Goodreads | Catch-22

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Chad rated it:

(review of isbn 0684833395)

05/30/08

Read in May, 2008

This review has been hidden because it contains spoilers. To view it, click here.

Few genres are more enjoyable to read than absurdist satire, and Catch-22 may be the finest example of the genre that I have ever read. It takes only three pages to reach the first seeming contradiction that, after a bit of thought, makes perfect sense: “The Texan turned out to be good-natured, gregarious and likable. In three days no one could stand him.” The entire text is filled with such gems. My favorite is a paragraph from chapter 9, describing Major Major’s father. Regardless of you...more Few genres are more enjoyable to read than absurdist satire, and Catch-22 may be the finest example of the genre that I have ever read. It takes only three pages to reach the first seeming contradiction that, after a bit of thought, makes perfect sense: “The Texan turned out to be good-natured, gregarious and likable. In three days no one could stand him.” The entire text is filled with such gems. My favorite is a paragraph from chapter 9, describing Major Major’s father. Regardless of your stance on farm subsidies, it is impossible to deny the absurdity and hypocrisy exposed by this brief description:

<blockquote>Major Major’s father was a sober God-fearing man whose idea of a good joke was to lie about his age. He was a long-limbed farmer, a God-fearing, freedom-loving, law-abiding rugged individualist who held that federal aid to anyone but farmers was creeping socialism. He advocated thrift and hard work and disapproved of loose women who turned him down. His specialty was alfalfa, and he made a good thing out of not growing any. The government paid him very well for every bushel of alfalfa he did not grow. The more alfalfa he did not grow, the more money the government gave him, and he spent every penny he didn’t earn on new land to increase the amount of alfalfa he did not produce. Major Major’s father worked without rest a not growing alfalfa. On long winter evenings he remained indoors and did not mend harness, and he sprang out of bed at the crack of noon every day just to make sure that the chores would not be done. He invested in land wisely and soon was not growing more alfalfa than any other man in the county. Neighbors sought him out for advice on all subjects, for he had made much money and was therefore wise. “As ye sow, so shall ye reap,” he counseled one and all, and everyone said, “Amen”.</blockquote>

It is interesting that Heller chooses World War II, which of the armed conflicts in which the United States has been involved is clearly the most just and necessary, to demonstrate the senselessness of war for all who are involved. I have never served in the military, but it is not necessary to have done so in order to recognize the people and situations in Catch-22. While the novel centers around an Army Air Force squadron, the insights it provides are as much about bureaucracy and human nature as they are war. Generals and colonels who consider their mission to rise in authority or to gain publicity while caring little for the orthogonal mission of winning the war could as easily be company executives or government officials who rally their subordinates to the task of improving their lives without regard for the objectives of the organization that employs them. There is a part of mercenary merchant Milo Minderbinder in every selfish charlatan, from a back-stabbing friend to Kenneth Lay and Jeffrey Skilling. The catch 22 itself should be roughly familiar to anyone who has had significant interaction with any large entity.

As I was reading through the novel I suffered a bit of fatigue because, while each chapter is brilliant, they are all brilliant in the same way and for the same reasons. At the time, I was prepared to suggest that large portions of the text be excised. After completing it, however, I find that very little occurs that is not important later. Given the opportunity to edit the book down, I doubt I would be able to remove more than ten percent of the text without significantly degrading the impact of the work as a whole. I have been previously critical of literature in which place and time flow continuously back and forward through sections of the book. This is certainly true of Catch-22, but in this case it is not a significant hardship. This is because very little of the novel is plot-based. Rather, each short chapter illustrates an unusual character or situation, sometimes from a different perspective than previously. Thus, the chronology is not terribly important, and Heller is free to deliberately reveal information in whatever order suits it best.

Biting satire is only effective when it is pointing out something truly horrible. Was is indeed, as Sherman stated, hell, but Catch-22 extends beyond war to all human suffering. The poignant 29th chapter briefly abandons humor to enumerate a litany of inexcusable, and only peripherally war-related, conditions. Yossarian encounters extreme poverty, illness, rape, violence against animals and children, police brutality, theft from the elderly, murder, and finally injustice while wandering through the streets of Rome. I must include another quote here to demonstrate the depravity Heller is trying to convey.

<blockquote>Almost on cue, a nursing mother padded past holding an infant in black rags, and Yossarian wanted to smash her too, because she reminded him of the barefoot boy in the thin shirt and thin, tattered trousers and of all the shivering, stupefying misery in a world that never yet had provided enough heat and food and justice for all but an ingenious and unscrupulous handful. What a lousy earth! He wondered how many people were destitute that same night even in his own prosperous country, how many homes were shanties, how many husbands were drunk and wives socked, and how many children were bullied, abused or abandoned. How many families hungered for food they could not afford to buy? How many hearts were broken? How many suicides would take place that same night, how many people would go insane? How many cockroaches and landlords would triumph? How many winners were losers, successes failures, rich men poor men? How many wise guys were stupid? How many happy endings were unhappy endings? How many honest men were liars, brave men cowards, loyal men traitors, how many sainted men were corrupt, how many people in positions of trust had sold their souls to blackguards for petty cash, how many had never had souls? … The night was filled with horrors, and he thought he knew how Christ must have felt as he walked through the dark world, like a psychiatrist through a ward full of nuts, like a victim through a prison full of thieves.</blockquote>

What a masterful account of the dark night of the soul, befitting the near-end of a masterpiece. Yossarian lives!...less

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Krys rated it:

(review of isbn 0684833395)

02/13/08

Read in February, 2008

Yossarian, a bombardier, is terrified that thousands of people he doesn't know are trying to kill him while he serves on the Italian front. It is also about those that victimize for the sake of power and status and those that are victimized. The book begins en medias res in the hospital with Yossarian and his cohorts, all healthy soldiers feigning sickness in order to avoid more military action. The book follows their hapless missions as they are used by Colonel Peckham in order to improve his c...more Yossarian, a bombardier, is terrified that thousands of people he doesn't know are trying to kill him while he serves on the Italian front. It is also about those that victimize for the sake of power and status and those that are victimized. The book begins en medias res in the hospital with Yossarian and his cohorts, all healthy soldiers feigning sickness in order to avoid more military action. The book follows their hapless missions as they are used by Colonel Peckham in order to improve his chances for appearing on the cover of Life Magazine or becoming a general. On the way, you're treated to Miles Minderbinder's capitalist ventures that make the scalawags in the Civil War south look like saints, Major Major Major Major's disappearing acts, the chaplain's mistaken visions that help him retain his faith, and a healthy dosage of mysogeny (Heller is yet another talented wirter who really doesn't even attempt to understand women).

Technically, there are so many things to admire in this book. The orderly sense of traditional chronology is disrupted to reflect the chaotic and highwire experiences of war. For one, a traditional chronological narrative is substituted by repetitive patterns: each chapter, again, titled by a different character, Yossarian at various stages of his attempts to depart the military, the soldier Snowden's moment and manner of death as Yossarian watched on, the number of missions the soldiers are told to complete before being discharged, and catch-22 itself. The characters are stylized, exaggerated versions of people. The sweetspot between the everyman and the individual, as Charlie D'Ambrosio put it. The pace is manic but also slow when it needs to be. The comic tone never diminishes the anger of the book ("Men went mad and were rewarded with medals", "There was a much lower death rate inside the hospital than outside the hospital"), but rather, as Wilhelm Barnhardt roughly put it, the tone and the material are at odds with each other, which, in my opinion, creates friction, or energy, between the tone and content of Catch-22.

But most of all, it's an important, angry, felt book, that does all of this not by lecturing, but by entertaining in a language that feels invented by Heller. This writing is audacious, daring, not carefully literary and lifeless like so many hailed writers--Heller does not know how to write an uninteresting sentence. Dialogue rarely gets this strange or this good, the political and social issues of modern man rarely gets so depicted so humorously or accurately. It's my second reading of this novel, and it's stunned me as much as it had the first time. ...less

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Elizabeth rated it:

(review of isbn 0684833395)

09/15/07

Read in August, 2007

This book was utterly misrepresented to me before I read it. For some reason I'd always thought it had been published the same year as Pynchon's Gravity's Rainbow and was considered as representing the other fork of post World War II American literature apart from Pynchon's--this the conventional, plot-driven one catering to stupid people. Some professor or some didact must have told me that, enrroenously as it turns out, once. Catch 22 predates the Pynchon masterpeice by 15 years, and is in sty...more This book was utterly misrepresented to me before I read it. For some reason I'd always thought it had been published the same year as Pynchon's Gravity's Rainbow and was considered as representing the other fork of post World War II American literature apart from Pynchon's--this the conventional, plot-driven one catering to stupid people. Some professor or some didact must have told me that, enrroenously as it turns out, once. Catch 22 predates the Pynchon masterpeice by 15 years, and is in style an apt precursor. Its subject is war and its hilarity. In this it shares much with Pynchon as well as Vonnegut. Since James Heller is not as obviously over-bursting with brilliance and random facts about particle physics as Pynchon, nor is he as willing to pander to mainstream tastes (I think) as Vonnegut, Catch 22 is a tought read at the begiining. There is a lot of irony and detachment, but with not as much ease as Vonnegut and with less of the awe inspired by Pynchon. IN fact, I almost gave up, and had started this book (450 pages) several times before and actually had given up. The real story of Catch 22 doesn't start coming together well past page 200, but when it does, it really does. There is a brilliant portrait of an entrepreneurial mess chef who is the representation of evil, evil being capitalism and the lack of loyalty to any moral cause. He creates a vast international smuggling network whose intricacies are at once ridicuously amusing and yet, it seems, accurately and minutely portrayed--it's as if Heller were a partcile physicist translating science for us when he lays out how that "syndicate" works. Most importantly, the book affected me because of what it had to say about war, and then how it was able to communicate that through the heartbreaking travails of one officer--Yossarian--who is willing to act out human desires in the face of a dominant culture turned insanse and subhuman, caricatured. His wartime airforce base is a perfect illustration of RD Laing's common-sense supposition, developed not long after the period of this novel, that insanity is a sane response to an insane world. Catch 22 is clever and tight and thematic--"Catch 22" refers to how things that seem irrational can be made to seem rational through tautology. This is a cleverly embroidered theme throught the entire novel. But in the end these are not what make the book great. It's the emotion at the heart of the book, Yossarian's desire to live and be fleshly human, and his unwillingness to retreat into the bastions of irony and obtuseness so attractive to eberyone around him. This is what makes Catch 22 heartbreaking and poignant, tear0jerkin even. ...less

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jill rated it:

(review of isbn 0684833395)

03/17/08

Read in February, 2008

recommends it for: people who like to be bored.

Absurdist plays are one act for a reason.

Seriously, I know there were points to make about the repetitive ridiculousness of bureaucracy/war/capitalism/life, but over 450 pages of variations on the Catch-22 joke?

I did find myself more affected than I would have guessed by some of the deaths, and some of the lines were clearly awesome.

Underlined bits:
In a world in which success was the only virtue, he had resigned himself to failure.(277, about the Chaplain)
Because he n...more

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Zinta rated it:

(review of isbn 0684833395)

11/04/07

bookshelves: fiction

Read in July, 2006

For so many of us growing up in the USA, our high school teachers assigned us Joseph Heller's "Catch-22" as required reading, and I was among those assignees. I'm not sure why the requirement, other than perhaps some Catch-22 type of logic that everyone else was assigning it, so there, must be great, must read. I don't particularly remember liking the novel then, perhaps with no more substantial of a reason than -- just not my style. Reading the novel now, in midlife, my opinion (or my...more For so many of us growing up in the USA, our high school teachers assigned us Joseph Heller's "Catch-22" as required reading, and I was among those assignees. I'm not sure why the requirement, other than perhaps some Catch-22 type of logic that everyone else was assigning it, so there, must be great, must read. I don't particularly remember liking the novel then, perhaps with no more substantial of a reason than -- just not my style. Reading the novel now, in midlife, my opinion (or my literary style) has changed little, but today, I can attempt to add to "not my style" perhaps a few deeper insights.

In this second read, I realize what so fails to appeal to me is Heller's slapstick, absurdist, repetitive and dizzyingly circular style of storytelling. At the same time, I fully realize this is also the appeal of the novel for many: it's absurdity. Indeed, time has tested Heller's topic of war having little logic or reason in the real world, mostly born of individual and governmental insanity, power plays and mere whim, male ego clashing and chest thumping. Few wars seem to have good reason for happening when one considers all the other possibilities of resolution. While leaders sit safely in secure offices on fortressed hilltops, the common soldier takes all the risks, offers up his/her body for battering, endures indescribable torments in battle, and often gives the ultimate sacrifice of life. Shall we debate the virtues of boxing rings for political leaders instead? Yes, war is absurd. And Heller captures this "crazy-making" truth in a crazy-making novel in which characters dance to illogical commands, spin in frustration, and dig themselves in ever deeper as they try harder and harder to dig themselves out. You know... as in war.

So I slogged through the pages like a good soldier. Characters leapt forward and backward in time, one event led to no other event, resolution rarely made a showing, and the dance of insanity kept the main lead. Even as I slogged, I could not deny what an excellent reflection of warring reality Heller's writing proved to be. Kudos for that. Redeeming factor.

And then, somewhere towards the final pages, I was somewhat won over. Without losing his voice of absurdity, the author had Yossarian, key player, say lines so absurd they rang true to the core, e.g. "but we don't want what we want!" and I could only shake my head and echo, oh indeed. We don't. When offered a bounty of temptations to sell out his soul, Yossarian denied them all, and in his crazy way, spoke utter sanity. How common is it to want something desperately much of our lives, only to realize we don't want it at all when fantasy turns into reality? A gold star for the author. Other episodes of Yossarian struggling to keep a fellow soldier alive even as his guts spill out, the sheer horror and despair and helplessness of the situation, hit target. Bravo.

This, and Heller's commentaries on man being little more than meat, fodder for the brutalities of war, resounded with such painful truth that today's reader can only look up at current events and current disasters and realize -- we are living in a world ruled by absurdities even today. History has taught us nothing.

And so, I could be convinced that Heller's novel is a classic. Perhaps it is. ...less

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Lori rated it:

(review of isbn 0684833395)

09/13/07

bookshelves: books-i-just-couldnt-finish, lost-lit

I suffered through about 60 pages, and finally put it down. I very rarely ever leave a book unfinished.

The author narrates and introduces up to Yossarian, who does not want to fly in the war. I get that. I get the whole catch 22 senerio... You have to be insane to fly the plane. If you can get a dr to say you are insane, you wont have to fly. But in order to tell a dr that you are insane, this actually means you are sane. So you must continue to fly... which makes you insane. blah blah blah...more

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Teresa rated it:

(review of isbn 0684833395)

08/12/07

bookshelves: readandreviewed

Read in August, 2005

"I really do admire you a bit. You're an intelligent person of great moral character who has taken a very courageous stand. I'm an intelligent person with no moral character at all, so I'm in an ideal position to appreciate it." - Colonel Cathcart, Catch-22

I really appreciate it when a book respects the intelligence of its readership. If a book is going to be "experimental" in any way, I love those that throw you into a world with no explanations - a literary baptism of f...more "I really do admire you a bit. You're an intelligent person of great moral character who has taken a very courageous stand. I'm an intelligent person with no moral character at all, so I'm in an ideal position to appreciate it." - Colonel Cathcart, Catch-22

I really appreciate it when a book respects the intelligence of its readership. If a book is going to be "experimental" in any way, I love those that throw you into a world with no explanations - a literary baptism of fire (ie: Orwell's "Animal Farm"). Catch-22 is one of those books, and that's part of the reason why I thought it was so amazing!

Catch-22 tells the story of a US Army squadron based in Italy during WWII, and a disenchanted pilot named Yossarian who thinks everyone is trying to kill him. (not an unreasonable assumption in a war) Except that it's not an Italy, a military story, or a world that we're meant to immediately recognize. There is a logic in the book that all the characters seem to accept, but that doesn't make sense to the reader. Or, alternately, it makes too much sense to the reader, and that's when the book hits you hard. You start falling into it. You start siding with people. Then all of a sudden, you realize that you're siding with the wrong people. You start thinking to yourself how could I be agreeing with this asshole?! How can I be laughing! My favorite books are the ones that elicit visceral reactions from me...my chest gets tight, my stomach gets tied in knots, and I can't explain why I'm reacting positively/negatively - I just know that I am. There were so many of those moments in this book, I can't even begin to describe them all...

One of the things that impressed me most was the structure of the book - how all at once it seemed both haphazard, and entirely calculated. How each segment could stand alone, but that together they weaved an intricate, thought-provoking story...
If you like historical novels, if you like political novels, if you like in-depth characters, if you like humor, if you like to think - I would highly recommend this book to you.
...less

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Kelly rated it:

(review of isbn 0684833395)

09/08/08

bookshelves: fiction

Read in August, 2008

My relationship with this book was somewhat quixotic. The first few chapters made me smile- in a bitter, ironic, wise-at-life sort of way of course. I loved the cleverness and deceptive punch-you-in-the-side way that Heller made his points, wrapped up in the whirling, hilariously awful world that he's created in depicting a tired, worn out unit towards the end of WWII in Italy. The choice of the main character in the bombardier Yossarian, a man who saw one too many horrors, is perfect. His quest...more My relationship with this book was somewhat quixotic. The first few chapters made me smile- in a bitter, ironic, wise-at-life sort of way of course. I loved the cleverness and deceptive punch-you-in-the-side way that Heller made his points, wrapped up in the whirling, hilariously awful world that he's created in depicting a tired, worn out unit towards the end of WWII in Italy. The choice of the main character in the bombardier Yossarian, a man who saw one too many horrors, is perfect. His questioning, questionable state of mind is perfect to depict all the contradictions, paradoxes, hidden, buried ideas that nobody wants to talk about during a war, and the sheer absurdism of the life soldiers lived, even in our "good war" of the 20th century. One understands Heller's rage at the blind torpor of a society that prefers to be lead and blame someone else for what happens. This particular unit is under special strain, as their commander orders them to fly more combat missions than any other unit, and then continually raises the number each time his men see a glimpse of their time to go home. The endless, senseless, everyday cruelty inflicted both on their surroundings and on each other slowly grinds the unit's minds and bodies into dust.

I almost wonder if when this was published, Heller was afraid that his audience would be inclined to put this book down as quickly as possible. It was one of my issues with the book that he seemed to throw out all his major questions, issues, wild emotions and ultimate points within the first few chapters, so that for awhile afterwards, it did all seem very monotonously repetitive, as we saw more and more ways of saying exactly the same thing in pretty near exactly the same formula. Perhaps absurdism is merely more effective in short form, as there was a period of the book where I was rolling my eyes and seeing shades of Catcher in the Rye's blind "Fuck the man!" screaming enough to only grudgingly read on. I understand that it may have been part of his point to illustrate that the absurdism of war does go on and on and on, but it did become something of a chore to read in the middle. Deceptively light comedy can't go on like that without at least hints at some deeper pathos that we don't have to assume is there. Also, the attitude that Heller is espousing, and the earnest questions he asks do feel somewhat dated. Not their message, of course. That is universal. Questioning authority, the value of life, the cost of war, the meaning of country and honor and duty, etc. But there is a phrasing that places it firmly in its time, which does seperate you from it a bit. I also found it all somewhat bleak and cold in tone, and not in a way that I wanted to spend time with at all. This middle section would be the reason that it took me so long to finish this book.

However. After I passed the halfway mark, my opinion improved once more. The character drawing, while still absurd enough to bring a wry smile to my face, was poignant enough that I started to get more involved. I needed to see layers. I needed to see the inner roiling turmoil, I needed to see the thoughts of these desperate men as they went about their tragically ridiculous lives, and see what it was that made them survive, or finally give up. It also helped that we saw more to Yossarian to make him a fully fledged person, rather than merely a conduit for the major points of the book. Perhaps I'm not saying this correctly, but while I can react critically to a character who is presented as a symbol, I can't be truly drawn to reading more about them unless I'm presented with more to see. In any case, I thought the last half intermittently, and particularly the last hundred and fifty pages or so were absolutely heartbreaking. In the end, Heller does make you both grieve and rejoice, and the story fulfills the promise of what I had hoped that it would be after its manically brilliant introduction.

All in all, it is a novel absolutely worth its "classic," name. It is worth reading to remind you of the many different perspectives that are available on an issue, to think critically about even concepts that you've never had to question before. Nothing is given. It is always worthwhile to be reminded of that.

...less

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Jennifer rated it:

(review of isbn 0684833395)

07/22/08

Read in July, 2008

The following is an example of how many conversations in this book took place.

Jen: I didn't like this book.
Nigel: Why didn't you like the book?
Jen: I did like the book.
Nigel: You just said you didn't like the book.
Jen: No I didn't.
Nigel: You're lying.
Jen: I don't believe in lying.
Nigel: So you never lie?
Jen: Oh yes, I lie all the time.
Nigel: You just said you don't believe in it.
Jen: I don't believe in it, Jen said as she ate a chocolate covered cotton ball.
Nigel...more The following is an example of how many conversations in this book took place.

Jen: I didn't like this book.
Nigel: Why didn't you like the book?
Jen: I did like the book.
Nigel: You just said you didn't like the book.
Jen: No I didn't.
Nigel: You're lying.
Jen: I don't believe in lying.
Nigel: So you never lie?
Jen: Oh yes, I lie all the time.
Nigel: You just said you don't believe in it.
Jen: I don't believe in it, Jen said as she ate a chocolate covered cotton ball.
Nigel: Well I liked the book.
Jen: Fabulous! I liked it too!
Nigel: What did you like about it?
Jen: Oh, I hated it.

I think Heller was showing how war is chaotic by not writing in a chronological order. You really have no idea in what order events are taking place. I think he was showing how war is ridiculous by writing conversations like the one above. I'm not sure if any of his goals were to annoy the living hell out of his readers, but he annoyed me. 460 pages of absurdness is too much for me. Most of the characters were very one-dimensional. I could only distinguish between people by their names. Most of the good guys all had the same personalities and the bad guys all had the same personalities except one character ate peanut brittle and another put crab apples in his cheeks. Other than that - same personalities. Maybe his goal was only to distinguish between the good, everyday guys and the evil, power-hungry men in charge. If so, he succeeded. I just wasn't thrilled after page 150 or so. There is some funny stuff in there. The chocolate-covered cotton balls will crack me up for life. There's some really sad stuff too. It's weird because every time someone died, I cared, even though I knew nothing about them, except what they ate or who their favorite whore was. I'm not sure how Heller pulled that off. Anyway, I would recommend it. It's just that the ridiculousness of it gets to the point where it's just, well, ridiculous, and beyond my personal tolerance level. I still appreciated it though....less

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Seth rated it:

(review of isbn 0684833395)

09/17/07

bookshelves: couldnt-finish, other-fiction

1 star. Couldn't finish it.

Clearly I'm in the minority here, so the problem may well lie with me. I grew up watching MASH; I saw Stripes and Sgt Benjamin in the theatres. National Lampoon and John Hughes gave me my childhood heroes.

Yossarian just comes across as a stuck-up whiner and I couldn't find anything funny in the first hundred pages. All the humor has been done later, better, and clearly-derivitively by other humorists. Robert Anton Wilson, Robert Altman, Alan Alda, Harold Ramis...more

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Juliet rated it:

(review of isbn 0684833395)

08/13/07

bookshelves: recently-read

Has a copy to sell/swap — Read in June, 2007

recommends it for: high schoolers

Maybe there's a reason this book is usually required high school reading; it reads like it was written by a 17-year old. Someone who clearly finds himself to be hilarious, and no one ever had the heart to tell him differently.

I never felt for any of the characters, I never laughed, I never cried. In fact, half way through the book I couldn't take it anymore, so I skipped ahead to the last chapter and yet it still made sense. I'm sorry, but if nothing happens in the second half of a book to i...more

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Alan rated it:

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06/19/08

This might be one of the more original American Novels ever written were it not utterly derivative of one of the more original French novels ever written: Journey to the End of the Night (Celine).

Still it is really funny. But most American young people have the same experience of this Novel as they have of Coldplay. They experience it when they are teenagers and don't come across the thing that engendered it (Jeff Buckley) until later. The former is affecting and competent, the...more

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Brian rated it:

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07/08/08

Read in June, 2008

recommends it for: anyone who would like to see how absurd the military really is

Also in my top five favorite books of all time. With The Brother's Karamazov in the number one spot, this one is right below it at number two.
I just read this book last month, at the age of 35, 8 years after spending 6 years of my life in the United States navy. I know the books was supposed to be absurdist, but I couldn't help thinking how utterly close to the reality of military life it was. I didn't serve during wartime, but I don't think that really matters. I said myself when I was servi...more

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John rated it:

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06/25/08

recommends it for: CNN armchair warriors

Catch-22 is a difficult book to review. By bringing absurdism into the area of war (and particularly the Second World War, the last "good war" America fought in), Heller knowingly risks offending people's sensitivities. So be it. Heller justifies all in the name of art and morality, and I embrace that justification. This book is definitely "worth its salt", to quote one of the many running gags within.

Yossarian is a Bombardier in a USAAF bomber squadron in the Mediterrane...more Catch-22 is a difficult book to review. By bringing absurdism into the area of war (and particularly the Second World War, the last "good war" America fought in), Heller knowingly risks offending people's sensitivities. So be it. Heller justifies all in the name of art and morality, and I embrace that justification. This book is definitely "worth its salt", to quote one of the many running gags within.

Yossarian is a Bombardier in a USAAF bomber squadron in the Mediterranean. He fears death and wishes to survive the war. In trying to escape combat duty on a medical exemption he encounters the paradoxical "catch" embodied in the title, which has since entered the language:

"There was only one catch and that was Catch-22, which specified that a concern for one's own safety in the face of dangers that were real and immediate was the process of a rational mind. Orr was crazy and could be grounded. All he had to do was ask; and as soon as he did, he would no longer be crazy and would have to fly more missions. Orr would be crazy to fly more missions and sane if he didn't, but if he was sane he had to fly them. If he flew them he was crazy and didn't have to; but if he didn't want to he was sane and had to. Yossarian was moved very deeply by the absolute simplicity of this clause of Catch-22 and let out a respectful whistle."
"That's some catch, that catch-22," he observed.
"It's the best there is," Doc Daneeka agreed."

This is a clever and well-written book which demands rereading in these gung-ho times. One may disagree with Heller's cynicism on war ("Open your eyes, Clevinger. It doesn't make a damned bit of difference who wins the war to someone who's dead.") but anyone has to acknowledge Heller's talent with words. As a dead war veteran himself, Heller, like Vonnegut (whose wonderful "Slaughterhouse-5" should be read alongside this book), is impregnably immune to the carping of war-loving critics who, like George W Bush, had something better to do when the opportunity to fight arose....less

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Bloom rated it:

(review of isbn 0684833395)

03/22/08

Read in March, 2008

The journey of a man from anti-hero to moral standard-bearer is at the heart, and heartbreak, of Catch-22.

Yossarian, one of the great fictional characters, begins the book by lamenting that thousands of people are trying to kill him and checking into the field hospital to avoid flying combat missions. At journey’s end, he is sole voice of reason amidst a maddening, bureaucrat mess. If ever there was a model for Hawkeye Pearce, it is Yossarian. (Surely the creators of M*A*S*H owe a huge de...more

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Yi rated it:

(review of isbn 0671502336)

03/07/08

Read in February, 2008

This is one heck of a satire, a rollercoaster of emotion. It's witty, hilarious, sometimes bitter and frustrated, but always very true. It is a little bit unexpected of a war satire, but I think Yossarian truly shows us the stupidity, senselessness and the ugliness of war. And Yossarian certainly is not a hypocrite. The character that I find most attractive in him is that he doesn't care about patriotism or honor (damn them all!), his only concern, understandably, is to save his own hide and to ...more

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Dusty rated it:

(review of isbn 0684833395)

02/28/08

Read in February, 2008

Paradoxes, especially those settled down in fun little hypothetical logic puzzles, are the domain of socially inept little boys (mostly) who were given books about Mensa as gifts from distant relatives who had no other clues about what sorts of presents would be well received. In Heller's novel, they're the domain of such boys all grown up, now finding themselves through some connection or another running a war in the Mediterranean. Colonel Cathcart, Colonel Korn, General Dreedle, et al., are th...more Paradoxes, especially those settled down in fun little hypothetical logic puzzles, are the domain of socially inept little boys (mostly) who were given books about Mensa as gifts from distant relatives who had no other clues about what sorts of presents would be well received. In Heller's novel, they're the domain of such boys all grown up, now finding themselves through some connection or another running a war in the Mediterranean. Colonel Cathcart, Colonel Korn, General Dreedle, et al., are the bad guys in this war novel, not solely because they're in charge (though this surely is a lot of it in such an anti-establishment novel as this one), but because they revel in the niggling little paradox games they come up with to avoid any direct responsibility.

For a while they're funny. Major Major Major Major (oh, the hilarity) realizes that if he makes a rule wherein the only time people can see him in his office is when he's not in, he never has to face a single problem. Colonel Korn can avoid the tough questions by making rules that the only people who are allowed at the education sessions to ask questions are those who never ask questions.

But then Aarfy comes in—Aarfy, you may remember, is the guy who rapes that Italian woman because he proudly never pays for sex, and then throws her out the window, killing her, because he can't have her going around saying terrible things about him. Aarfy's not an uppity-up, he's a regular army guy going on all these missions with the rest of them. He's also, as one of my students said, "A total douchebag": "Back in school we were always doing things like that. I remember one day we tricked these two dumb high-school girls from town into the fraternity house and made them put out for all the fellows there who wanted them by threatening to call up their parents and say they were putting out for us. We kept them trapped in bed there for more than ten hours. We even smacked their faces a little when they started to complain. Then we took away their nickels and dimes and chewing gum and threw them out" (251).

This novel is one where so many good people die, and though Yossarian lives, Aarfy does, too.

In comedy writing, injustice is funny. I read that somewhere recently....less

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Dale rated it:

(review of isbn 0684833395)

03/03/08

Read in February, 2008

I tried reading Catch-22 once in college, but ultimately set it aside and forgot about it. Partly this was due to a lack of time, trying to keep up with course assignments in order to graduate on time - Catch-22 wasn't something on the syllabus for any of my classes, it was just something I felt like I should read for my own benefit. Another factor that doomed this first attempt was the fact that it has kind of an odd rhythm to it, which is hard to get into at first.

But I gave it another g...more

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