Books : Catch-22

Rating: - Like MASH, except if every character was Klinger
In my quest to read every "classic" work in history (seriously) I came across this supposed great work by Heller.

I always wonder what I am missing when the jacket calls the contents "hilarious" and hundreds of pages in, I have failed to ever crack a smile.

It's the type of novel (like Ulysses) that I truly believe most people "like" because they think they should, rather than based on it's actual contents.

It's absurd, fine. And??? The characters are relentlessly stupid and I never felt, for a second, like I would ever want to have to do with them.

Yossarian dumps his bombs willy nilly (of course, nobody ever questions that he might be dropping them on civilians or that the bombers might have to go back to do the job he failed to, and thus present more risk to his fellow Americans) and sticks around sick bay. What a guy.

Bah!

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Rating: - Best Book I Ever Read
Catch-22 is a jarring, thrilling, hysterical exposition of the oppression and dominance which pervades lives and lifestyles in the modern era. Full of classic dialogue, superb characters, wonderfully narrated, Catch-22 may be the best book ever written. A heartbreaking achievement of staggering genius!

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Rating: - Lost in time
Full of sarcasm, ridiculously funny, with wonderful prose interspersed. I am sure it was unique and shocking for its day but I believe it to be overrated and does not stand the test of time. He makes use of the dictionary, so keep one handy, and the ranting dialog gets to be too much. What Heller did was to spawn others to do the same, such as the novel "Castle Keep", which was better, and the movies Mash and Kelly's Heroes.

The protagonist, and antagonist is a W.W.II bombardier who finds himself at the breaking point. Along with bombing missions his other mission is to find a way out of the war. It doesn't help that the Generals keep adding more missions onto the squadron's quota. We find our way into the hospital quite often through this read. The characters are unordinary, finding any way they can to divert and diverge themselves from the war; we discover entrepreneurs, maniacs, ridicule, capitalists, ineptness........ but rarely normalcy.

Wish you well
Scott

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Rating: - Most Brilliant Satire
Heller uses the most brilliant satire as he pens the story of Yossarian and his comrades, and their fight for survival in the midst of war and death. Sarcasm drips off every page, which makes the book a bit slow at times, but thoroughly humorous and enjoyable. And....what an ending!

If you love M*A*S*H, you will love this book! And if you love this book, you should seriously watch M*A*S*H!

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Rating: - Stubborn, heroic innocence in a mad world
Heller's classic is a surreal and sprawling story of immoral naivety and moral complexity. Ostensibly about the absurdity of World War II combat, Heller examines issues of group think and individual obligation with surprising philosophical clarity.

The Catch-22 that Yossarian, the erstwhile hero of our story, encounters maddeningly and repeatedly is any insoluble contradiction, expressed in his case in this infinite loop:

A. Yossarian realizes that continuing to fly combat missions is crazy because it puts his life at risk.

B. Therefore, he realizes he is crazy, and asks to be relieved and sent home because he is crazy.

C. Rejection of his claims by the Army doctors because the fact that Yossarian is aware that he is crazy for flying missions and is able to request to be relieved proves that he is sane, and therefore must continue to fly combat missions!

As stated succinctly in this exchange between Yossarian and Doc Daneeka:

"'So?' Yossarian was puzzled by Doc Daneeka's inability to comprehend. 'Don't you see what that means? Now you can take me off combat duty and send me home. They're not going to send a crazy man out to be killed, are they?'

'Who else will go?'" (p. 305 of this edition)

The contradiction, and Yossarian's persistent attempts to escape it, frames the absurdist humor that guides the book's organization. Physical comedy, ironic and witty verbal exchanges, fast-cut overlaps of scenes, characters, and forward- and backward-shifting time frames result in an existentialist masterpiece that belongs to every time and place.

But the theme of obligation drives a stubbornly-innocent Yossarian to a moral consistency that does mark him with a supremely heroic character:

"History did not demand Yossarian's premature demise, justice could be satisfied without it, progress did not hinge upon it, victory did not depend on it. That men would die was a matter of necessity; which men would die, though, was a matter of circumstance, and Yossarian was willing to be the victim of anything but circumstance." (p. 68 of this edition).

Like every hero, he makes the difficult and dangerous decisions his friends (and enemies) only wish they had the courage to make.

In the end, Yossarian faces his internal nightmares brought to life in a bizarre tramp through Rome after losing his closest friends and faces the difficult decision of denying his obligations to save his life, before learning that others have acted heroically in their own way and opened a way out of this absurdist trap.

Catch-22 will make you laugh, think, and feel good about being able to do all three.