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Summary: incredible satire
Review: What can I say...I was blown away by this book. I generally don't like novels and movies about war, but this book was more than that. It explores human character and is a book that makes you think. To top this off, it is hilarious. I was laughing out loud at this book, and I almost never do that. The whole book is completely absurd, yet it seems like it could probably happen some day. I strongly reccomnend reading this book. It takes commitment, but the whole novel makes up for it ten-fold.
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Summary: Tu Sei Pazzo
Review: Joseph Heller's Catch-22, is an unequivocal satire on postmodern American life, with messages of dissident revolt that are well suited to the decade in which they appear. Heller is almost systematic in the issues he touches: the frustration of the individual up against powerful and faceless bureaucracies; the anticommunist purges of the Cold War and its smug hypocrisies; and strong antiwar issues that dominate postmodern America. In Heller's works, escaping these traps and inconsistencies of government is essential in the pursuit of moral and self-preservation. After all, "The enemy," as Yossarian puts it, "is anybody who's going to get you killed, no matter which side he's on."
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Summary: It's always Catch 22
Review: This book is funny. This book is the greatest parody of war ever written. This book is a work of genius. I am amazed every time I read this book at how apropos the title is and how Heller manages to weave his main point, the absurdity of war, throughout every story in this book. There is the classic scene in which the phrase Catch-22 is coined. You can only leave the war if you are crazy, but if you have the mental capacity to want to leave the war then you must be sane. An impossible situation for Yossarian, but what character does not live his life in accordance with absurdity? Major Major tells his secretary that no one is allowed in to his office to see him while he is in his office. Chief White Halfcoat can not settle down anywhere because men searching for oil will uproot him to dig for crude wherever he sets down. The man in Yossarian's tent can not be removed because he never signed in, but he can never sign in because he died before he was able to. Milo strafes the men of his own division for money because the money he is making is for the men. And all this time Snowden lays dying in the back. Throughout all this absurdity this haunting little story line continues to appear about Snowden lying in the sunlight at the back of the plane shivering to death. This is the most crucial moment in the book, for it is when Snowden spills his guts (literally) to Yossarian that the war becomes all too real. People are dying, real people, people that Yossarian knows, and he is powerless to stop it or explain it. It is during Snowden's death that Yossarian subscribes to this code of absurdity as all the other characters have in order to somehow cope with the concept of war. There is a brilliant scene in which some new recruits come in to camp. They are young and innocent. They set up their stuff in Yossarian's tent. They light Orr's wood, which was never to be used, and warm themselves over it. They take the nameless man's belongings and simply chuck them outside, ignoring the logic trap which has kept this dead man alive for so long. They are oblivious to the way things have been working in the world of this book because the war is still only a concept to them. There is no need for them to buy into absurdity fully, for they have yet to come across something they cannot cope with. Their Snowden is still alive, and their world still makes sense. Catch-22 is not merely a funny book with quirky characters. It is a testament to the only sort of mindset in which a war can make sense, the mindset of absurdity.
Rating: 
Summary: It started off well enough
Review: Catch-22 started off incredibly witty and profound and well, good. But after the first few chapters the humor gets old and repetitive, and towards the end of the book the humor was either no longer there or I no longer found it even mildly amusing. I had to force myself to finish the book and it took me weeks. The book also wasn't very action-packed. Don't get me wrong, I liked the book, and I thought it was somewhat insightful into war and human nature, but after awhile I found it to be tiresome and worn out. I'd recommend it for the first few chapters alone, and some of the characters are hilarious, but expect redundancy.
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Summary: Pleasurable and enlightening
Review: Catch-22 is the definitive modern satire and deals with all of our society's 'pet themes' like racism, human idiosyncrasy, the horror of war, bureaucratic obtuseness and imprisoned lives. The distinguishing feature of this novel however is how much FUN it is to read: a pleasure from the first chapter to the last. Heller's caustic, poignant humor had me chuckling at least once per page throughout, something no other book has ever done for me. The acumen he displays in exposing our often circular reasoning was particularly memorable and is immortalized in the phrase Catch-22. The book is far from a technical masterpiece - it is certainly not written in iambic pentameter - but the simple, lucid style and accessible register facilitates the progression of the story perfectly. As Albert Einstein said "Things should be as simple as possible - but not any simpler" and Heller honours this axiom very well. The only "difficult" element of style is the non-chronological plot structure, which can be confusing at times. Yet, even this serves a purpose, that is, to create an atmosphere of confusion that adds to the overall effect the novel has on the reader. The delightful entertainment value of Catch-22 is an essential element of, and adds greatly to, its central virtue: the satiric exposure of human inadequacies. However much fun the novel is to read it remains a social commentary that - below the surface - is as frightening as any Stephen King novel. Heller strips reality bare, eliminating the hue of our opinions, the bells-and-whistles and comforting rationalizations; forcing the reader to look at the world - and himself - impartially. Pablo Picasso once said that "Art is a lie that makes us see the truth", and Heller's artistic masterpiece shows us that reality is more frightening than fiction and after reading this novel I'm sure you'd agree.
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Summary: Hilarious and Thought Provoking
Review: This book can be difficult to read because it is filled with humor. You will constantly be rereading paragraphs to make sure you read correctly. Heller will show you some of the silliness of humanity and western culture. This book is excellent light reading for anyone over 14, but its meaning is powerful. A Classic. Long Live Yossarian!
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Summary: Love at first sight
Review: There will always be a place in my Parking Lot for this book! I'll never forget the opening line: 'It was love at first sight.' Of course, it's not a love story. Yossarian is in the hospital, but of course he doesn't (quite) have jaundice. Of course he's not too crazy to fly, because he knows flying missions is crazy. And there's no morphine in the first-aid kits, because everybody has a share. And if you don't think that's funny, there's lots more that's not even funnier! What a book!!! oxoxoxo
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Summary: The only way to make any sense out of war?
Review: The only way to endure a book about war and the constant hell of bombing runs, to my mind, is if it is desperately funny in a black-humor sort of way. Joseph Heller's masterpiece is exactly that. On an Italian island during WWII, Captain Yossarian and a whole base full of nuts are trying very hard not to get killed, while trying to finish enough of their tour of duty to be sent home, which means they have to go into danger in order to avoid it. Makes no sense? Neither does anything else in this book, except the dangerous, subversive kind of sense that suggests the whole thing -- the war, the military, even authority itself -- make no sense either. I love this book because it takes a serious subject and weaves in non-stop humor; the modern equivalent is the very funny Love Songs of the Tone-Deaf, which will have you belly-laughing as you consider the impacts of genocide. I have the highest respect for these novels -- because they entertain and make me think -- and that's a lot.
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Summary: abbott and costello write an anti-war novel
Review: i don't know what's up with the one and two-star reviewers, but i guess it's the sign of the times. writer tony medina once said that america is the dumbest country in the world, and i'd have to agree. people have become so accustomed to the john grishams and steven kings that they cringe at the thought of reading something that might stimulate their minds, that may cause them to see the world differently...i love the way heller manipulates language throughout the novel. sometimes it's b.s.( like an abbott and costello " who's on first routine, where you never get the answer,cos you're not supposed to )others, it reveals alot about a country where truth and image can be manufactured, where nothing is ever what it seems... some parts of the book made me laugh out loud ( ex. the scene in the resteraunt when yossarian is having dinner with the italian girl and she tells him she doesn't want to sleep with him, then asks him if he wants to sleep with her and his response: " i just want to have dinner with you. " totally cracked me up. now the scene with the crab apples makes perfect sense ! and there were scenes in the novel that brought chills to my spine and left me outraged ( snowden's death and aarfy's nonchalant murder of a hooker and his blase confession of it, made me wonder are humans really intelligent forms of life, or just another notch on the food chain. this book will never be dated. its more than relevant today, now that we have a supreme-court appointed president and a conservative high court ready to wreck havoc on our freedoms. and most people are just sitting by and watching it happen like sheep. no one is getting angry. this book ranks among the catcher in the rye, the autobiograpy of malcolm x, on the road, and ellison's the invisible man as books that really touched me and made me think. and you can't get that from reality t.v
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Summary: The Devil Went Down to Pianosa
Review: Joseph Heller's Catch-22 is a modern masterpiece, an intricate, deliberate, perfect combination of wry sarcasm, raw wit, and bitter cynicism scattered amongst the lives of desperate men trying to live up to their ideals from within the greatest conflict of the modern age. Heller's text of Catch-22 is a recipe for delicious humor and refreshing insight that make the bitter pills he's pushing down your throat slide down so much more smoothly, almost too easily. As an author, Heller will not rest until you, as the reader, are his equal as a cynic. He pulls it off masterfully, too, his persuasion of patriots into perversion of their most beloved creeds, his destruction of the reader's regard for respected traditions and accepted notions about America. Through the words of the brash, self-centered Captain Yossarian as well as the from the perch of omniscient narrator, Heller tells it like it is (says he). The world is a petty place, and survival is job one. That Yossarian, as the antihero, would shamelessly sabotage the arrangement of a dangerous support mission rather than risk his neck to help out others reflects a Darwinian influence that resounds without compassion. "The enemy is anybody who's going to get you killed, no matter which side he's on," rants Yossarian as he argues with the overly intellectual Clevinger. Yossarian displays no qualms as he announces, with conviction, "It doesn't make a damned bit of difference who wins the war to someone who's dead." What makes Heller's work in this novel so excellent is the fact although his ideas are morally bankrupt and bleak, he masks their horrid faces masterfully with his ingenious strokes of hilarity. The outstanding comedy put forth by Catch-22 is surely enough proof that Joseph Heller is none other than the Devil. And we should all love him for it.
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