Catch 22 by Joseph Heller. The genre is a satire all set during World War II, the book was written between 1955-1961 first published in1961. Protagonist is John Yossarian is a paranoid solider who wants to get through the war without getting killed. He hates the war and hates everyone who wants to kill him, which according to him is everyone. So because everyone wants to kill him and he hates everybody he has no friends. We first see Yossarian in an army hospital happily lying about an illness. He has “pain” in his liver, which actually left a long time ago but refuses to tell the doctors that. All the men in the hospital are required to censor letters from the soldiers that are going home. Yossarian takes a sadistic pleasure in blanking out all of the letters leaving only the name and the sign-off. This could be a theme that is carried out throughout the book, Yossarian wanting to have complete and absolute control over situations. Unfortunately life has a nasty habit of not going as planned, especially in a war zone, and though I have never been in a war I can relate to not having things go as planned. I didn’t plan to have my teeth knocked back and having to have three root canals, nor did I plan today while I was eating on my way to my Grandma’s for my temporary teeth to fall out in my taco! I understand how Yossarian is paranoid of the war, I get nervous when I go to the place where I fell, and when I see kids slide on ice or even run! But unlike Yossarian I can’t let these fears control my life. Yossarian wants to manipulate every situation to be in his benefit. That might be a transformation that occurs throughout the book.
A line that I’ve come across in my reading is this “Insanity is contagious.” This strikes me as funny because in a way it’s true. People follow fads of the times, there are always a few who do not go with the flow but generally people as a large group will think very similarly. And in this context of the book I believe Yossarian is crazy so that fact that he is warning the Chaplain about going to the loon wards makes it ironic.
This book seems very complex and may take some deep thought but it will be a good challenge. I’m excited to see how it will end.
I saw the 1970 movie starring Alan Arkin. Never read the book, though. The Vietnam War had not yet ended and many of my friends and brothers were in the service and some (most) were overseas (Vietnam). The movie was troubling because I wanted to see "sense" of it all. And the movie did not do that. Make "sense" of the Vietnam War, that is. Too many local guys being drafted every month and going off to war. It was not a good time as a young person.
ReplyDelete