Catch-22Catch-22'From now on I'm thinking only of me.'
Major Danby replied indulgently with a superior smile: 'But, Yossarian, suppose everybody felt that way.'
'Then,' said Yossarian, 'I'd be a damned fool to feel any other way wouldn't I?'
Catch-22 is a jigsaw, that's the only word that comes to mind when describing it, it's not meant as a compliment or even a criticism, merely a statement of fact.
It's not a normal book, if there is such a thing, it's definitely not a bog standard entertainment novel, not disposable words, this is profound energetic prose, this is not a story, it's someone's life. That someone being Yossarian, a man who is quite possibly insane but with whom it is virtually impossible to disagree. Impossible to disagree that people are trying to kill him, impossible to disagree that only a madman would want to continue to risk his life, impossible to disagree that war is a terrible thing and most importantly, impossible to disagree that the men who willingly fight are not nearly as mad as the men that make them.
There is a superb selection of back-up characters, I dare not call them minor characters, to do so excessively demeans them, some of them could easily have books in their own right, Milo Minderbinder is such a prime example, one of the few men to make a profit selling at a loss, then there's Aarfy, Nately, Clevinger, Danby, Cathcart, Dobbs, Kid Samson, McWatt, the chaplain, or even Major Major, a man who's only in when he's out.
There's so much sincerity in some of the 'answers' to war's many questions that that they almost seem believable, almost seems like the stories (for on the whole it is a selection of interwoven set-pieces that are often referred back to again and again) are true, and I get the feeling that though exaggerated somewhat and numerous detail changes there may be some slight basis in fact. The march-loving colonels and money making spivs (such an apt name) the sane and insane men, all seem such a possible part of reality that it is almost essential to assume that in part they are. Perhaps that's the main quality of the book, it's disturbing humour, that's excessive yet too close to the truth. Perhaps by moving so far from reality Heller turns back on himself... Catch-22.
Without doubt a book that must be read, if not for the meaning and the quality then just for the sheer humour, the ridiculous and surreality of the plot. Whatever... just read it.
Score 10/10
Page last updated on 28th November 1998
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