Catch-22

Title : Catch-22 (1961, 455 pages)

Author : Joseph Heller (1923-1999)

Genre : Literature

Rating : B

This Week I Read...
Oh, the absurdity of war! John Yossarian is a bombadier, stationed in the Mediterranean during the last half of World War 2. He spends his time bombing the northern half of Italy, falling in love with various whores in Rome, agonizing that his next mission will end in his death, and trying to figure out how to convince the military to ship him back to the states.

There is a way out, of course. If you're found to be insane, that's an instant ticket home. Alas, by attempting to show that you're insane, you demonstrate your sanity. That's Catch-22, and that means it is impossible for Yossarian to ever get himself discharged.

What's To Like...
Yossarian is a classic anti-hero : full of faults, scared of dying, and anti-establishment. The group he's stuck with (the "Fighting 256th") has country bumpkins, back-stabbers, buxom nurses, milquetoast chaplains, incompetent Generals (anyone remember the Peter Principle?), ambitious Colonels, capitalistic Majors, and a host of other engaging characters to become acquainted with.

If you like paradoxes, there are a couple billion of them in this book. Then there are the Catch-22's themselves, which are similar to, yet different, from paradoxes. BTW, a "Catch-22" is entirely fictional. FWIW, there were quite a few numbers tried prior to the book being released - Catch-11; Catch-14; etc.

I suspect if you've ever been in the service, you'll find this book hilariously close to how things really were. I'm not a vet (both the Army and me are stronger because of this), so there's a limited amount of relevancy here for me.

What's Not To Like...
It's a slow read. As with the other Heller book I've read ("God Knows"), its way too repetitious. You could slice 150 pages out of C-22, and it would be much better. You'll find yourself skipping "text" paragraphs to get to the dialogue parts.

There's no plot for the first 75% of the book. It's like watching a 24-hour M*A*S*H marathon - there's humor and wit, but no progression in the tale at all. To be fair, Heller wakes up around page 330, and things finally begin to unfold. The book gets markedly darker after that, which IMNSHO is a plus.

Finally, the ending just plain sucks. I know this is a farce, but it was a believable farce until... well, no spoilers here.

It's The History, Stupid...
If you judge Catch-22 solely on its literary merits. it doesn't stand the test of time very well. Joseph Heller was destined never to repeat his initial smash hit. I'd go as far to say that the success of C-22 was due more to good timing than good writing. Of course, I say that about Seinfeld too.

But Catch-22 is a breakthrough opus. Along with authors like Kurt Vonnegut, there was finally something distinctive about American literature. Yeah, the Brits figured this out before we did, but hey, they've had more practice at this sort of thing.

You can see the influence of Catch-22 in M*A*S*H, and maybe-just-maybe, even in Dilbert. So we'll remember its time-period, and give it a shaky B. With Heller, Vonnegut, and Hunter S. Thompson all now departed, maybe it's time for a new generation of talented American authors to emerge.