By: Joseph Heller Publisher: Simon & Schuster Average Rating: Binding: Paperback Label: Simon & Schuster Number of Items: 1 Number of Pages: 464 Publication Date: September 04, 1996
Product Description: Catch-22 is like no other novel. It is one of the funniest books ever written, a keystone work in American literature, and even added a new term to the dictionary.
At the heart of Catch-22 resides the incomparable, malingering bombardier, Yossarian, a hero endlessly inventive in his schemes to save his skin from the horrible chances of war. His efforts are perfectly understandable because as he furiously scrambles, thousands of people he hasn't even met are trying to kill him. His problem is Colonel Cathcart, who keeps raising the number of missions the men must fly to complete their service. Yet if Yossarian makes any attempts to excuse himself from the perilous missions that he is committed to flying, he is trapped by the Great Loyalty Oath Crusade, the hilariously sinister bureaucratic rule from which the book takes its title: a man is considered insane if he willingly continues to fly dangerous combat missions, but if he makes the necessary formal request to be relieved of such missions, the very act of making the request proves that he is sane and therefore ineligible to be relieved.
Catch-22 is a microcosm of the twentieth-century world as it might look to some one dangerously sane -- a masterpiece of our time.
Amazon.com Review: There was a time when reading Joseph Heller's classic satire on the murderous insanity of war was nothing less than a rite of passage. Echoes of Yossarian, the wise-ass bombardier who was too smart to die but not smart enough to find a way out of his predicament, could be heard throughout the counterculture. As a result, it's impossible not to consider Catch-22 to be something of a period piece. But 40 years on, the novel's undiminished strength is its looking-glass logic. Again and again, Heller's characters demonstrate that what is commonly held to be good, is bad; what is sensible, is nonsense.
Yossarian says, "You're talking about winning the war, and I am talking about winning the war and keeping alive." "Exactly," Clevinger snapped smugly. "And which do you think is more important?" "To whom?" Yossarian shot back. "It doesn't make a damn bit of difference who wins the war to someone who's dead." "I can't think of another attitude that could be depended upon to give greater comfort to the enemy." "The enemy," retorted Yossarian with weighted precision, "is anybody who's going to get you killed, no matter which side he's on." Mirabile dictu, the book holds up post-Reagan, post-Gulf War. It's a good thing, too. As long as there's a military, that engine of lethal authority, Catch-22 will shine as a handbook for smart-alecky pacifists. It's an utterly serious and sad, but damn funny book.
Best Book I Ever Read Catch-22 is a jarring, thrilling, hysterical exposition of the oppression and dominance which pervades lives and lifestyles in the modern era. Full of classic dialogue, superb characters, wonderfully narrated, Catch-22 may be the best book ever written. A heartbreaking achievement of staggering genius!
Lost in time Full of sarcasm, ridiculously funny, with wonderful prose interspersed. I am sure it was unique and shocking for its day but I believe it to be overrated and does not stand the test of time. He makes use of the dictionary, so keep one handy, and the ranting dialog gets to be too much. What Heller did was to spawn others to do the same, such as the novel "Castle Keep", which was better, and the movies Mash and Kelly's Heroes.
The protagonist, and antagonist is a W.W.II bombardier who finds himself at the breaking point. Along with bombing missions his other mission is to find a way out of the war. It doesn't help that the Generals keep adding more missions onto the squadron's quota. We find our way into the hospital quite often through this read. The characters are unordinary, finding any way they can to divert and diverge themselves from the war; we discover entrepreneurs, maniacs, ridicule, capitalists, ineptness........ but rarely normalcy.
Wish you well Scott
Most Brilliant Satire Heller uses the most brilliant satire as he pens the story of Yossarian and his comrades, and their fight for survival in the midst of war and death. Sarcasm drips off every page, which makes the book a bit slow at times, but thoroughly humorous and enjoyable. And....what an ending!
If you love M*A*S*H, you will love this book! And if you love this book, you should seriously watch M*A*S*H!
Stubborn, heroic innocence in a mad world Heller's classic is a surreal and sprawling story of immoral naivety and moral complexity. Ostensibly about the absurdity of World War II combat, Heller examines issues of group think and individual obligation with surprising philosophical clarity.
The Catch-22 that Yossarian, the erstwhile hero of our story, encounters maddeningly and repeatedly is any insoluble contradiction, expressed in his case in this infinite loop:
A. Yossarian realizes that continuing to fly combat missions is crazy because it puts his life at risk.
B. Therefore, he realizes he is crazy, and asks to be relieved and sent home because he is crazy.
C. Rejection of his claims by the Army doctors because the fact that Yossarian is aware that he is crazy for flying missions and is able to request to be relieved proves that he is sane, and therefore must continue to fly combat missions!
As stated succinctly in this exchange between Yossarian and Doc Daneeka:
"'So?' Yossarian was puzzled by Doc Daneeka's inability to comprehend. 'Don't you see what that means? Now you can take me off combat duty and send me home. They're not going to send a crazy man out to be killed, are they?'
'Who else will go?'" (p. 305 of this edition)
The contradiction, and Yossarian's persistent attempts to escape it, frames the absurdist humor that guides the book's organization. Physical comedy, ironic and witty verbal exchanges, fast-cut overlaps of scenes, characters, and forward- and backward-shifting time frames result in an existentialist masterpiece that belongs to every time and place.
But the theme of obligation drives a stubbornly-innocent Yossarian to a moral consistency that does mark him with a supremely heroic character:
"History did not demand Yossarian's premature demise, justice could be satisfied without it, progress did not hinge upon it, victory did not depend on it. That men would die was a matter of necessity; which men would die, though, was a matter of circumstance, and Yossarian was willing to be the victim of anything but circumstance." (p. 68 of this edition).
Like every hero, he makes the difficult and dangerous decisions his friends (and enemies) only wish they had the courage to make.
In the end, Yossarian faces his internal nightmares brought to life in a bizarre tramp through Rome after losing his closest friends and faces the difficult decision of denying his obligations to save his life, before learning that others have acted heroically in their own way and opened a way out of this absurdist trap.
Catch-22 will make you laugh, think, and feel good about being able to do all three.
Fantastic, Humorous and Everlasting "Catch-22" remains one of my favorite novels of all time. Its cleverness, wit and insight never cease to amaze me. Having read Heller's novel countless times, I can honestly say that I find something new and surprising about it each time I pick it up. With that being said, I did notice some objection to it both from fellow reviewers and friends to whom I have suggested it. My only theory behind the stark contrast between people who love the book and people who do not understand it is that the rhythm of Heller's writing takes a little while to seep in. Behind the joke is a level of seriousness and behind the seriousness is another layer of satire. It is this layer that is often hard to access, but once one does the entire novel plays out as a macabre caricature of life. I can only suggest that the reader plod along for a long as possible, put it down for a while, pick it up again from the beginning but always keep going. The truth of "Catch-22" is worth discovering.
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