Going after Cacciato 831“realities.” While the novel seems to begin at the
level of Paul Berlin’s actual experience in Vietnam,
by the end of the first chapter, as the men begin
their hunt for Cacciato, the imaginings—Berlin’s
“working out of the possibilities”—take over half of
the narrative. Berlin’s ideas and dreams are clearly
linked to his desire to escape the brutalities of war.
In addition, though, the narrative structure of both
the story about Berlin in Vietnam, leading up to
Cacciato’s escape, and the story of the chase told
through Berlin’s imaginings, consistently avoids a
single event. Both narratives circle around a gap
in the story that holds the novel’s most disturbing
truth: the persistence of guilt.
The very first clues to the split between real
and imagined narratives in the work may be the
confusing chronology. The chronology—the order
in which the events are told as compared to when
they actually occur—also points the reader toward
Berlin’s guilt. Paul Berlin is fixated on the general
“bad time.” He sits in the observation post sometime
in November and tries to make sense of all that has
happened. “The order of things—chronologies—
that was the hard part” for Berlin, and it is also the
key to the darkest moment of the novel. His mem-
ory takes the reader from June up until a moment
in October when Cacciato . . . escapes? Dies? At the
same time, his imagination carries the narrative on
another arc beginning in Vietnam in October and
ending in Paris. Despite the flashbacks, reported
memories, and imaginings taking place at various
points throughout, the narrative never settles on key
moments in “Lake Country,” which may be the key
moments of guilt. Both narratives consistently avoid
the death of Lieutenant Sidney Martin and the pos-
sible fate of Cacciato.
The central importance of Cacciato himself is
the key to Berlin’s feelings of guilt in the story. From
the start, characters wonder why Cacciato decided to
leave the war, and they wonder why he leaves clues
along the trail so that the men can follow. The reader
could also ask, why the focus on this particular sol-
dier? It is not until near the end of the novel, as the
narrative recounting the early days in the war creeps
toward October, that the reader finds out that Cac-
ciato is the only soldier who avoids taking part in
the killing of Lieutenant Martin. It is the moment
in the Lake Country that the story has been avoid-
ing. Cacciato refuses to touch the rifle being passed
around, signifying that he is not going to take part in
the murder and that he is not agreeing to keep silent.
Cacciato, for Paul Berlin, is the embodiment of his
general and specific feelings of guilt.
The narrative also circles around Berlin’s almost
instinctual response to Cacciato. Berlin yells “go” as
Cacciato takes off alone into the hills of Vietnam.
Later, Berlin remembers surrounding Cacciato on
the grassy hill and as the men move in, he shouts
“go” and “that was the end of it. The last known
fact.” In an imagined Paris, Berlin screams “go” again
as the men storm Cacciato’s hotel room, and the
scene ends in violence and confusion, with Berlin
wondering “what had gone wrong.” Berlin’s deepest
guilt is not only the general horror of war, or the
killing of Lieutenant Martin, but the possible killing
of conscience itself, the possible murder of Cacciato.
The gap in the narratives within Going after
Cacciato are not only blank spaces in the telling of
the story but are actual physical holes that in turn
symbolize the guilt felt by Paul Berlin. These are
the tunnels that the men must search for enemy
soldiers, the hole where Lieutenant Martin dies, the
hole the platoon falls through on their way to Paris.
These haunt Berlin. Deep in the hole on the road to
Paris, he views the surface through a periscope and
sees soldiers clustered around a tunnel—perhaps
a view into the past of the killing of Lieutenant
Martin. Berlin cannot get away from the scene of
his guilt. At the same time, he learns that “things
may be viewed from many angles. From down below,
or from inside out, you often discover entirely new
understandings.” While the novel constantly jumps
around the guilt in the story, and Paul Berlin tries
to imagine other possibilities instead of the brutal
truth, the real and imagined stories of Going after
Cacciato represent an attempt, despite or because
of guilt, to view the darkest events from different
angles.
Brian ChanenHeroISm in Going after Cacciato
Going after Cacciato is a dreamlike novel that man-
ages to capture some of the everyday brutalities of
war. While much of the story takes place in the