s almost expected of one to conjure up more of an ideal take on a situation ot a more desired and wanted take.
ReplyDelete*Key Point* -- Creating an imaginary world involving Sarkin was Paul’s way to cope with the war. :)
For me I understood the book rather quickly realizing the sitting first and, by maybe page 50 or so I realized that the “Going After Cacciato” parts was actually a daydream (that took place at night). To be honest I feel like the layout of the book, with flashbacks and all was pretty simple, and I was surprised that people didn’t understand tat. (I apologize if that sounds arrogant or condescending, that is not what I intended). Here is how I have interpreted the novel:
ReplyDeleteObservation Tower: The “present”
First Chapter/Last Chapter: True Story of Chasing Cacciato
Chapters of Deaths/Realistic War Stories: Memories
The Rest: Made up daydream of Chasing
What I think gave me an edge in understanding the book was my knowledge of the Vietnam War. It has been a topic of interest of me for years, and I am a bit of an expert on it and war itself. It was bugging me how inaccurate the chase for Cacciato was, especially coming from an author who was in Vietnam himself, then it clicked.
I enjoyed the novel and I think that the goal of it was to talk about the subconscious willing to do something, and the rational minds response, weather it be an excuse (like chasing a guy to Paris) to explain an action that is otherwise unacceptable. What intrigued me is the way O’Brian passed along the inevitable meaning that a book like this carries. Why have a guy standing in an Observation Tower dreaming up a story?
After finishing Going After Cacciato, I was able to see that the book was more like a giant puzzle than anything else. There was 3 stories or threads that were weaved through the book, making up the whole story. At times the book was difficult to understand but by the end of the book all the pieces came together allowing me to understand the whole story. At the end of the book, we learn that the whole journey to Paris was not real, just part of Paul’s imagination, something he used to amuse himself and pass his time as he watched on the observation deck. For him he needed this story to be real, it kept him going. Paris needed to be a possibility for him because the war was so awful and routine, Paris allowed him to imagine something much better. While the ending should have been shocking, that fact that the journey to Paris was not real did not surprise me. Tim O’Brien used hints throughout the book to allude that the journey to Paris might not be real. One instance of this in particular is on pg 125, Paul Berlin is alluding to the fact that he knows people will be skeptic about his story, but then he is coming up with accuses to explain how they pulled it off. He says “Sure there would be skeptics, But he would explain. Carefully, point by point, he would show how these were pretty details (O’Brien 125).” Overall I thought this book was very good and figuring out the pieces of the puzzle were the key to understanding its meaning.
ReplyDeleteJosiah B
ReplyDeleteGoing After Cacciato
After reading and then discussing the text in class earlier today, I realize that I have many questions that are unanswered. When does reality stop and imagination/dreaming begin? When is the distinction made between imagination and dreaming? Is Cacciato alive or dead? In the grand scheme of things, does that even matter? What do each character’s actions in Paul’s dreamscape/imagination mean about their personality or actions in real life? I listened to theories during our discussion, and I liked a lot of the ideas that were presented during it. Still, I need to read the book again, page through it rather, and clear up the parts that are hazy, and parts that I did not fully understand the first time.
What I did pull from the book is that Paul’s struggles in his life back home dictate many of his actions during the war, as well as during his bouts of imaginative fantasy. His self-imposed guilt about not living up to his father’s expectations is apparent, and he often revisits this when pondering a tough decision. Touching upon the subject of decisions, the soldiers as a group are quite dysfunctional, and are not able to decide upon anything unanimously; there are those who assert themselves and take control, and there are others who just follow along like sheep, taking orders as they come. They are described multiple times as childlike, and often fight among themselves; these scenes reminded me of elementary school. This is all a very simplistic view of the text, the reason being that I need to answer the aforementioned questions before I can assume a credible position about the meanings of metaphors and symbols and whathaveyou.
The first time reading this book, my impressions were as follows:
ReplyDeleteIt is as though Berlin uses Cacciato, who by leaving reality, as it were, allows Berlin to make sense of his current situation through possibilities in the chase. Time and time again, what comes up is that he can never seem to escape the reality of expectations (by which I mean imposed obligations as well as preferred paths in life). Yet Cacciato was there to break them out each time—a sort of get-out-of-jail-free card—until the end.
My chosen method for reading the book was just to keep in mind that not everything was literal, and to let it sort itself out. I got the gist of it as I was reading through, which allowed me to sort the stories out. However, I think this was a weakness in my method that I did not allow the stories to blend. What is “real” in the novel, Berlin’s memories, clearly did not allow for him to get the answers he needed, thus he processes it in an “extension of reality.” The chapter names, in similarities, should have told me this. (e.g. “A Hole in the Road to Paris” and the subsequent/[yet]preceding “Fire in the Hole”). For this reason, I have taken to reading the book through once more, and most of the way though now, I think I’m profiting from doing so. But again to my first impressions:
Sarkin Aung Wan bothered me in a way until I began to see her as a force of tension within Berlin himself, to accompany the pressures and ideas embodied by the other characters and situations in the “Road To” sequence. It is as though Sarkin urges Berlin to abandon reality in a sense (by saying she’s through with putting off possibilities,) and yet, I did not understand her to represent his tendency to dream. She was a factor in his dreaming/questioning/exploring that eventually came to direct confrontation (which rise I would like to explore [when is she no longer “too young” for him?]). On another point, Sarkin thinks his name is “Spec Four.” He gained promotion to this level by answering questions in ways such as that the purpose was to win, and that Ho Chi Minh’s death would “reduce the population by one.” When does Berlin become okay with this? Isn’t Sarkin a means for him to reconcile with the fact that he as a soldier was so distant from the villagers (such as the girl also with hoop earrings). What is so important about Sarkin smelling like incense and soap? I intend to explore more the idea of Xa and being a refugee.
Kelly mentioned in class that Berlin hardly says anything, which I would relate to his being an observer, as his dad told him to be.
. . .and (for now)I'm out of time.
ReplyDeleteJacklyn L.
ReplyDeleteF Block
In the of the book Cacciato is gone captured or not is unsure, a possibility of either. It is a possibility because Paul needs possibility. Paul wakes up Paris, everything was a dream, one of the hundreds of possibilities going through his head. Going back to sleep, to lay back down is to find a new possibility. Cacciato is still gone, out there somewhere and when everyone lays back down in their hole they are back on the road to Paris. They leave “Paris” in the end by marching, coming home to back in their holes a trap that they cannot escape. Even by Paul who has so many possibilities running through his head. In the end Paul seems to have only been able to discover himself in his head, but in the real world he is still as lost and confused as ever. He has to some extent though lost and confused has become a somewhat more confident person through this journey of the mind. Everyone though has seemed to developed and changed through Paul’s “journey” and he seems to have a better understanding of his fellow men of war. In the end it seems Paul and the others getting out of Vietnam are just one of the vast possibilities in Paul’s mind.
I got to this understanding because at the end when they were back in their holes I started to look closer. The Earth falling in was a shattering of some of Paul’s dream, to many characters to maintain the realness of such a dream. Also because the guy who had tried to escape the police by swimming away had so quickly and randomly returned. They also were able to get to so many places without passports, some sweet talk, and they were also carrying numerous weapons on their person at all times. This was unreal, unfathomable really because a reader could clearly see that they were they were AWOL, yet only once were they were they truly contained. It was unrealistic only being able to happen in someone’s head. A war story that no one would ever believe.
I believe that Sarkin Aung Wan is the representation of the Vietnamese in Paul’s head. This is because he had once said that he wished there was a way that they could understand that he did not want to kill either and that he did not want this war. Therefore by creating this woman he would be able to tell her his thoughts and convey his feelings so that it was like he was reaching the whole Vietnamese race. Talking to Elizabeth she had said that the other people on the journey were other representations of Paul. That each person represented a different part of Paul that he wanted to make stronger or perfect. Therefore in a sense doc Peret would be his wisdom and superstitious side a side that was needed, but not one that he should listen to very often. Stink Harris would represent his “hard” and “quirky” personality while only putting on a mask because in the end he was truly terrified. Cacciato would be his need and willingness to escape everything yet unlike him he does not have the guts to act on it.
One part that really irked me was the telephone part. I do not understand why the author wrote it that everyone would get to talk to their family, but Paul. Was it to be symbolic of Paul’s utter loneliness in the war? Was it also symbolic to the that he could not connect to anyone in the war and yet by joining he could no longer connect to anyone outside of the war?
Jackie, where were you? Caroline was (deservedly) hitting me, and I wasn't able to pass it on. What I'm thinking about the other people as Paul imagines them is that they are more ways he can find solutions and rationalize what the war has been like for him. Everything that they do in the story apart from the history of the story comes from his mind, but it is a confused or frustrated mind, and one that may be more-so moving around given pieces to a given puzzle, trying to get a desired picture, than a mind represented fully by way of parts. So what I mean by different parts of Paul, I mean more different things he deals with/ways he deals with them.
ReplyDeleteThe new background for the blog is really intimidating. It doesn't say Cacciato. It says scary bunker.
ReplyDeleteA Block (aka the better block ;) )
ReplyDeleteI also wasn't in school Friday and I'm definitely bummed out to say that I missed out on another undoubtedly wonderful discussion! :( So, with no further ado, here is my take on the ending.Personally, as a little kid I hated Alice in Wonderland. Then I grew up a little and I truly was able to appreciate the story and uniqueness of such a tale. Turns out, my favorite was the Cheshire Cat. O'Brian did a wonderful job weaving this story much like that of Alice's. Possibilities hidden within a world that only one person knows about.
I agree that this book was a pretty easy read and it was very easy to get into...I hate to say that I may have failed an anatomy test because I read for a little too long...but anyway, I think one of the things that intrigued me the most was the dynamics of the writing. In music you have crescendo and decrescendo (louder and softer) and in this book it is much the same. There is an ebb and flow to Berlin's mind that captures your attention and when you're almost bored enough to drop the book, he recaptures you. Something that I noticed getting closer to the end of the book was the way Sarkin Aung Wan keeps saying that Paul is full of probabilities. Unending probabilities. Closely following this comments she tries to get him to be irrational. It is as though his subconscious is convincing itself to be just that:irrational. This builds and builds until it reaches the climax at the abandoned hotel in Paris. Berlin wakes up next to a camp fire in Vietnam. Where it all began. Much like Alice when you think about it...except excerpt out the gender switch, camo and such and there you go. A modern Alice in Wonderland.
I was actually thinking about it more, and it's really kind of funny how Sarkin Aung Wan is the rabbit: she leads them out of the tunnels and into civilization and such. The Mad Hatter is LT: he is a little loopy to start with and Alice's arrival and adventures don't really help with any of that. And so on and so forth. I don't know if it was a deliberate thing that O'Brian tried to do, or if it was just coincidence.
I thought the ending was a little to quick for me. I spent three hundred pages getting into the book and figuring out that it was just Paul Berlin 'exploring possibilities' (which he's really good at) and then it's over. I would have liked more I suppose...the book was wonderfully and carefully orchestrated; interweaving stories and then beginning new threads within those stories. The end seemed a little too neat and tidy for me. There's tying up loose ends, and then there's just cutting them.
I really likes this book and it's interesting use of fantasy and imagination and it's relationship to truth. Throughout the course of the book, starting when the men fall through the ditch into the tunnels, it becomes obviously complete fantasy. The entire time I questioned, knowing the events were not real, how much truth there was in what was happening. At the end of the book the climactic moment is the sudden shift from Cacciato's room in the fantastical paris to the more real (but no less significant) camp in the mountains back in Vietnam. Paul, under a sudden instinctive and passionate impulse, shoots at Cacciato mindlessly. At this point the book snaps back to "reality" rather than the imagined world of Paul Berlin's mind in which much of the events of the book have taken place. You are led to wonder if the whole trip to Paris was actually a mechanism which Paul used to justify the senseless shooting. I think in many ways, as Kara said, the ending is meant to be left open to interperetation by the reader. It forces you to ask questions. When did Paul create this mission to Paris? Is Cacciato dead? and of course, Is it possible for a man to walk to Paris?
ReplyDeleteI happen to like the background. A cool industrial bridge...nice
ReplyDelete"Over the next week they destroyed twelve tunnels. They killed a water buffalo. They burned hootches and shot chickens and trampled paddies and tore up fences and dumped dirt into wells and provoked madness. But they could not drive the enemy into showing himself, and the silence was exhausting." (page 105).
ReplyDeleteI found this while going through the book, and thought that it was pertinent to our discussion Friday in F block. For a little context, this was during a "lull" in the war, when the squad is basically just going place to place playing basketball and blowing things up. Tensions between the squad members seem highest at this point. They eventually head for a village which Buff says is a bad place he had been before. I only mention this because this is one of about two chapters where Buff gets more than a mention. Concerning his death, the other soldiers are relieved that they didn't die,Buff's face makes Berlin think about life after death, and Cacciato (chocolate smeared on his face) goes down to bring up the helmet after emptying it of Buff's face.
In dreams and the semi-conscious, it's mainly association--not fact--that intermingle. (citation needed!). Therefore I think it valid to draw connections between Buff's death and the Buffalos' (yes, that's plural). Looking into it, though, the direction to go with the similar events may not be fastidiously finding all the facts which line up (though I thought I'd give it a try), but observing the effect that each has on Berlin.
Ellie, the background is a little less creepy if you look at the original, and Paige, I thought for a split second that you were talking about your little sister. Grant: if you do the time correction on your post, change March for M, disregard the zero and the letter right after its doppelganger, the timestamp is a palindrome.
Frizzy, i dont know what caused you to discover that, but you are right, and it is cool
ReplyDeleteand happy pi day when you wrote that, especially seven hours and fifty-eight minutes before East Coast time.
ReplyDeleteI really enjoyed Going After Cacciato becaise it was the epitome of a historical fiction novel that i would be interested in. O'Brien incorporated factual historical details with psychology and the pain of war, as well as a deeper meaning and underlying twist. The book managed to keep my interest entirely through because of this.
ReplyDeleteThe question that come up in many other people's blogs was, "Where is the line between fantasy and reality?" At different points in the book it was obvious or very difficult to determine whether or not Paul Berlin was fantasizing or if what was said was reality. Paul uses his imagination in order to escape from the harsh reality of the war while he is at the 'observation post'. His imagination does run a little bit wild because if i was going to be fantasizing during a war, it would probably be about my friends and family back home, to get me through the painful times of war. However, Paul's fantasies are about the war itself and made up senarios of the war, which shows that he may have lost some of himself to the war and is trying to regain that part back and deal with his pain.
I noticed that control was a really major theme throughout the novel. The control necessary to be in the war is huge. To be able to control your emotions to the situation around you is a major necessity in being a soldier. Paul uses his fantasies to control the situations around him, althought most of his fantasies are a display of loss of control. I am not sure whether or not this happened during a fantasy or reality, (Although I am almost possitive that it happened in reality) Paul loses control of his bladder when he comes face to face with Cacciato in the begining. Another example of loss of control is when the soldiers kill their commandr when he tries to make them continue searching the tunnels, even after the deaths of other soldiers when they were searching dangerous tunnels. Paul uses his fantasies of disorder and order to regain control over his emotions and help him deal with his past, and with the horrible events that he witnesses during the war.