I just got in the mail from him two books: Graham Greene’s Journey Without Maps and Tim O’Brien’s Going After Cacciato.
The Greene is wonderfully gloomy. Mr. G heads off to Liberia in the late thirties and wallows in the horrors of colonialism. Not only are things completely fucked-up, but reading it now I know how much worse they got. All of the gloom is worth it, though, for his prose.
Going After Cacciato is a wonderful novel that I read when it came out. I haven’t had my own copy (I read my dad’s) and hadn’t re-read it since, although I have recommended it to others. It’s a picaresque journey/magic realist fantasy set during the Vietnam war, but that doesn’t do it justice at all.
Thanks Nat! That was really cool of you!
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I haven’t read Going After Cacciato, but The Things They Carried was excellent.
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I haven’t read that Greene book but have wanted it for quite a while. I will now go after it on ABE, thanks for the tip!
I am interested in Tim O’Brien ever since my Mom read The Things They Carried and forwarded it along to me. How lame of me to never read anything else by him.
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