Rating: 
Summary: My favorite book
Review: Absolute, unadulterated genius. The funniest book I've ever read, but also the darkest, the most horrifying, and the most enchanting.
Nothing else to say, really, but after a couple of reads it becomes remarkably easy to follow, the jokes still work, your perception of certain characters changes, and it becomes BETTER.
A cornerstone of my life.
And Heller was actually IN World AWar II. He knows what he's talking about.
(The chapter "Snowden" never ceases to give me chills. I gave this to a friend of mine who was way inot joining the Marines. Now it's his favorite, too, and he's not so sure. So the message works.)
Rating:
Summary: Can we laugh about war? Just try not laughing.
Review: This book is savagely funny and deadly serious all in one breath. There's the Texan that kills the soldier in white through unrelenting conviviality, the cat that sleeps on Hungry Joe's face and maybe eventually killing him, the soldier who see everything twice, Major Major Major Major, the atheist chaplain's assistants who run God's service so much better than the believing Chaplain ever could, and then there is the war and the desperate unfunny catch-22 to stay alive in a business that's bound to kill you.I read this book in High School and have finished it off since then about 4 times. It solidified my love for literature. It taught me that to keep our sometimes feeble hold on sanity we have to find the ludicrous and humor in the dead seriousness of reality. It is pacifist's plea to find some sanity to end the state of things where we legally go out to kill each other, trading blows with the enemy underneath the bombardier's sites and the enemies among us. I wonder if Joseph Heller could find Peace quite as tragically funny. "The only thing going on was a war, and no one seemed to notice...Yossarian had proof, because strangers he didn't know shot at him with cannons every time he flew up into the air to drop bombs on them, and it wasn't funny at all. And if that wasn't funny, there were lots of things that weren't even funnier." It's the humor amid the tragedy that in war people die and when people die, there is little laughter and to hold on to your sanity you must laugh. That's a catch isn't it? I'll close this in the words of Jimmy Buffet and thank you Joseph Heller for teaching us well, "If we didn't laugh we'd all go insane."
Rating: 
Summary: A very interesting, unusual story
Review: Catch-22 is a very interesting story about a bombardier named Yossarian stationed in Italy during WWII...The whole world seems crazy in this novel and there are plenty of crazy characters that inhabit it. It might sound weird to say, but there really isn't a plot in this story. It's just a bunch of funny and sometimes sad events told in a nonchronological order. This would make the story confusing, but since there isn't really a plot it doesn't really matter. Reading this novel one can tell there are many layers and meanings, but it's not neccessary to delve too deeply into these meanings as the book can be read just for it's hilarity. I found some parts to be laugh-out-loud funny. This book is somewhat hard to describe and one can really only appreciate it if they read it. It's worth reading and I personally got through it very quickly...
Rating: 
Summary: Cynicism's a bore
Review: Tried it twice; couldn't be bothered, really - life's too short! Only amusing if you thought war was a sensible career option for mankind. The book I really want to track down, also published in the 60s, was set amongst the postwar occupation force in Japan (a lot of haiku writing went on, I remember) - can anyone assist?
Rating:
Summary: A war satire...
Review: I got to read this book only a few years ago, and suddenly everyone around me looked as if Im an alien. Catch-22 is really wonderful satire about war. The hilarity is wonderfully woven around the unavoidable tragedy during the war era and Heller beautifully alternates between the two. In a sense it is like Voltaire's Candide where the central character oscillates between optimism and pessimism, only here Yossarian (and others) oscillates between the comic and tragic. While Voltaire's is really a serious satire about the evils that humans perpetuate on one another, that was completed in 3 days, Heller's is more funny yet focused on war, probably starting a new genre - war comics (beetle bailey, mash etc). Its ironic that the movie Catch 22 could not bring out the nuances of the war time that Heller has depicted in the book. He probably also created a style of repeating same thing in different words to make it look funny. Anyway this is great novel not only to be read but also realise the evils of war. Yossarian will surely be an unforgettable character whoever read this book.
Rating:
Summary: "That crazy bastard may be the only sane one left."
Review: My sentiments exactly - spoken by Dr. Stubbs of Yossarian, the prodigious, yet pugnacious protagonist. In a paradoxical world, where the supposedly sane commanding officers run the miltary through methodical madness, the "crazy" Yossarian is deemed so because he values self-preservation over death. The military brass in Catch-22 proves not only utterly pretentious, incomptetent, indolent, and inept, but incongruously insane themselves. General P.P. Peckem ostentatiously states, "My only fault", he pauses for effect,"is that I have no faults." General Peckem is only one of the many well-developed laughable characters developed throughout Catch-22. The general pedestrian reader might say that this is solely another "anti-war" book. I think that would be shallow and inaccurate as Catch-22 is much, much more than that. To me, Catch-22 sparks many thoughts and feelings concerning individuality vs. the system(and the Syndicate) and the willingness of one person in a sea of conformity to have the balls to stand up for what is right regardless what the consequences may be.
Rating:
Summary: irreverent pacifist humor at it's best
Review: contemporary classic; timeless; hilarious.
in short . . . i love it.
Rating:
Summary: A Different Kind of War Novel
Review: Catch-22 achieves something that few novels manage to do. Like David Sedaris and Kurt Vonnegut, Joseph Heller manages to create a story that is both profound and humorous at the same time. The unique combination of real tragedy and outrageous action raises Catch-22 above ordinary novels. Fortunately, rather than include humor for the sole sake of entertainment, Catch-22 uses it to provide a look into human civilization. Why does the "crazy" activities of this squadron resonate so deeply in the reader? Because its real--life is crazy, it doesn't always make sense, and this insanity necessary to how we function. War in itself is part of this vicious cycle of insanity. Heller understands all this and Catch-22 manages capture the essence of these facts of life in the story of bomber Yossarian. Heller's novel moves swiftly and the prose is short and sharp. Most of the action is accomplished through incredible dialouge--the scene where Yossarian is scream at Arfy to move back from the nose is an excellent example, the reader understands the desperation and the exasperation. The story moves without regard to chronology--you get snippets of one event then you jump somwhere else, and are surprised when the previous event is explained in full. Heller manages to maintain this effect with such skill that by the end of the novel you know everthing that happened, why it happened, and the order in which it happened. The seeming lack of order to the novel effectively enhances the feelings of insanity so integral to the novel. Catch-22 is one of the best books I have read in a long time. It's fun, meaningful, and entertaining--and you'll probably put it down with a new perspective on why we do the often times "crazy" things we do.
Rating:
Summary: The Apex
Review: Despite a bit of sluggishness in the fourth fifth of this book, Heller managed to create a truly great book in a manner nobody had ever successfully pulled off before. Like the equally great SLAUGHTERHOUSE FIVE--really the only significant novel thematically similar to CATCH-22 written in anything like Heller's style--CATCH-22 is usually labeled an anti-war novel. I disagree. I think both are pro-humanity books. Heller and Vonnegut, like Voltaire centuries earlier, both seem to have reached a place when writing these classics where they could no longer stomach the absurdities of their day. It wasn't just war that nauseated them; it was the ease--the eagerness--in which they saw men become animals. They are, unfortunately, depressing books. Great books, but depressing nonetheless.
Rating:
Summary: Oh the Stunning Glory!
Review: Last summer, I read this book somewhat reluctantly. I figured I should read more classic books like that for my own personal literacy level, not suspecting I would enjoy it overmuch. However, after about 10 pages, I was delighted to find that reading it was one of the better experiences of my sedentary life. Sure, it's long, but regretfully not long enough, for it is so glorious that I wish it would not end. And now I make it a tradition to re-read Catch 22 every summer (along with the Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy series, which I also highly recommend). Joseph Heller brings us over 40 characters, each with distinctive attributes. The plot is jumpy, but for some reason, it works. Heller keeps what is usually a mundane subject exceptionally interesting, and truly proves that writing is an art. Read this. It's funny too.
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