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Catch-22

Joseph Heller

Start date: November 1, 2022

Finish date: November 30, 2022

Discussion: New School Classics- 1915-2005

Discussion leader: Trisha

Why we're reading this: Contemporary Classic Group Read, November 2013

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Aug 27, 2021 Maggie rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: boxall-1001, fiction, war, humour, guardian-1000, satire, usa

This review has been hidden because it contains spoilers. To view it, click here. I didn't enjoy reading this, but it was a book I needed to read. The setting is World War II, and a group of American soldiers are in Pianosa, an Italian island flying combat missions. It is a satirical world that is eerily real, a world where the superior officers care only about rising up the ranks and not about winning the war, and the men want to win the war but don't want to put themselves in danger.

The characters and the things they do are crazy. There's General Peckem, who wants General I didn't enjoy reading this, but it was a book I needed to read. The setting is World War II, and a group of American soldiers are in Pianosa, an Italian island flying combat missions. It is a satirical world that is eerily real, a world where the superior officers care only about rising up the ranks and not about winning the war, and the men want to win the war but don't want to put themselves in danger.

The characters and the things they do are crazy. There's General Peckem, who wants General Dreedle's post and constantly tries to undermine him. There's Colonel Cathcart who keeps trying to please General Peckem to rise up the ranks, even worrying about whether Peckem likes his cigar, and constantly rising the number of requisite number of missions the men need to fly before they can go home. There's the unfortunately-named Major Major Major Major who was promoted as a joke, does not want to be a major, jumps out a window from his office so that he doesn't have to pass through the main door, and only allows people to see him when he is not in office. There's Captain Black, who starts a campaign where men have to sign loyalty oaths before they do anything, even eat, purely to discriminate against Major Major. There's Dr Daneeka who resents being drafted in the army and cares one for his own welfare. There's Gus and Wes, two medics, who paint people's gums purple and give them a laxative whenever they want to go to a hospital to escape the war. There's Chaplain Tappman, a kind and timid anabaptist minister who is never allowed to minister properly. There's Milo Minderbinder, a mess officer and symbol of capitalism who runs an international syndicate buying and selling goods, even bombing his own squadron and getting away with it by telling the colonels that they would profit from it as part of the syndicate.

In the midst of this crazy world is Yossarian, the protagonist and a bombardier. He aim is to survive and recognises that obeying his superiors won't get him there. So he gets himself checked into a hospital with a fake trumped-up liver complaint, postpones a dangerous mission through multiple stratagems such as poisoning the squadron with soap and moving the bomb line on a map, and pretending that a microphone is spoilt and to turn back from that dangerous mission. To escape the realities of war, he gets drunk and has sex with prostitutes in Rome and Nurse Duckett from the hospital. Yet despite his rebellious and trouble-making nature, he has a big heart and is one of the few characters in the novel who displays a sense of humanity. He is deeply saddened when other men die, even though he had frequently argued with them, and he builds a friendship with Chaplain Tappman even though the chaplain is largely ostracised by others.

Yossarian's motivation to escape the war is largely linked to the death of Snowden over Avignon. The incident is alluded to multiple times, but it is only at the end of the novel that we find out what happened. Snowden was a member of Yossarian's crew who was wounded by anti-aircraft fire. While Snowden lay on the floor of the plane, whimpering that he was cold, Yossarian dressed a wound on his thigh and comforted him, only to find out too late that there was a hidden fatal wound under Snowden's clothing. The incident haunts Yossarian throughout the novel, and immediately after the incident, he refuses to wear clothing, eventually accepting an award naked in one of the novel's characteristically absurd and humorous incidents.

Catch-22 is first described as the phenomenon where anyone who is not crazy as to fly combat missions, but the only people who would want to fly combat missions are crazy. So the only way to get out of flying missions is to be diagnosed as being crazy, but if you were crazy, you would ask to fly more missions and you would end up flying them. Catch-22 appears over and over in paradoxical, nonsensical and dictatorial rules that the generals and colonels impose on the men and the civilians.

Initially humorous, the novel becomes increasingly chaotic. Events spiral downwards into increasing disorder, madness and helplessness. Characters die in increasingly macabre ways, an example being McWatt, a pilot who enjoyed pranking and frightening people at the beach by flying low over them, accidentally flying through Kid Sampson and chopping him in half, then committing suicide by crashing his plane into a mountain. The characters are all somewhat crazy, yet they try to put up a facade of sanity.

As the helplessness and disorder builds, the novel ends with Yossarian having second thoughts about an agreement he was forced to make with Colonel Cathcart and Colonel Korn to be "pals" with them in exchange for being sent home a hero. The alternative is to be court-martialled. Jaded, Yossarian initially accepted the agreement, but he eventually realises it is odious and morally wrong. He then discovers that Orr, his apparently simple-minded friend whom he thought dead, has rowed to Switzerland. Yossarian decides to run away, justifying that the war is about to be won, and he needs to run away to save his life.

Everything in the book is exaggerated just enough to be absurd. The illogicality and insanity of war, the naivety of certain characters, the selfishness of the generals and colonels, the capitalistic nature of Milo, and the provoking habits of certain characters are all trumped up. At their core, all these absurdities contain a truth that hits home even more effectively. In the craziness and selfishness of the book, the friendship and care that characters like Yossarian and Tappman manage to display are sparks of brightness that give us hope for their salvation. ...more

5 likes · Like · see review

Sep 24, 2011 Laura rated it did not like it

Shelves: 1001-books-you-must-read-before-you, read-2011, fiction-20th-century, audio-books

In Heller's iconoclastic comic masterpiece, bombardier Yossarian's attempts to stop flying combat missions are met by the unassailable circular logic of Catch 22.

Milo Minderbender's capitalist enterprise looks set for world domination and Yossarian decides against clothes. Including his uniform. ...more

3 likes · Like · see review