Rating: 
Summary: Catch 18
Review:
> AS I recall the editor of this book changed the title from Catch 18 to Catch 22. I think the editor was right a much Catch-ier title. If you have not read this book take my advice, read the book, read the other reviews with the 5 star ratings and take their advise, I'm really to tired to review this book properly but not so tired as to recognize the wisdom of some of my fellow five star'er'ers.STOP READING! just read the book Joseph Heller I aint!... I havnt been this tired since I was a young man of eleven, my brother Charles Chadwick and I had a good friend nicknamed Big John who set up a waste basket on the ground floor of our families unfinished cottage and he decided to play Dresden. He climbed upstairs where my dad kept all his old playboy magazines, dropped his boxers and dropped a few biscuits in warning (as the allies did in WW2) and then zeroed in on the basket. We all ran for the woods and hid until dusk and then snuck around to the house avoiding Big John because we were afraid of being caught and becoming forced labor in the cleanup in Big Johns reenactment of the Dresden bombing. Even as kids we understood the importance of learning from history...Speaking of history I had a good conversation with Big Johns younger brother Roscoe about the Dresdan story and he remembered hearing about about it but was not present, he mentioned that knowing his brother as he does (as a brother) that it all made perfect sense. He related to me a story about when Big John and Big Joe (Big Joe is Roscoes twin,he was younger than Big John as well, in addition he was not as big as Big John despite the fact that he was big) would play a game with a rubber ball when the folks were out of the house, kind of like basketball except the object was to throw the ball in the toilet, the looser had to fish the ball out. However as Roscoe explained and what ads credence to my Dresdan story is that Big John would always make Big Joe fish the ball out no matter who made the basket...Off the subject abit but I cant help myself, my friend Roscoe is a self-made millionaire, he had the idea a few years ago to convert old washing machines into dog houses and made a fortune, he cashed out and travels the states with his girl friend Lora lee lee and his monkey Tater.
Rating:
Summary: it's a rare author who adds to the language
Review: A mark of real brilliance is an author who manages to add words to our common language, like Heller with "catch-22" or Orwell with "doublespeak".
Simply put, this book is absolutely brilliant. It reflects the crazy, upside down world where insane is sane, incompetence rules, and one (or, as it turns out, two) person stands alone and upholds his sanity.
A few highlights:
the chapter on milo's syndicate is an economic masterpiece. Not only is it hysterical but it is a perfect example of a modern market economy based on absolutely nothing.
chaplain trappman's interrogation at the hands of the CID is another example of english writing at its best. Remember, the CID man has had latin training so he knows the chaplain is "not a baptist."
I find myself quoting this book constantly. Anyone who can't recognize the quote "Où sont les Neigedens d'antan?" needs to read more American literature.
Rating:
Summary: It's quite a catch, that Catch-22
Review: Bombardier Yossarian can be grounded because he's crazy, but if he asks to be grounded he will be declared sane and fit to fly; Major Major will permit any man to visit him in his office...as long as he isn't there; and Colonel Korn's education sessions only permit the men to ask questions who never do. These are just a few examples of the roundabout logic, self-defeating reasoning, and frustrating paradoxes that infest the text of Catch-22. Set in final months of World War II, Joseph Heller's novel depicts a world where the human language has become obsolete. Hardly a single exchange takes place that doesn't contain some form of self-contradiction or circular reasoning. Heller's stories of the horrors of war are a satire that is at one-moment whimsical and acidic the next.
Featuring an abundant cast of memorable characters, Catch-22 is a war novel that is much more. It is an allegory, a collection of running themes and recurring storylines. Told in a nonlinear storytelling style, Heller's novel captivates and demands attention, making reference to events in casual passing, only to return to them in increased detail. During an education session in Chapter 4, Yossarian, the book's protagonist, makes passing reference to Snowden, a man killed during a mission in which he was in charge. This incident is returned to with increasing detail as the story progresses, and it is in the book's blood-drenched climax that the full horrors of the event are recounted.
One recurring theme in Heller's novel is faith. The character Chaplain Tappman is the ideal vehicle for Heller's musings; he constantly preaches the word of God, questioning The Almighty's existence all the while. On the subject of the bible, Tappman recalls one soldier asking, "Did it indeed seem probable...that the answers to the riddles of creation would be supplied by people too ignorant to understand the mechanics of rainfall?" Yossarian also offers his two cents on the matter in Chapter 18, referring to a certain Supreme Being as "'a colossal, immortal blunderer,'" saying, "'When you consider the opportunity and power He had to really do a job, and then look at the stupid, ugly mess He made of it instead, His sheer incompetence is almost staggering. It's obvious he never met a payroll. Why, no self-respecting businessman would hire a bungler like Him as even a shipping clerk!'" Its insights like these that make Catch-22 the joy it is.
This questioning of faith and religion is justified, particularly in the environment of war, where ruthlessness and corruption are the status quo. Heller creates a world where a redeeming character is a rare and unusual blessing. Many of the book's characters are so self-absorbed it's a wonder how they came to men of respected standing in the first place. Colonel Cathcart, one of the story's central antagonists, is a prime example. A brown-nosing, elitist, social climber, He cares more about getting his picture into the next edition of the Saturday Evening Post than the well-being of his own men. If it weren't for the characters' military titles, one would hardly know this was a book about war at all. Heller doesn't glorify war or hold it on a pedestal, and it is through this jaded perspective that his reader begins to understand what war is really about.
By the end of Catch-22, I had been run through a full gamut of emotions. I laughed at the irrational interrogation of Chaplain Tappman in Chapter 36, and I felt a sickness in the pit of my sickness as Yossarian witnessed poverty, death, and desperation wandering through The Eternal City in Chapter 39. Catch-22 is a thought-provoking, entertaining piece of literature, and its declaration as a modern-day classic is well-deserved to say the least.
Rating: 
Summary: Far, far more than an anti-war piece
Review: Catch 22 is a story set during World War II. A significant choice for what is, ostensibly, an anti-war satire, since that particular war was a universally popular one butressed by high moral motivations. But that is the point, for Catch 22 is not simply a lampoon of war, but a searing indictment of man's spiritual crisis in the modern world.On all fronts, the main character, Yossarian, is assailed by the dehumanized absurdities of mondern life, manifested most concretely in that perfected science of death, modern warfare. Yossarian, like all of us, is chained by rationality that has been stripped of reason, engineered thus for the purpose of control. That is the essence of Catch 22. The character of Milo Minderbinder represents the cold, opportunistic thinking of the corporate world, dead as it is to humanistic concerns in its tireless pursuit of profit and power. Chaplain Tappman embodies the impotence and self-doubt common to many people of faith who feel adrift in a culture of materialisticly driven insanity. But it is Yossarian's wanderings through Rome, the Eternal City, and as such, the representation of modern "civilized" society, that is the coup de grace. It is a moonlit, poetic scene lamenting the spiritual and humanistic decay and ultimate bankruptcy of modern Western society. Simply powerful stuff. Properly speaking, Catch 22 is more a series of vignettes or short stories rather than a novel. But it is told with a humor that bristles with moral outrage. While not perfect, it is an excellent read, and definitely recommened.
Rating:
Summary: Absolutely indispensible
Review: Catch-22 is one of those rare books that absolutely everyone should read; I reccommend it unceasingly to anyone and everyone. Though it is long, it is very readable, and you'll probably go through it quickly because it's so entertaining. Aside from its sheer fun and humor however, is the true message behind the book. It is often cited as being one of the great ant-war novels - and, indeed, it is just about flawless in this respect - but it goes much deeper than that. Catch-22 is really a book about paradoxes, and the sheer (necessary) insanity of modern life. The title itself is now a common - and oft-heard - refrain in the English language, and many might be unaware of its original source. The dictionary defines "Catch-22" as "a problematic situation for which the only solution is denied by a circumstance inherent in the problem or by a rule" - and that is exactly what the novel presents: situations showing the sheer necessary insanity of modern life. (War is one such - perhaps the most obvious - instance, but there are many others. This book offers satire on other subjects as well - i.e., federal aid for farmers.) And could life as we know it exist without this inherent madness? The question might be a lot more difficult to answer than you think. The premise of this book can also be summed up in a phrase from another great author, Fyodor Dostoevsky, "If everything on earth were rational, nothing would happen." That is what the book tries to say. It is not merely a simple anti-war book, despite what some shallow-headed readers and reviewers might say. I suggest that you read the book with an open mind: it's well worth it. The book is quite hilarous as well - the satire being very sharp-toothed. The book does not have a plot - indeed, it does not even attempt to tell a story, at least not in the usual sense. (Nearly) every chapter is named for a character in the book, and that chapter gradually portrays some of that particular character's crazy antics. Little bits of plot are glimpsed here and there, and then revealed gradually. The book is very non-linear and quite scattershot. It's similar to the way Kurt Vonnegut writes. I reccommend that everyone read this book. Quite aside from its near universal praise and the fact that an everyday word has sprung from it, it was in the Top 10 (#6, I believe) on New Modern Library's Top 100 Books of the 20th century. Put it on your reading list.
Rating:
Summary: A Classic that is Just as Relevant as Ever
Review: Catch-22 is one of those rare novels that remain will remain significant long after the time about which it was written passes. The humor is brilliantly crafted, and the characters are both outrageous and believable. But more importantly Joseph Heller explores the nature of human survival, morality, and patriotism in ways that few other authors have even attempted
Rating:
Summary: Hilarious look at the paradoxes and absurdities of war...
Review: Heller's masterpiece is one of those few books that can be appreciated even by people who haven't experienced war at all. As a 23 yr old reader, I obviously haven't been involved with WWII. However, this irreverent look at the absurd nature of all bureaucracies still affected me powerfully. Written like stand-up comedy, this continuous punchline takes the reader on a trip through the hell's of war as seen by Yossarian, a bombadier who thinks, rightly, that everyone is out to kill him. Yossarian's paranoia is truly bizarre yet seems to make perfect sense in a world changed by the presence of war. This masterpiece of modern literature holds as its core theme that war alters everything and everyone, and that people in such a situation become themselves paradoxes. The doctor who is obsessed with his own health, the chaplain who loses his faith (in an "English-speaking, Anglo-Saxon, pro-American God..." - one of the funniest passages I've read in any book), the tortured pilot who can't sleep unless he knows for sure that he won't be sent home and must fly more missions; all make this war satire one of the best two or three books I've ever read. Yes, it's everything it's cracked up to be, and you will be too.
Rating:
Summary: b
Review: I just read some of the reviews which give this book only one star, and it amazes me how people can give up on a story just because its not structured like a normal story, and it dares critcize war and the military. Most people complain that the story had too many characters and no order. That's the point of the book. The point was to give the reader a story so adsurd and crazy that in reading it you gain insight into what it may have been like to be serving in the military in WWII or any war for that matter. I have never served for my country and respect all the soliders present and past who have fought either for America or against it. Stories like this and Slaughter House 5 really represent how pointless and absurd war really is. One reviewer said this book was "replete with needless descriptions, and depraved immortality." Funny, I always that war was the best example of depraved immortality.
Rating:
Summary: A paradox that has entered the language ...
Review: I read this when I was eighteen and loved it ever since. I can't count how many times I have read it. I believe Heller once said that the book was not really about WWII but about 'the next war'. That is probably why it struck such a chord with the Vietnam generation for whom the war was happening daily on their TV sets. The surrealism of the novel seemed to be reproduced in the US Army officer saying about a devastated city 'We destroyed it in order to save it'. For there is a ferocious paradox in battle - why don't both sides just run away? This book does not try to resolve the paradoxes (leave that to Keegan, Grossman, Marshall and the military historians), it celebrates the 'grunts', the poor bloody infantry (or air pilots) who just endure the madness, hoping to escape the terrible combination of circumstances that may demand their deaths. Probably the soldiers who endured the trenches of WWI might understand Catch-22 better than those of WWII. Read and be amused, scarified and ultimately humbled.
Rating:
Summary: A timeless classic
Review: It is hard to define exactly what "Catch-22" is. At its most basic, it is a book about a squadron of American WWII bomber pilots who fly over Axis territory out of their base in Italy late in the war. More specifically, it is about one captain who has become all crossed up with the absurdity of the war.
In the end, it struck me as being a book about being able to see the world from fresh perspectives, even when you think you already are. The ending of the book leaves you feeling strangely excited about the unseen possibilities in life.
A must-read for anyone who enjoys fiction that delves into the philosophical.
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