Catch 22

Rating:
Summary: Surprisingly Cutting-Edge
Review: I must say that I've heard a lot of things about CATCH-22 but upon reading it I was at first stupefied, then amazed. It's really "out there." Satiric, yes, but in an over-the-top way -- almost like Monty Python's Flying Circus: satire that often bleeds into absurdity, with plenty of word-play, and, often, flat-out slapstick. Upon reading it I was reminded of another recent devastatingly funny satire, [e-mail] (a medicated memoir) by Tom Grimes, which was featured as an Amazon quick-pick. As I was reading CATCH-22, I thought, My God, this is one book that merits a second reading! It's almost too much to take in the first reading. The novel is also terribly witty; think of DUCK'S SOUP, featuring the Marx Brothers and DR. STRANGELOVE by Stanley Kubrick. This is definitely a MUST-READ. I promise you will laugh and will be provoked to think about the absurdity not only of war, but life!

Rating:
Summary: Not a good book
Review: This book is not funny. In my opinion, this book is so so so not funny. The humor is like Saturday night live humor (post chris farley) only without the pretty images you get with TV. The writing is incredibly long-winded (he needed to EDIT, he needed a COMPUTER) and Heller always chooses the MORE OBSCURE word over the more ACCESSIBLE, STUPIDER (Heller probably thought) word. Heller thinks he's real smart just cause he can use big, rarely used words.

A taste of his humor: one of the guys is named MAJOR MAJOR MAJOR, and then, in the army, he becomes a MAJOR. So he's major major major major. This is fine, except it's stupid, and not funny, and probably the simplest humor possible, in the universe. Like in Nobakov's Lolita: HUMBERT HUMBERT. What is with these people? Is this supposed to be funny? To put the same word a bunch of times in a row?

So in conclusion, Heller thinks he's real smart, and his idea of humor is making someone's name the same word over and over again (maybe I would've found this funny when I was 5, though it wouldn't really be funny, EVEN AT 5, I probably would've just thought the author a PRETENTIOUS NERD). Yes, a pretentious nerd.

For a better "anti-war" book, read slaughterhouse five by kurt vonnegut. For another really crappy pretentious, overrated book, read Lolita. This is all in my opinion, of course.

How many people have lied to themselves that they liked this book, just cause it's supposedly a CLASSIC, I do not know. But probably a lot. This and Lolita are the two worst books I have ever read. Think of how many hours people have spent reading this a Lolita. With that kind of time spent, the human race could've probably built a space ship and a space colony on pluto and cured cancer and some other stuff.

Rating:
Summary: Hilarious and serious all at once
Review: While I was reading this book, I couldn't help but crack up. In class people would look at me oddly and then I would have to explain what was going on and then they would be laughing too. The way Heller presents these incredibly eccentric people is ingenius. His third person narrator is very matter of fact, though more compassionate toward some than others.
The story starts out with Yossarian in the hospital flirting with the nurses and screwing around with his pal Dunbar until an annoyingly patriotic (but extremely likable) Texan moves in and pushes them all back out into war. The actual plot takes awhile to get going, but there is not a single boring page in this book. It is one of the funniest things I have ever read, and one of the most profound. It attacks bureaucracy, questions and ponders religion, and deals with ever present death. Honestly one of the best books I have ever read, and I recommend it to anyone who wants a good laugh but wants to think too.

Rating:
Summary: There's a Catch to Being Insane
Review: In the beginning, we are introduced to the protagonist, Yossarian, and the situation based in the last part of WWII. It is difficult to keep from chuckling out loud while reading about the many desperate attempts of the squadron to escape the gruesome and violent conditions of the war. Somehow, Joseph Heller incorporates a light-hearted, humorous tone into a melancholy situation. By claiming to be sick and insane, the men buy time away from the dangerous flights, but the captain just keeps sending them on more required missions before they can be sent home. This actually holds the pilots in the captivity of the war until they complete the continuous assignments. With these discouraging conditions, Yossarian endures many difficult experiences, including the death of his friend. The ending is technically a happy ending but the reader is left with a feeling of despondence. Though I began the book expecting it to be more of a male's favorite, I was surprised at my enjoyment of this action-packed, humorous novel. This book deserves a four because it is hard to put down, but not my favorite.

Rating:
Summary: Catch 22
Review: Catch 22 is a novel set in final months of World War II. Yossarian, the protagonist, was a World War II Bombardier. In the novel, for thousands of people that didn't even know kept trying to kill him. This book I believe helps people to understand the meanings and feelings of war. For Yossarian lost several of his friends in war, bizzare accidnets, or even by fate, but he had to learn to handle it. This novel is not like every other novel, for it has no chronological order to it which gives it its uniqueness not only to the novel but also to the characters. For example, Yossarian goes crazy because he has gone through a lot but he gets through it. Major Major is a character to which he tells everyone they may visit him in his office, when he's not there. Some characters like Colonal Korn's just wants his picture in the paper and doesn't even care about his soldier or if they get bombed or anything. Heller makes the novel very interesting, but it is self-contradicting and has twisted reasoning for everything. He wants the reader to have to go back in the novel and remember certain events in order for it all to make sense. I also believe that because of all the little stories told about the other characters and the realationship Yossarian has with them, it ends up showing the reader a lot about Yossarian himself. For this novel is fun to read because it is field with numerous amounts of emotions from humor, to scary, to sadness and depressing moments allowing the reader to really get into the book. I enjoyed this book a lot, because I was able to keep reading it because I didn't want to put it down. I wanted to find out what kind of event was going to happen next. Catch 22 was none like any book I have read, and I recomend you read it.

Rating:
Summary: Amazing, simply amazing . . .
Review: Without a doubt, this is my all-time favorite novel. What a mastermind Heller is. How he could have come up with this stellar work of fiction is beyond me. It is, all at once, mind boggling, sickening, frightening, and hypnotic. There's not a sentence in the book that doesn't belong and it amazes me that this brilliant work never won any of the coveted prizes that other books have. But then, that's just a testament to committees, politics, and the rest.

Also recommended: McCrae's BARK OF THE DOGWOOD

Rating:
Summary: If you looked up "paradox" in the dictionary...
Review: Catch-22: the only thing that can define a book that seethes with paradox, contradiction, and twisted reasoning. The novel is set in the closing months of the Second World War, on a little island off the coast of Italy. Heller skillfully depicts a generation of people who are used against their will and the sheer helplessness of their resistance to the system. What makes this piece of literature so clever is how Heller uses his characters, which seem so real, to create many instances of contradiction and questionable logic. For example, Major Major, who will only see people in his office he himself is not in it. Or Commanding Officers who care more about well shot aerial photographs of bomb targets than actually bombing the target. And the most twisted contradiction of all: the main character's (Yossarian) iron will to survive the war, or die trying.
The novel stays fresh by unfolding many side stories that involve Yossarian's relationship with other characters. This, of course, tells the reader more about the men in the Bomber Division, but it also reveals more about Yossarian himself and his attempts to get himself out of as many missions as possible. Other characters present many of the recurring themes in the novel, such as faith. The division's chaplain, Chaplain Tappman, spends all his time preaching from the Good Book in hospitals and to the men, but at the same time, doubts everything he says, and the Lord's existence. Also, Yossarian's superior officers reveal the absolute weakness of language: while it offers no reassurance to those facing death, or those who could meet it, it offers the power of officers to trap their men in a hopeless prison of the army or in a grander scheme of things, bureaucracy.
By the time I finished this book, I was again presented with another contradiction: while this book is serious, sad, and incredibly thought-provoking, it's quite the funny read.

Rating:
Summary: The Ultimate Anti-War Novel
Review: I first read CATCH-22 when I was young--so long ago, I don't remember when but, probably, when I was in junior high school. It was so powerful that, at that moment, it frightened me.

Re-reading the novel as an adult, I realize that author Joseph Heller was a bona fide genius. In hindsight, it is difficult to believe that CATCH-22 won none of the predictable prizes at the time of its original publication.

The absurdity of war, and the struggle of the average soldier to survive his tour of duty, never has been more successfully communicated in literature than Heller did here.

Forty years after its first publication, the expression "Catch-22" and the concept behind it have become accepted usages in everyday vocabulary, referring to the cycle of irrationality of problem defying the solution, solution causing the problem.

The information on the Amazon website that author Heller lives in East Hampton, New York is out-of-date. Sadly, Heller died in East Hampton a few years ago; as a resident of the town myself, I am certain of this fact.

Time has proven that CATCH-22 is classic literature.

Rating:
Summary: A Hard to Read Classic
Review: Catch-22 tells the tortuous story of Yossarian, a WW2 bombardier, who starts to lose (or regain) his sanity after a member of his crew is killed during a bombing mission. As Yossarian loses more of his friends to enemy fire, bizarre accidents and strange twists of fate, the storyline becomes ever more convoluted and the characters ever more bizarre.

At its heart, this book is about how soldiers handle war. How they justify their actions and how they live with the constant threat of death or injury. Heller illustrates the confusion and senselessness of war by using bizarre events and crooked logic. The book is filled with black humor and quickly moves from one outlandish event to the next.

In my opinion, this book has two major weaknesses. The first, is one of the hallmarks of this book: Heller builds his sentences to suggest an idea, only to immediately contradict himself. I found this to be very amusing for the first 100 pages or so, but this style simply became tedious afterwards. The second problem is the book's non-chronological plot. Heller keeps skipping back and forth in time and this makes the book hard to read and the plot difficult to follow.

I found the book's real strength to be in its amazing and phenomenally well developed characters. Yossarian, Doc. Daneeka, Orr, Major Major and many more, are all extraordinarily alive and yet fundamentally flawed.

Did I enjoy this book? Yes. All in all, this is a book worth reading, but don't expect an easy read.

Rating:
Summary: Literary Genius
Review: I was assigned this book in high school and did not finish it with about 100 pages left. About 10 years later, I recently picked up the book again to finish a book I have been wanting to finish. I was not disappointed. Joseph Heller is a skilled story teller whose pen is well adept to writing satire. Many of the humorous points of this book I was not ready to appreciate as a high school senior. Years later, I found myself laughing out at many lines in this book.

The book tells the story of Yossarian, a disgruntled World War II pilot. Yossarian wants nothing more than to go home from the war after his mission quota is satisfied. Unfortunately, his mission quota is raised each time he gets close to meeting it. Along the way, we meet a cast of unique characters. It makes me curious as to where Heller came up with the idea for all these characters. Lieutenant Scheisskopf and Major Major Major Major are two of my favorite characters in the book. Their stories in addition to the idiosyncrasies are wonderfully written. The book ends with Yossarian faced with a paradox of choices based on the development of the character. It is worth reading the book to find out the ending.

This book is a literary classic. I hate to give too many points of the plot away in the review as I would hope the sharp turns in the plot can surpise other readers the way they surprised me. Truly, this is a great book for those with an eye for wit.