How clever can a book be? What's the maximum cleverness possible? 'Catch 22' looks to push that envelope. It's clever at every chapter. Every page. Every paragraph. And frankly it becomes tiring. It's like reading 500 pages of MASH scripts.
The central character is a man named Yossarian. He's a bombadier in the US Air Force as the Allies campaign in Italy during WWII. He's convinced that someone is out to kill him. When his comrades to assure him that he's wrong, he points out that someone shoots at him everytime he flies. He tries to stop flying missions on account of craziness, but is refused because anyone who wants to stop flying into combat must be sane. Only someone who wants to keep flying could be crazy. That's the classic Catch 22.
This was my fourth or fifth attempt to read this book. Each time I'd stopped after a hundred pages or so but this time I pushed through and found it quite rewarding. After some time you can put aside the cleverness and appreciate the characters. The end becomes very dark and that adds to the overall quality of the book. Very good.
2 comments:
I read this just after completing USAF Basic Training, while was in training for teaching VietNamese ESL. I think I was really primed for it at the time. We each had to take turns practice teaching in front of classes of forgein (mostly Arab) students. The rest of us were supposed sit and observe. You could always tell who was reading Catch 22 instead, by the giggles from the back row. The longer I was in the military, the more I appreciated the humor, both light and dark.
I loved this book.
I LOVED Alan Arkin in the film.
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