Catch 22 [Jun 17, 2018]

[Niki Hawkes, I made it past GOTM... barely]

This is a buddy read for Catch-22 by Joseph Heller starting June 17, 2018.

[Zaara]

@Laura @Ahdam
I'm just about finishing up the last sixty pages of my current read so I will start this tonight. We can take it slow and work to finish it by end of the month...this is my plan, at least...

[Beste]

I will come in 2weeks

[Zaara]

Great!

[Sha]

I feel like I am unaware of half the buddy reads this group is doing at any given point of time.
In-ish.

[Beste]

Hey @Sha we have Vicious in 2 days. Told you I would remind you :)

[Zaara]

I am being goaded by hundreds of ppl mentioning the Vicious BR to me in subtle and unsubtle ways....o wtf....I will cave eventually, I know it. Since I am anyway gonna go to the bookstore...

[Sha]

//unsubtly pokes Zaara in the direction of Vicious

[Sha]

Beste wrote: "Hey @Sha we have Vicious in 2 days. Told you I would remind you :)"

And thanks. :D

[Beste]

Mission completed @Sha, We may leave now :)))))

[Laura Tenfingers]

I'll be here soon. Working on Caliban's War & Altered Carbon right now. Also hoping to make it to Vicious... But Catch-22 is on the shelf calling to me.

[Zaara]

Sha wrote: "//unsubtly pokes Zaara in the direction of Vicious"

😂 enablers.
We are ALL siscouraging ENABLERS...
@Laura, now you have to come for Vicious as well. The poking is toooooo unsubtle.

[Laura Tenfingers]

OK, unsubtly poked. I'll be at Vicious then🤣

[Scott , Karsa Orlong]

I loved this book. I hope you all like it as much as I did.

[Zaara]

Did nobody else start? Read the first few chapters. Still finding my feet...

[Beste]

I will be here soon after Vicious, Last Namsara, The Last Wish. :)
Very soon...

[Laura Tenfingers]

I'll be a little late. I have the book but I'm getting the vibe that I'll need to give it my undivided attention. Think so? I'd like to finish Caliban's War and then come back. Planning on reading all weekend, ignoring kids and all responsibilities. Wish me luck!

[Laura Tenfingers]

Starting today!

[Zaara]

No worries. Even Beste is gonna be late. I remembered that I totally forgot (what is with me and such sentences?) abt Riyria so I put this on hold and got on with that.
Now I'll start Vicious. Take me a couple days.
This book...its not too difficult and rollicking fun once you get into it. So I will read this book and relieve myself with the Anthony Bridgerton when I need a break.
You will totally catch up the eight chapters in three days....

[Ahdam]

Sorry I've had a bit of a hiatus with reading can't guarantee I'll join but I'll try to when I feel like it now that I have a few weights off of my shoulder

[Laura Tenfingers]

Just read the first two chapters. Um... crazy?

[Zaara]

Haha yeah..it is a hard book to comment abt.
Yossarian 😂😂😂 I imagine him driving everyone absolutely crazy with an absolutely straight face.
For the first few minutes I was also floundering (no shame in admitting this...😜😂😝) and then...its satire....every sentence means exactly the opposite of what it is saying. Xept if it is directly insulting something. In which case, it means exactly what it says. But much more.
The bit about the Maraschino cherries...😂😂😂 when you think what they must actually have been eating.
The rage I quickly recognised. Did you reach the (view spoiler)[T.S. Eliot cartwheels (hide spoiler)] and all the bits about managerial incompetence?
I can!t wait to see what @Beste thinks?

[Graeme]

I read this years ago. Have fun, it's rather clever.

[Sha]

I remember dropping this when I read it about a decade ago because it was too weird. Apparently my tastes have changed because now I'm just smirking at the book.

[Zaara]

Graeme wrote: "I read this years ago. Have fun, it's rather clever."

I"m sure the events and ppl lampooned have real life correspondences...but I don't have enough knowledge to slot them into place.

EDIT - Major Major Major Major 😂

[Zaara]

Sha wrote: "I remember dropping this when I read it about a decade ago because it was too weird. Apparently my tastes have changed because now I'm just smirking at the book."

Where have you reached? And this is true that you each book has its time...you won't appreciate it if you pre-empt. I remember reading Wuthering Heights too young. Mind, this is me....I read Jane Eyre and Great Expectations and the Man in the Iron Mask (too difficult) at 11-12.
I hated Heathcliff and could never get Cathy....even when I tried again at 18 and nyet. Then....couple years ago...

EDIT: And this is an add-on from what we were discussing on the Feel Good books thread...ppl love in different ways today.
Gratification is so instant and its all so mechanical...but perhaps this is just my Oonagh self with the black heart....
Great link, btw.

2ND edit: Sorry. Back to the trenches.

[Graeme]

Zaara wrote: "Graeme wrote: "I read this years ago. Have fun, it's rather clever."

I"m sure the events and ppl lampooned have real life correspondences...but I don't have enough knowledge to slot them into plac..."

Yeah, Major x4 is hilarious.

[Zaara]

I read a bit more. Laura...I guess it's just you and me...sorry I have neglected this thread a bit...well, now I made up for it a la Vrginie, Laura, Zaaaazu.....

Are you liking/not liking it?
I know I PMd you that I will read this at a rush and finish it before I leave so I won't hv to carry with...but I find I cannot. I can consume this book only in small daily instalments or it makes me angry...the scale of human stupidity...

DISCURSIVE, NON-PLOT, GO GET SOME TEA 😂
So far (view spoiler)[...yeah the book is all hoots, capers, caricatures and angry laughs and belly laughs and for cryin' out loud laughs...
+ the tonality is pitch-perfect...I think he writes on purpose to be like one of those background sounds that intensely annoy you but you can't tune out...like a mosquito buzzing...

And then sometimes that tone goes away and something else replaces it. Something quiet and sad and serious (when a serious line crops up in this book!!!) and O god, it makes everything else seem like the slight stings of a lightly-wielded hand on the whip...ok, I admit it...perhaps I was always a little cut by the knife...
But in such moments...the knife twists in your gut...and you are bent double by it and gasping...
Words that churn inside you like and bloom like angry, living things. And drive you distracted (where have I read this phrase?)...when they stay with you for hours even...have you felt this lately? Have you felt this here, while reading THIS book?
There is a sentence...he is describing a bombing run, as Yossarian&theBoys but for several minutes (in that crawlspace) Yoss goes away and it is Heller there.
Heller and you and nobody else...
"...a time of waiting with nothing to hear and nothing to see and nothing to do but wait as the antiaircraft guns below took aim and made ready to knock them all sprawling into infinite sleep if they could."

So...so...Heller I MUST conclude he WAS in WW2?? He has to have had been...such words cannot grow inside a person thru *snort* interviews or research...though my only prior knowledge abt him has been as that of a journo-turned-writer??
Writing like this---the ability to do so---is the highest exposition of the artisan's craft.
And such words are not come by lightly, Laura.
They cannot.
They are earned, often thru great expense...and when you find them...do not let such places go, for they will give you new eyes and lead you to new places you cannot have found before even if they are but the great truths of your being.
Think then, of what it took (and why) to bring such words into being...into formative/normative reality from a notional one.
Bcuz there is a "something" that turns matter into energy, right? A sort of catalyst to the equation?? Or is it a co-efficient? I like catalyst more.
Or else the two...matter and energy...are imterchanegeable...at least mathematically...or that is at least what the Theory of Relativity says.
But then I am very bad at math...Herr Einstein I'm told was just a bit better...😝

Did you know Roald Dahl's earliest piece as a writer was essentially the same thing...a description of a Libyan bombing run (view spoiler)[gone really bad...he was shot down and temporarily blinded. (hide spoiler)]
But (typical of British reserve) or perhaps the format it appeared in/prevailing social feelings at the time...that is a very different piece of writing.
So...so...the "thing" inside Dahl manifested in vastly black humour too.
Along with all the things he got up to as a British attaché with Ian Fleming...😝
But not then. The words hadn't been made yet.
What makes a writer? What makes one writer different from the others? ALL the others? It's that coefficient. Or that catalyst. Depending whether your equation is in physics or chem.

THE RIDDLER THUS CONCLUDES: War vastly improves your sense of humour 😂😝😜
Now, Laura, does this cut like a knife?
Because, I tell ya daaaaahlin', it did me in almost.
(hide spoiler)]

@Graeme...Doc Daneeka...
You see Papi...
It was a corner location, but nothing helped....
😂😂😂😂😂😂😂

[Zaara]

I cannot believe last week I was saying this book is hard to talk about...well, THAT changed....sorry it took me so long to post on here Laura. Dont feel like I neglected this one....
+ Beste will be here soon...

[Zaara]

So I remembered @Ahdam is on this thread and Bruh before you post abt how all this is obscure, Ima cunningly preempt...

So bascially I meant matter (words) need something more to transform into energy (thoughts?? give cognitive energy to words and they beccome activated) and "that" co-efficient is what makes the writer's craft....i dunno....This is me I mean DitZa is trying to explain physics and cognition wtf...I cant even add three digit numbers....
And yeah I am so wierd + this book made me look at fundamental questions in a uhhhh fundamental way? I went back to the building blocks...was this supposed to happen? i dunno whether this is quite the right way to think abt this book or whether it is comme il faut quite the done thing? to share such thoughts or if it makes me a prat.
I wrote in terms of craft bcuz Graeme is here and I felt he will enjoy if I addressed the topic thru his lens....he does enjoy discussions on craft...
I talk about such things with Virginie....well...now of course I mean Virginie AND.....
All i know is that i will be sad when this book ends and I have to stop talking to it and reading from it.
@Ahdam, look I made a précis, speshul for you.
@Laura....uhm hi again?? 😂

[Ahdam]

Sorry about that Zaara I’ve read a few chapters to eat a feel of it and oh my god everyone’s conversations is just like having a conversation with you it ends up all in riddles I’m not sure if I’m supposed to laugh or stay confused help me decipher this language Zaara 😂😂😂😂😂

[Ahdam]

I’m looking back and it seems your the only one here Zaara sorry for the silence had a hiatus and trying to get back into books and this book probably wasn’t the best choice but I’ll make my way through

[Zaara]

Ahdam wrote: "I’m looking back and it seems your the only one here Zaara sorry for the silence"

Well...you're here...and I, I live in hope. My gals will be along, never fear, they won't let me talk to myself forever.
Advice, I think, hang in there for a bit. Then, if the book seems too much put it away. For a few years. Like I did with Wuthering Heights.
You are only 17, no?

[Beste]

I'm starting this and The Last Namsara both tonight to not miss deadlines.
Promise to myself: Don't sign up for all the good books :)
My BRT list shows 15 books this month beside The Midnight Star and The Winner's Kiss, I read on the side last week :!

[Zaara]

Heh, see Ahdam...what did I say? Somebody will soon come....
😊

[Ahdam]

Well that’s good to know actually I’m 20 so your off for about 3 years

[Zaara]

Ahdam wrote: "Well that’s good to know actually I’m 20 so your off for about 3 years"

O d'oh! Yeah...you had your birthday recently...sorry, Ahdam....that was gauché of me. I did remember your birthday, its just you seem very young for 20...
We are all very ancient ppl....forgive us our senility...😂😂😂

[Laura Tenfingers]

I'm here, but conflicted. I'm finding this book crazy, all the characters are completely wack, and it's really quite hilarious, full of great lines, but somehow I can only read little bits at a time and I kind of want to just ignore it... but I hate abandoning a good book just because I'm lazy... It's great and also extremely bizarre. Want to put it down but will never pick it back up again if I do...

[Ahdam]

I’ll take that as a compliment then but ok another note just to boost my ego I am making a film or an episodic film right now and it may or may not be cringe but I am sticking with it 😂😂😂😂😂

[Ahdam]

So if your wondering why I haven’t been reading lately I am working on a film just by myself so yeah

[Zaara]

@Laura,I'm the same. Little bits at a time.

[Beste]

@Zaara, @Laura Im doing the same here. I agree both of you. These ppl are the definition of crazy 😁 but we must admit the stories are brilliant.
At first I couldn't take this many ppl and events at the same time but after the middle of the book, you know that persons' character and reaction to events.
I was also shocked to see so many implications of true politics critics.
(About oil, corruption, financial 'benefits' of the war) and the real side effects of the war without filters.
The way soldiers think about war is explained in a hilarious way but it makes you question their psychology and you know what is told is the truth. Why would Yossarian think about who wins what or where in the war, he lives in uncertainty, he fights for a war that is not believed by him or his ppl.

[Zaara]

Yes @Beste, those are good points you make. I xpecially liked the transition in your post from the collective cost of war to (in the last sentence) the individual cost.
And also...all the diverse little throwaway bits sprinkled here and there abt screaming :-( nightmares...what abt those??
I guess you will finish the book before me and Laura 😂😂😂 though we started earlier.
I'm on one of my little breaks...😈

[Beste]

Zaara wrote: "Yes @Beste, those are good points you make. I xpecially liked the transition in your post from the collective cost of war to (in the last sentence) the individual cost.
And also...all the diverse l..."

I finished it already. I don't want to spoil it yet but you will steadily grow detestation through the end. The events build up to make you hate war. Not just some of the wars but all of it. The way ppl profit from it and the way it all seems like a chess game to some...

Ok I will spoil a little. (view spoiler)[I first thought Yossarian was selfish, the way he choose to stay in hospital, the way he never cares. But the ending... (hide spoiler)]

[Zaara]

@Beste and especially for @Laura, stopping by...read a light little book on the German occupation of Guernsey told epistolary style...it had this...“humor is the best way to make the unbearable bearable”
Hmmmm....

[Laura Tenfingers]

Very appropriate.