Catch-22

Stop changing the rules.


That is what the title refers to - that fact that you need to successfully complete a number of missions to get out of the war, but when you get close, the nasty people in charge keep upping the number.

This is a black comedy that follows our protagonist as he tries to get by while stuck in this ugly war situation with a bunch of crazy and going crazy fellow military, locals and other whacky people around the place.

Both funny and bleak at once.

Definitely worth reading.

This didn't live up to my hopes re-reading it twenty years on from the first time - but that's not too surprising given how I relished it then. I suppose much of the pleasure was in how much it shocked and stung - something it's not going to do twice. It's hardly a book that needs any more discussion, so this is more just logging my response. Catch 22 was a wonderful foil to the stiff-upper lip jingoism of so much war literature and cinema, and Heller hilariously pilloried the dubious and at times absurd morality of the military. However this isn't just for laughs - we're not talking Hogan's Heroes farce or McHale's Navy peacetime shenanigans - the humour is as black as it comes. Just as you're wetting yourself laughing at something ridiculous part of you realises this is too close to reality, and the guys falling down dead aren't just cartoons.

This book just overflows with manic wit while managing to powerfully confront some big establishment issues. Unfortunately the next book I tracked down of Heller's, Something Happened, was just an embittered humourless mess. Somehow the same apparent lack of discipline enhances Catch 22.

A tricky thing these days, but may you come to this wonderful book without any prior knowledge or expectations.

Jay O. Sanders performance of this mind-boggling work is equally mind-blowing. He understands the book thoroughly and seems to channel the characters effortlessly. There's an honesty and shocked intensity that parallels the book's--all rendered with extreme confidence and cool. I love it and recommend it highly. One of the best reads ever.

If the "Lance Corporal Underground" had a reading list, Catch-22 would be at the top. From the sociopathic commanders to the stupidity of the mission requirements increasing endlessly and unnecessarily, all of the hilarious absurdities cataloged in this novel are daily realities for anyone involved in the military. Well, they WOULD be hilarious if they were mere fiction.

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.