In Going After Cacciato, the audience really begins to understand what Vonnegut was perhaps trying to achieve with his innovative novel, Slaughterhouse Five. I believe O’Brien’s style was more effective, however. O’Brien’s story line reminds me much of the TV show Lost. On the show, Lost, there is a linear sequence of events, and throughout the show, different characters have flashbacks, which clue the audience in to aspects of different characters’ lives and beliefs that currently make up who they are on the island, upon which they are stranded. Many times the characters, and the viewers are confused between what is real and what is fantasy.
Going After Cacciato fits the format of the show well. We tend to see flashbacks -- or flash forwards, depending on how you view it—of the lives of Paul Berlin’s squad during the Vietnam War. And, similar to Lost, the reader has a difficult time understanding what is real. Even though the novel jumps around quite frequently, Tim O’Brien leads the reader on the journey with the characters he has developed. He does this in a way so that the new experiences, which are introduced through flashbacks (or flash forwards), are not fleeting from the minds of the reader seconds after the moment disappears from the story’s plot. While the story continues on in a linear fashion, after the flashback occurs, the experiences we get clued in on continue to develop the plot of the story and sometime help explain a character’s action. This differs from Vonnegut’s Slaughterhouse because in that story, the reader has to do all the work, and figure out the connections. Fleeting moments in Vonnegut’s story don’t necessarily impact the plot of the novel directly after they are mentioned.
For this reason, I find Going After Cacciato to be a more compelling story. There is still mystery and there are still connections that I must make on my own, but random events don’t just seem to appear. Everything O’Brien writes has some relevance to the plot at that moment in the story. Further, O’Brien’s style - with use of language and descriptive imagery - makes his story, and the experiences woven in to it, much more cohesive and powerful as one uniform plot, versus going off on seemingly unrelated tangents, like Vonnegut.
Which story do you like better? Do you prefer Vonnegut or O'Brien's style of story telling?
7 comments:
Since this is the last post, you should know that i have thoroughly enjoyed all of your postings. They never fail to entertain and interest me.
Your question at the end is pretty difficult for me... i like both really well so it's hard to choose. On the one hand i like Vonnegut's back and forth style, but it can get annoying when we're trying to actually analyze the book. O'Brien's is easier to follow and analyze but slightly less fun. i like the books equally well, but in terms of analyzing them and reading them in class, O'Brien's works better for me.
I have to disagree in your assessment of Slaughterhouse-Five. The reader doesn't really have to do that much. The story very much so follows the same type of format that Cacciato does. The main difference is that Cacciato is told by a sane person while Slaughterhouse is told from the point of view of somebody who is mentally unstable. Billy's "time travel" is just flash backs (and flash forwards), the only difference is his crazy self makes it sound like something else.
Slaughterhouse Five is structured like this for a reason. The entire idea of the story is to give an anti-war position. While it seems random, the tangents all prove Vonnegut's points regarding things like free will, PTSD, and other points his novel makes. The tangents are there for a reason.
As far as style, I completely agree with you. O'Brien is an incredible writer when it comes to painting a picture. His other book, The Things They Carried, was very similar in the way he described images and events. There is no doubt he is a great writer.
I have seen a few episodes of LOST and understand the relation you make between the show and this book. The idea of a dream or imaginary world is consistent in both of these works and serves as a tool to further develop characters and plot. I think LOST is a more apprpriate format for this dream world concept, because it is a long TV series that has and will have multiple seasons and episodes. When I watch one episode of LOST, the entire episode focuses on one small detail of the larger storyline. It takes many episodes to fully develop a concept. Of course they want to drag on the show for ratings, but I still feel it makes sense. Going After Cacciato is a fairly short book that covers a range of ideas and perspectives. For this reason I find it somewhat confusing and difficult to follow. Just the idea of a dream world could serve as a book of its own and be a good read. I think the book almost has too much to offer and needs more time to develop. I still enjoyed the book, but this was just my opinion.
I think it's a little too hard to compare them myself. Vonnegut's writing style leaves room for a little more interpretation in my opinion, letting the reading discover more themselves, while O'Brien gives the reader something easier to read and allows for more understanding. Both are great.
I prefer Vonnegut's style of storytelling. Why - because with O'Brien you aren't sure what is abstract or what is fantasy/reality. With Vonnegut it was extremely clear when he starts talking about aliens he made up in his mine with a complicated name: Tralfamadorian. Billy Pilgrim in Slaughterhouse-Five escapes from his trauma after the war is over quite succesfully. I just feel that vonnegut was much more entertaining and abstract the O'Brien is.
Scotty, I preferred Slaughter-house Five in terms of an anti-war novel. I feel it is a better and more effective in attempting to relate to a war vet. The constant motion and lack of linearity is key I feel to describing how a war veteran experiences life after war. Not only does Vonnegut make things completely out of order for the reader, he shows how out of order it is for the veteran as well.
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