Catching up on Classics (and lots more!) discussion
This topic is about
Catch-22
New School Classics- 1915-2005
>
Catch_22: Book as a Whole ~ Spoilers
date
newest »
newest »
message 1:
by
Katy, Quarterly Long Reads
(new)
-
added it
Oct 20, 2013 09:16AM
Mod
reply
|
flag
I'm up to chapter 32. Reading the table of contents, I see the last two chapters are titled Snowden, and Yossarian, respectively. I find myself sorely tempted to skip ahead, to read these two chapters, but have resisted ;-).I feel like whatever happened to Snowden is likely somehow central to the whole story.
Also, Orr' s disappearance, Kid Sampson' s death, and McWatt' s death are the most shocking, or maybe jarring, events so far, I think.
I finished it last night and I think you're right about Snowden. He seems to have started Yossarian off. Kid Sampson's death shocked me. Also, the Snowden chapter really opened my eyes to what the author was saying earlier about Snowden's death.
I really loved this book. Rarely do I find a book that gives me such a range of emotions. I think the book is less about the story and more about the ideas and environment which the characters experience. What do you think?
In 7th grade I wanted to read this book and it was forbidden as being inappropriate. I can understand why and it was a correct assessment at that time.I’m glad I’ve finally read it.
Heller’s use of adjectives and the way he describes people is fantastic. I found myself looking forward to his descriptions of characters’ physiognomy and I think I’ve learned 10 new vocabulary words.
This book was difficult to get through especially toward the end.
His vocabulary was difficult at times. I was wishing I had decided to read it in ebook form instead of hard copy since I'd have the dictionary right there. I'm cheap though and the library didn't have the ebook of it for some odd reason.
Melissa wrote: to read it in ebook form instead of hard copyThat would have been tough not to have had a dictionary. The copy I read was ebook.
Yeah I can honestly say I never knew what some words meant. I had to guess. Should be a lesson to me that I need to read books like that in ebook form. Its amazing how much I rely on the dictionary now when there didn't used to be one you could just tap to access.
I'm just getting back to finishing. I had houseguests for a couple weeks, who just left on Sunday. Gotta say, really enjoying the book. Looking forward still, to that Snowden chapter, Melissa.
About a year ago I read "Just One Catch - A Biography of Joseph Heller". I highly recommend it if you are a Catch-22 fan. In it we learn that many of the most striking things that happen in the book are based on real life during the war. Heller was a bombardier - what a surprise!
Lynne, that's pretty interesting about Heller being a bombadier. The copy I'm reading is a 50th anniversary edition. There's quite a bit of additional material included. I have a feeling I'll read a lot of it. Heller wrote a sequel to this book late in life - think it's called Closing Time, or something similar. I've heard it's not as good as Catch-22, but I'm interested in it.
Also - just over 76% done right now. Anyone not sorta despise Milo and Cathcart at this point in the novel? (Dobbs and Nately just flew that mission to get the towed Italian boat, oh, and also, the Chaplain is visiting the cellar, at the the point I'm at in the novel.
Melissa wrote: "I finished it last night and I think you're right about Snowden. He seems to have started Yossarian off. Kid Sampson's death shocked me. Also, the Snowden chapter really opened my eyes to what the author was saying earlier about Snowden's death.
I really loved this book. Rarely do I find a book that gives me such a range of emotions. I think the book is less about the story and more about the ideas and environment which the characters experience. What do you think? "
Melissa, I missed your question at the end of this comment, back awhile ago. Apologies - I'm usually answering from within the app environment, and you can't see the comment as you're replying.
Anyway, yes, I absolutely agree! Definitely a book about the ideas, themes, and setting, rather than the characters or even plot, imo.
But, wow, did he create some interesting characters, eh?
Wow, just finished! Didn't see THAT ending coming! Copied from my status update: "... 89%, but done with the novel's text. The rest is additional reading material included with the 50th anniversary edition that I've been reading. Orr' s alive, chaplain went nuts, major Danby assists in cover-up, a d Yossarian runs away to Sweden! didn't see ANY of that coming!"
One loose end: who was the unnamed mean guy character, in the hospital at the end, who kept telling Yossarian that he had Yossarian' s pal? And who was the pal?
Also: regarding dictionary and vocabulary discussion - yes, I also noticed using the word lookup feature often. One funny thing is, a few times, there was no definition found! heh .... like you, Melissa, I did not grab a dictionary to look it up by hand. Briefly/idly wondered a couple times if it was an incomplete dictionary included with the kindle, or if it was Heller making up his own words. Heller did certainly use wide and varied and very descriptive words, and sentences, didn't he.?
So, I've been reading some of the additional included reading materials in the 50th anniversary edition copy that I downloaded. Interesting stuff. One thing I learned is that the casual misogyny present in the book's treatment of women (the one sour note, really, to my mind, in the book), appears to have perhaps also been present in Heller's life. Growing up in a fatherless household, perhaps he lacked a male role model to base relationship behaviors on? In any case, his adult life was characterized by many liaisons and infidelities, I think the phrasing I read, stated. Not surprising, to my mind, after reading the novel's treatment of female characters.
But setting aside the author, and turning to the book, a Philip Toynbee, writing a review in the London Observer, on June 17, 1962, said, "The effect of good satire is to make you laugh with horror." I hope I'm remembering that quote correctly, because when I read it, I said YES! Exactly! Because the book IS funny... and yet, funny isn' t really the right word. Not really.
I also learned the book was written over 7 years. The first chapter in one night. The next - was it third? not sure now - over the next year. And the rest over 7 years. And, you can actually feel differences in the mood and tone of the text, interestingly.
MK- yes they are very interesting characters. Orr for instance is really a strange person but he makes complete sense at the end. I like that quote about good satire, it really describes this book.
I was wondering about Yossarian's pal too. Also, wanted to know who the man in white was. It made me think about Schrodinger's cat since the man in white could be either alive or dead. Since that experiment happened before the book was written I wonder if Heller was thinking that.
I've been wondering about the sequel too and if it is any good. I'm afraid it may ruin my experience of the first one though it interests me.
The treatment of female characters bothered me but I also thought about the way women were treated at the time and how women are victimized during war. I'm wondering maybe Heller didn't think that way but saw women treated in a similar way. Anyway, he was good at showing the horrors of war through women...well the horrors of war period.
I finished this only a couple of days ago, but have been following the above discussions. I agree with all that has been said, finding the treatment of women a little troublesome, but probably nothing out of the ordinary for the times. I too would like to know who unnamed character in the hospital was, if there was indeed anyone there. At times I was unsure what was reality and what was imagination, such was the crazy absurdity of many scenes. What I found so surprising was how heart wrenching some of the parts were, such as Doc Daneeka, Nately and the chaplain. Major Major was hilarious though.
Melissa, I meant to answer and never did! Your Shroedinger' s cat question really had me thinking. I think I wandered of, thinking about it, and then never answered :-p. Loved the comment/question, tho. Actually the whole of it comment. I don't know how much of the treatment of the female characters was a product of the times, and how much was just Heller, himself. But I wonder.I agree that the book did a phenomenal job unmasking the horror of war. And mindless bureaucracy, as well. The chapter where Yossarian was walking around Rome, really laid it bare. New, casual horrors around every corner.
Pink, yes! on not be I g sure at times, what was reality and what was not. Particularly in the last three chapters, The Eternal City, the one I mentioned above, where the horrors of all that went on, was laid bare, and beyond that point. And yes, some parts were so heart-wrenching. Especially Nately...
I have read non-fiction political and historical books about war. However, Catch-22 is the most nonsensical and realistic book I've ever read on the subject.The scene with McWatt and Kid Sampson reminded me of the things my father told me about the Vietnam War. He was the crew chief of the base's Huey helicopter unit and their job was to fly reconnaissance missions behind enemy lines. When they landed, some of the Vietnamese they were supposed to be rescuing were so frightened out of their wits they would run right into the helicopter blades and be sliced to death.
This book is not ironic-funny or satire-funny. It's the kind of funny that is essential to keep you from screaming in horror the rest of your life. It was funny that Hungry Joe shrieked every night because you can't let yourself think about why he shrieked every night. It is funny that my father would sleepwalk at night and believe he was taking cover behind a tree, because it was too awful to think about why he kept doing it. It was hilarious, my father would laugh, that in the middle of a war no one ever wore a bulletproof vest. "Do you know what we did with them?" he would gasp, wiping away tears of laughter. "We sat on them, so we wouldn't get shot in the ***!" It has to be funny, because you have to disconnect yourself from the insanity of deliberately flying into almost certain death, or the fear would paralyze you and you wouldn't be able to carry out your mission, and if you were sane and thought about what you were doing, the insanity of it would kill you. It's the kind of funny you need to keep from killing yourself because that's the only way to escape the screams, the machine-gun fire, the red mist of horrific deaths burning in your head. It's the kind of situation in which you have to laugh or you will go insane from the images and experiences that human beings were not meant to endure.
"They didn't even see the blades," my father would laugh. "Seconds away from safety, and they run right into the blades. We tried to warn them, but they couldn't hear us, there was nothing we could do." He would laugh, and then he would cry, and then he would talk about how senseless it all was, and how they tried to force him to stay because he was the best crew chief and pilot they had, and how he kept refusing every incentive they tried to think up. What they did give him though was a horrible debilitating disease caused by what they termed "herbicidal" warfare which eventually killed him. And that's hilarious too, because the government is still arguing semantics about the definition of chemical warfare, biological weapons, and moral justification. It is a book that is so funny that you have to laugh and laugh and laugh, because you cannot bear the truth.
Kat - you're a hell of a good writer. You captured the essence of the book starkly, and well.This had to have been a tough book for you to read.
Daisy wrote: "In 7th grade I wanted to read this book and it was forbidden as being inappropriate. I can understand why and it was a correct assessment at that time."So how old where you then? And what made it inappropriate for that age? It's a war book, isn't it? I have ran across many discussions in English about the "inappropriateness" of books but that discussion is almost non-existent in Finland. I think in many schools they read one very realistic war novel in grades 7-9. (In history WWII comes in 8th grade.)
Thank you, MK! I really appreciated this book, actually. I love that there's a book like this which shows so accurately the insanity of war, the obdurate politics behind it, and what it does to the people caught in the crossfire. I loved the scene in which the men are all "Ooooohhhhh". It's so funny, but when you think about why Yossarian had an uncontrollable urge to moan, the reason will break your heart. I liked the poignant scene where Aarfy defenestrates the girl and says, who cares, everyone's killing each other anyway, what's one more? Imagine if people were affected equally by every person's death, if a casualty list wasn't just a statistic, if every single death in the world was a personal heartbreak--isn't it insane that we aren't affected this way? And if we were all affected this way, we would lose our minds from the horror of it all.
I'm glad that Joseph Heller wrote this book.
Kat wrote: "Thank you, MK! I really appreciated this book, actually. I love that there's a book like this which shows so accurately the insanity of war, the obdurate politics behind it, and what it does to t..."I read this first on Kindle, but I needed a keyboard to answer, so I had to wait. The software Kindle tiny viewing area just would not do ;-).
I remember the moaning scene really well. And yes, I remember it being funny. And, also I remember the two men leading the meeting as being unbearably, MASH-type stupidly, warlike, and bureaucratic. If I'm remembering correctly.
He was moaning at the general's woman, yes? At first, at least. I can't recall why the men joined in, except that I remember the general being plagued by the moaning and the name Yossarian later. Or before. Or both, I forget now, with those time hops. It may have come up before it was explained.
And Aarfy, that was the beginning of the unveiling of the stark horror, wasn't it? Right before the walk through the Italian town?
Can you remind me, and explain how those two scenes linked for you?
(I do love your big brain, I have to say heh)
Kat wrote: "I have read non-fiction political and historical books about war. However, Catch-22 is the most nonsensical and realistic book I've ever read on the subject.The scene with McWatt and Kid Sampson ..."
Melissa wrote: "I finished it last night and I think you're right about Snowden. He seems to have started Yossarian off.
Kid Sampson's death shocked me. Also, the Snowden chapter really opened my eyes to what the..."
This exactly. I had a hard time reading this book because I haven't personally been through this. I understand it in theory and have been through it on the occupied side a bit but I haven't lived it like your father did. So some bits were missed on me.
Your review makes me realize why this book has become a classic.
message 25:
by
Lynn, Old School Classics
(last edited Oct 31, 2022 11:11PM)
(new)
-
rated it 3 stars
Mod
I didn’t love it. I get it. It’s smart and satirical. But too much is often too much for me. For me, this book is like if Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy and Monty Python had a baby. It works until it gets old, and it gets old quickly. I can take it in small doses, but this one had it on every page. It isn’t my sort of humor, I guess. Still, I gave it 3 stars for doing a lot of things really well.
I will be reading the book because it is culturally important. I know I will be glad to have read it. I hope to appreciate it. As far as enjoying the read, well I will that be less important. I am okay with reading it and calling it done.
Paula W wrote: "I didn’t love it. I get it. It’s smart and satirical. But too much is often too much for me. For me, this book is like if Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy and Monty Python had a baby. It works unti..."Exactly what I thought, Paula! At first, I loved the humor and wordplay -- until it was every page, then every paragraph, then every sentence for the whole book! Just too much!
I'm glad I read it, but I wish I had enjoyed it more.
I am starting today with a 2-hour abridged version on found on Scribd. Then tomorrow I will move on to audiobook-and-ebook combo. I am glad to have the encouragement of a group.Anyone else currently reading?
Mod
Take care Lynn. Stay well.
I listened to the abridged version today: ISBN: 9781987139921. t is not listed in Goodreads. The audio is abridged to something just short of 3 hours. I listened to it at faster speed. Not fast enough.The text has left me uncomfortable. How can the war experience and the wartime narratives of WWII be anything but uncomfortable.
I now know the reason for the popularization--if not the genesis-- of sayings such as:
There's a catch there somewhere.
There's always a catch.
What's the catch?
The fear and frustration people express when they say clauses like these always thicken the air.
My experience with the book was as a reread and in an unfortunate and rare circumstance, the reread was far less enjoyable than the first. I think it may be because the times are far different and many of the jokes seemed flat, having read them before, but I kept being troubled by the similarity of characters, the over the top exaggerations, and the repetitiveness. I am blaming this on me and not the book] sometimes it is better to leave things as you remember them.
Rereading CATCH-22 is like rereading Slaughterhouse-Five, or the Children's Crusade. You know what jokes are coming. "So it goes" and "and so on" become flat. For me personally, it's the journey with Billy Pilgrim and Yossarian that I enjoy. Traumatic memories are often processed in pieces, broken up so that the psyche can handle the absurd reality. This non-linear, SoC writing style is seen in other major works, such as Toni Morrison's Beloved. It's not a literary style that many people are attracted to, and that's okay! All of the works that comprise what we call Classic Literature are meaningful, whether we *love* them all or not.
That is very true Cheryl.Here is what I notice about my reading practice as a Goodreads member: More difficult or complex books are best read earlier rather than later in the year. Later in the year, I have so much going on, including trying to finish up reading challenges.
Because I do want to read this book for its emotional processing, its healing, I plan to nominate this book for "Reread the Shelf" read in 2024. (I have 2023 already planned.)
I finally finished this one. It took me a long time to get through, not because I didn't like it but because I LOVED it. I took it nice and slow to absorb all the complexities of the very large cast of characters, the disjointed timeline of events, and especially Heller's terrific way with words, not exactly classical prose but very witty, especially the dialogue. Few books make me laugh out loud but this one did, several times. The humor was an important counterpoint to the horrors of war, which were foreshadowed in the early chapters but more fully explored later in the book. As comments above mentioned, I agree that the treatment of women was poor (although not really out of step with the time in which it was written I suppose), although I suspect that much of it was by design. At the end, Yossarian wants to find and save the little girl who he believes is wandering lost through the city on her own; he chooses to save innocence rather than allow it to be destroyed. The same theme is touched on earlier in the narrative when the pilots are directed to bomb an innocent hillside village to create a landslide to slow troop movements.
It's a terrific book. I'm glad I read it and I know it will take me a while to process it fully. I think it's one of the rare books I could have started reading again right away after I finished it. My edition is the 50th Anniversary Edition, and there are a lot of "extras" that I am currently reading before I post my review, but I already know I will rate it 5 stars and the book will take its place on my Favorites shelf.
Catching up on Classics (and lots more!)
Books mentioned in this topic
Slaughterhouse-Five, or the Children's Crusade: A Graphic Novel Adaptation (other topics)Beloved (other topics)
Catch-22 (other topics)
