Catch-22 | Joseph Heller | It's a steep climb but the view is worth it

Catch-22 | Joseph Heller | Leaves One Wanting More!

books:

Catch-22

	Catch-22 Joseph Heller Simon & Schuster, 1996 - 464 pages average customer review:based on 832 reviews view larger image
	for more information click here

highly recommended

It's a steep climb but the view is worth it - great novel!

Joseph Heller, who was an American bombardier in WWII, tells the story of a character in the same situation, John Yossarian, in his historical, satirical novel, Catch-22. The title refers to a military rule in the book in which circular logic is employed to keep air-men flying their missions, despite their best efforts to avoid them. It illustrates perfectly the message of the story: war is insane, and inane bureaucratic operation sustains it.

I began reading the novel with optimistic expectations, mainly from the critical acclaim it has received over the decades, but also because the title's concept seemed a clever premise for a novel. However, as I read chapter after chapter I became disheartened. The jokes were not funny, they made no sense, and the characters rambled on insanely about seemingly unimportant topics. By about page 100 I was seriously considering moving on to something else, but then a colleague of mine saw it in my hand and said, "Catch-22, great novel, isn't it?" This guy was highly-educated and a veteran educator - was I missing something? "Actually," I replied, "I'm not really getting into this one." He smiled and nodded knowingly: "It took me five tries to finish it. The first hundred pages are tough, but once you get over that stretch it's really worth it." Taking him at his word I trudged on, and I am deeply grateful I did. He was correct, as the story gradually began to come together brilliantly and by the end I decided that it was perhaps one of the most solid and intelligent novels that I have yet read.

There were reasons for my troubles, and I fear that many give up with a sour impression of the book due to them. The novel is told from differing points of view, and the story is nonlinear. Events are told repeatedly by different people, often out of sequence, and are revealed more and more in their entirety each time further details are offered. This results in the completion of a set-up to a joke whose punch-line has already been told. It allows the reader to laugh at and understand later a situation which previously seemed frivolous and unfunny. It also changes one's perspective of characters that at first seemed insane, but are later found to be the sanest.

Catch-22 offers many instances of poignant insight and telling observations. One of the most relevant to our own time involves a conversation between the American character Nately and an elderly Italian man:

"You put so much stock in winning wars," the grubby iniquitous old man scoffed. "The real trick lies in losing wars, in knowing which wars can be lost. Italy has been losing wars for centuries, and just see how splendidly we've done nonetheless. France wins wars and is in a continual state of crisis. Germany loses and prospers." (Heller 255)

And later...

"There is nothing so absurd about risking your life for your country," he [Nately] declared.
"Isn't there?" asked the old man. "What is a country? A country is a piece of land surrounded on all sides by boundaries, usually unnatural. Englishmen are dying for England, Americans are dying for America, Germans are dying for Germany, Russians are dying for Russia. There are now fifty or sixty countries fighting in this war. Surely so many countries can't be worth dying for."
"Anything worth living for," said Nately, "is worth dying for."
"And anything worth dying for," answered the sacrilegious old man, "is certainly worth living for... How old are you? Twenty-five? Twenty-six?"
"Nineteen," said Nately, "I'll be twenty in January."
"If you live." (Heller 257)

Despite what justifications can be made for war, how else can war look to one who witnesses the carnage first-hand but to be absolutely without reason? And though certain wars may be just, certainly not all battles are. This is the experience of Yossarian.

The novel contains the heart-breaking reality of war coupled with the zaniness of people on the brink of sanity's edge. It is real enough to be relevant, but surreal enough for the reader to laugh and enjoy without qualms of conscience. For those who have been inhibited by the confusion of the first hundred pages of the book, I beg you to return once more for the long haul. The journey is well-worth it.

for more information click here

Leaves One Wanting More!

Joseph Heller was a genius in delivering such a masterpiece to his fellow countrymen. The style, and proses are evocative. Heller keeps the plot, and storyline right above the surface of the pages. He has you learning of one character make reference to one you will learn of later in the book, or one you just passed. The satire is fulsome, and majestically original. The book refreshes the reader in a way very few books can. It is disconcerting when one realizes this is one of a kind. Authors should take a stab at further developing Mr. Heller's gift.

for more information click here

Relevant again as we circle back through the same lunacy

If you were a MASH fan you will clearly see this novel as wellspring.
The humor is Marxian ( Groucho not Karl ) and you will see that there is nothing new. I am 150 or so pages in and among the chestnuts tackled so far are military tours of duty, farm subsidies, unscrupulous doctors, mindless bureaucracy and Texans.

A particular sentence made me burst out laughing which is uncommon for me when reading, especially bearing in mind that I was 17 hours into a 20 hour journey from the UK back to the US.

This is a great piece of writing and while I can understand its not appealing to everybody, Heller is a great artist and thinker.

for more information click here

uniquely wonderful...

i don't even know where to start--just thinking of this novel brings a loony smile on my face. i've read this a couple of years ago while i was on fieldwork, and i remember being on the receiving end of worried and even stupefied stares from my friends whenever i had this book on my hands--there were times (a lot of times, mind) when i'd just laugh outright as i read thru the exploits of yossarian, major major (and then more majors), milo minderbender, nately, and other illustrious (or not) characters. their eccentricities are often amusing, beffudling, heartwrenching, and even enlightening.

but besides the humor, there are a lot of issues in the story. people will be given a glimpse as to how it's like for soldiers to be in the thick of war, how they are slowly, subtly changed from the inside-out. heller has masterfully encapsulated the dynamics between and among ranks of soldiers, and even those people outside their outfit that they come in contact with, and what influences they have wrought against one another. morbidly fascinating, excruciatingly merciless, and awkwardly honest, catch-22 deserves to be in everyone's literature...

for more information click here

Anti-war novel at its finest!

A group of my friends went to Stockton State College to see a theater presentation of Catch-22. We all decided to reread the novel;all of us had read the book in high school english.
The times have changed. There is a very pro military culture in the United States today. I think Heller's satire is probably closer to the truth about the efficiency of the military. The people who 'liberated' Iraq will be postal workers in about ten years. And not very good ones either.
There are good wars that must be fought, one must concede. Most of the time,however, it is just male ego and ambition run amok. You might say, what if everyone felt that way?
Then I'd be a damned fool to feel otherwise.

for more information click here