Catch-22

Catch-22 is almost unequivocally the best work of fiction I've ever read. It's definitely a grower, but boy when it does, you're in for a wild ride. Reading this book you are bombarded with a slew of hilarious stories about an insane cast of characters. Slowly but surely there comes into focus a tragic tale of a bunch of officers trying to make it through a horrible war with their mind and body in one piece. This novel manages to capture with perfect clarity the absurdism of war and the (funny) craziness of bureaucracy and hierarchy. Never has a book managed to be so funny and sad at the same time. Not to mention the fact that it's endlessly quotable:

“They're trying to kill me,” Yossarian told him calmly.
No one's trying to kill you,” Clevinger cried.
Then why are they shooting at me?” Yossarian asked.
They're shooting at everyone,” Clevinger answered. “They're trying to kill everyone.”
And what difference does that make?”

Stop what you're doing, and go and read this book right now, force yourself to read the first 150 pages no matter what, it takes a while to “get it” but once you do, boy will you be glad.

Read this for school and I was really happy about it!

I will say, I do wish I hadn't read this during the soccer season because I think some things went over my head when they really shouldn't have, but I had so much on my mind and so much to do that something had to give. I'll just have to re-read it someday.

The plot was very interesting, if not a little confusing- but that may be due to the time in which I read it. It was satirical, so it was amusing and fascinating to see how Heller made comments on various parts of war in this novel.

I loved the characters. For me, they were what really brought this novel to life. They were all funny, quirky, and had complex relationships and interactions with one another that connected the book. I loved them all, but I do have a soft spot for good old Yossarian. The one complaint I have with characters is that there were so many of them that at times I lost track of who was who and who did what. But for the most part, it was fine, and I attribute that to the strange names that the characters had.

Also Milo Minderbinder? What a whacky dude.

The book was interesting and engaging and I wish I had had more time to read it in the past few weeks because I definitely would have finished it sooner- and probably retained more information as well.

All said, I totally recommend this book to everyone, it's definitely a must-read at some point and I'm happy to have read it even if I don't think I got to experience it completely.

I really liked this book. It's a very cynical read however for me personally it resonates with my attitudes and disillusionment with the US government, ineffective elected officials, and the military industrial complex. Running the gauntlet from hilarity on a surreal level (some chapters read more like an Abbot and Costello routine) to deeply disturbing tragedy the book unearths a lot of deep questions and contradictions about the way we view life, death, and war.

I can see how this book is pretty divisive, I was pretty turned off after a few chapters because I hadn't quite gotten into the more surreal aspects of it however I'm really glad I pushed through.

4/5 silly, 1/5 heavy

Absolutely love it!

The funniest and most thought provoking book I have read in 10 years

It took me a while but then I really got into it and found myself laughing out loud at points (well, as out loud as you dare when on a packed commuter train!).

I tried twice with the audiobook version of this book and maybe got one third of the way into it before quitting. It was brought to me by the Verge bookclub, so I thought I'd persevere with it, and bought the Kindle version. That's when it began to make sense. I guess some books just aren't suited to the audiobook format for me.

As with Les Misérables last year, which I gave up on twice, this has become the book of the year for me. This is no throwaway pulpy book. The language itself is utterly gorgeous. It kind of has a Python-esque wit and humour to it, intelligent and dense, while seeming somehow shallow. It's difficult to explain. I found myself highlighting phrase after phrase in the Kindle app and laughing out loud in parts. It's the sort of writing that makes you want to share the phrases with loved ones. If only I could read this in a group and talk about it like we used to talk about Spitting Image on a Monday morning in the playground.

Again, as with Les Misérables, this is a book I would dearly like to return to and to have a nice printed copy of. It's the kind of book that, having read it through once, it would be useful to have in a Kindle app to dip in and out of in a waiting room or at a bus stop. The language is that good.

I loved every bit of it. The message to take away from this is that, more often than not, classics become so for a very good reason and that perseverance really can pay off!

Well, that was interesting...
This book was very humorous, I enjoyed it a whole lot.

What should I say about this book. That I understood it? Partly, but not all, and I think this book is almost impossible to understand. The writing stile was excellent and for me, as a non native english reader, also quite challenging and I was happy that I could read that on my Kindle where looking up words is just so nice and easy.

I would highly recommend this book to anyone who wants to read some really good literature and wants to challenge their brain and end up with a much richer vocabulary than before.

Superb. Bitingly sarcastic through to deep sadness. An anti war novel for the ages.

Catch-22 is one of those books that people tend to “know” without having read, which is a bit of a shame, because it's actually rather delightful to read. That walk the case with me:I knew what a catch-22 was, and as such never bothered reading it before now.

I've seen reviews of Catch-22 that refer to it as a book about war; that's true on one level, obviously, but it's true in the same sense as SunTzu's Art of War is, where it's about war, but it's also about politics, business, and any other large-scale social institution. Heller's not just saying war doesn't make sense, but rather that life itself is a absurdist farce - even though the book predates it, the t ext kept reminding me of that WoodyAllen line about god being a comedian playing to an audience that's afraid to laugh.

My one complaint is that the book drags a bit in the middle; at 350 pages this book would have been perfection; at 450 it has to settle only for excellence.c

Amazing book from cover to cover. I found myself laughing out loud at the ridiculousness of the outlandish rock and hard place situations depicted while simultaneously feeling a great deal of empathy for the characters' plights. This book is timeless because these themes, while exasperated in times of war, are still found all around us. These catches are inescapable and that's exactly what makes Heller's ability to make us laugh as we mull them over so powerful.

Hmmm, Wanted to like it. But had to keep coming back to the reviews to convince myself not to give up on it. I'm glad I read it to the end but more glad to be done and moving on.

Interesting use of timeline. Enjoyed the characters overall and appreciate the effort to bring to light the mentality of war.

At times thought Heller was using the dialog and repetitive nature to numb the reader intentionally. Who knows.

A very very funny book. A great critique on the strange intricacies and politics of war. It is a fairly manic and psychotic. It features many, many characters, so much so that it feels a bit Dostoyevskian at times, with a hint of Nick Hornby.
And exactly this is what made it a bit hard to read at times. The chapters always revolve around one of the characters, cycling through the many different characters, so after a while this gets a bit much. Halfway through I put it aside for a while, because I did not see where it was going. Then the hilarity can only get you through for 1 or 2 chapters. Around page 400 or so it I was again submerged in the story. But maybe that's the catch. That when you read it, you want to put it aside. When you're not reading it, you want to pick it up again. It's a mighty Catch, that one.

Awesome. I am excited to read another Heller book as soon as possible, which will be somewhere next year :)

A long, boring read. The humour was too slapstick for mine. Maybe funny in its day but all I could think was that perhaps it was just one long dream, given that some of the scenarios were like things that occur in dreams (talking to guy in plane who couldn't hear and he kept repeating). Sorry for all the fans out there, I tried.

Ugh. How many times can you put someone in an impossible situation and still have it be funny or witty? For the first 50 or 75 pages I thought the famous catch 22 dilemmas were clever and illustrative of the futility of war, the quirkiness of the human condition etc. After another 100 pages of the same thing over and over ad nauseam, I found myself alternating between frustrated and bored. Finally I stopped reading it 3/4ths of the way in–the occasional laugh couldn't make up for the repetitive sarcasm, depressing futility and dry plot. I read on Wikipedia that originally Heller was going to make it novelette. Maybe he should have.

[August 2018] I don't know if this is the fifth time I've read it or the sixth. Or seventh. Doesn't matter; it might be my last. It's just not as funny when daily we hear of real-life Aarfys, Milos, Cathcarts and Korns and other cockroaches in too-powerful positions.

I will always love this book. Every page has crushing examples of how horrible humans can be; yet every few pages Heller reminds us how kind we can be too. While it's certainly not The Great Novel About The Human Experience—for one, there are no female characters—Heller covers huge swaths of the big ones: courage, cruelty, greed, compassion, blind moronic obedience. (Come to think of it, maybe this is the perfect book for the present republican administration). Most importantly—this is what keeps the reader going—Heller highlights it all with a tone of utter absurdity. Sometimes it's delighted absurdity, sometimes exasperated, but always engaging and thoughtful.

This is an important book; and I don't mean one to have gathering dust on your bookshelf. If you haven't read it, please do.

As of December 2017, I have read Joseph Heller's “Catch-22” 4 or 5 times with the first read during the mid-nineties. I remember finding the book a laugh riot during that first pass, whereas I pick up a lot more darkness in this reading; the book is still absolutely hilarious and does not get old after multiple readings.

My Great Books discussion group had an excellent, thought-provoking discussion about this book
(see the questions at the bottom of this review). For example, we drew parallels to Mark Twain's “Huckleberry Finn,” in which the author ratchets up the nonsense to move the story from humor to tragedy. One of the group's members asked what the reciprocal obligation of taking the benefits from an organization without standing up against the negative actions that organization takes, and this was a question we really couldn't answer, despite several members having actively protested in the 60s or recently. That question is one of the central conflicts at “Catch-22”'s core and is even more applicable today when the individual is surrounded by faceless, logicless bureaucracies in the form of corporations, think tanks, and government.

Below are the discussion questions that I pulled from other, existing discussion questions lists, including the publisher.

1. One of the most challenging aspects of the novel is piecing together the order in which events occur. How does Heller manipulate time, fragment the action, and confuse cause and effect? Does this form fit the function?
2. Heller's dialogue style is reminiscent of Abbott and Costello's “Who's on First?” comic routine of the 1940s. How does Heller use this back-and-forth disorderly logic to develop character?
3. Heller is sometimes criticized for his failure to develop female characters. Do you agree or disagree with this assessment and why?
4. Chief White Halfoat is illiterate, yet he is assigned to military intelligence. Does Milo Minderbinder, head of the M&M Syndicate, represent the individual's triumph over bureaucracy, or is he a symbol of what is wrong with capitalism? Would you include one of the major themes of the novel as the struggle between the individual and an institution?
5. Chapters tend to be named for individuals in the story; however, titles are deceptive because they tend to be about other characters. Why might Heller have named chapters after one character but have written them about another?
6. How does the Chaplain's religious faith develop and change as the story progresses? What does his timidity say about the power of moral absolutes in the world of the military? What is the significance of his sensation of déjà vu in relation to religious faith?
7. Is Catch-22 a comedy, tragedy, story of morality, or an allegory?
8. What does Catch-22 say about war? How does Catch-22 compare to other war stories you have read or seen, particularly those about World War II? How does it compare to other satires?
9. Does there seem to be any system of justice in the novel? Are “good” characters rewarded while “evil” ones are punished? Can we clearly say who is “good” or “evil”? If not, is there such thing as justice at all?
10. Circumstances surrounding Snowden's death are revealed slowly. What does his death mean to Yossarian? To others?
11. What are some of the examples of Catch-22s found in the novel? What is the true meaning of the title? Ironically, at the end of the novel, Yossarian has the opportunity to go home a hero and has the system in a Catch-22. Do you think the ending is a victory or a defeat?