Catch-22

Rating:
Summary: Joseph Heller's Catch 22
Review: Catch 22 was a very intriguing book to say the least. The main character, Yossarian, seemed to be a bit of an oddball, which kept all of the story lines quite interesting. At times Catch 22 can get rather confusing as Joseph Heller jumps back and forth between one story and another, not really making any smooth transitions between them which tends to throw you off as a reader. The entire story is based during World War II and much of it is spent in different countries around Europe. You, as the reader get to travel with Yossarian from country to country while he makes deliveries, bombing runs, and becomes acquaintances with many people, including a hooker that he becomes quite fond of. Much of the story has humorous sections that leave you laughing and wanting to read more only to find out what type of antics Yossarian will perform next, including a time when he decides to become a nudist on the military base at which he is stationed. Overall, Catch 22 is by far one of the best books I've ever read. It keeps you on your toes with humor and action, along with a plot that only thickens as you read further into the book. I recommend this book only to more advanced readers, however, as it can get quite complicated to understand.

Rating:
Summary: Great idea, difficult to grasp....
Review: Great book, great ideas, read it, but before you do know some things.

First, remember that this book is "Catch-22," not "such and such at war" or whatever. I read the first ten reviews an only one mentioned it. An C-22 is not the unexcapeable situation the dictionary would have you believe it is. I don't want to spoil the story for anyone, so I'll just say know there are scences that better handle C-22 than the Doc's. It initially seemed to be about 1/2 dozen things that only shared a name in common but after a few reads it clicked.

As others have pointed out, the novel is not cronological in order. This makes the novel difficult to understand, and that combined with the difficulty of understanding C-22 the idea brought my rating down to 4 stars.

Rating:
Summary: Catch 22 is a brilliant book
Review: Catch-22 is a great novel that is a lovely satirical work. It involves many characters with extraordinary personalities but the one that it centers around is Yossarian. He is a witty man that is constantly trying not to be killed while serving his duty in
WW II. He meets many people and goes trough many trials in this book. One such trial occurs very early on in the book and uses the phrase that yields the books title. Yossarian finds a catch in the system that says that one will be sent home if they are crazy enough not to fly an airplane into combat. The doc tells Yossarian that he must first tell him that he is crazy, and then most have someone vouch for him. Yossarian then assumes that one would be able to be let go if they go through that but the Doc adds one more stipulation. He says that if someone asks not to fly because they are crazy they can't be crazy because anyone that doesn't want to die must be sane. This, Doc Daneeka notes, is a catch-22. The phrase catch-22 actually was put in the dictionary because of this book. If that does not show how important or impressionistic this book was on its time I don't know what will.
This book is funny from beginning to end. It shows another side of war. Most books don't refer to the human struggle inside a war but to the battles that the war consists of. Catch-22 uses humor to show how the struggle between one's self and his own people affect him in war. This book shows many people how war can affect someone in more ways than one.
I really enjoyed this book and think that it is a must read. One reason that makes this book just a little better than others is the fact that it has been banned. The fact that people actually cared enough about this book to ban it means there has to be something good in it. This book was banned because it refers to women as whores. This book does not dwell on that though. If one really was offended by that they could just as easily substitute another terms such as "elegant young lady" in for whore. The bottom line is if you want to read a great book that will make you laugh you definitely should read Catch-22.

Rating:
Summary: A brilliant book
Review: Catch-22, a great satirical work, presents many characters with extraordinary personalities, the most important of whom is Yossarian. A witty man, he constantly tries not to avoid being killed while serving his duty in WW II. He meets many people and goes trough many trials in this book. One such trial occurs very early in the book and uses the book's title phrase Yossarian finds a catch in the system that says that soldiers will be sent home who are crazy enough not to fly an airplane into combat. The doctor tells Yossarian that he must first tell him that he is crazy, and then must have someone vouch for his insanity. Yossarian then assumes that he will be dismissed after this, but the Doc adds one more stipulation: if someone asks not to fly because they are crazy, they can't be crazy because anyone who doesn't want to die must be sane. This, Doc Daneeka notes, is a catch-22. The phrase "catch-22" now appears in the dictionary because of this book. If that fact does not suggest the importance of this book, I don't know what will.
This book is funny from beginning to end. It shows a lighter side of war. Most books don't refer to the human struggle during wartime but Catch-22 uses humor to show how the conflicts between one man and the solders fighting along side him affect him in war. This book will be able to make you laugh about some very serious issues that effected people during WW II.
One reason that I recommend this book so highly is that it has been banned. The fact that people actually cared enough about this book to ban it means there has to be something good in it. This book was banned because it refers to women as whores. The text does not dwell on that, though. Readers who feel offended by this term cans easily substitute another term. If you want to read a great book that will make you laugh, you definitely should read Catch-22.

Rating:
Summary: The Perfect Book
Review: im just doing this to bring up the average

Rating:
Summary: Timeless and simply brilliant........
Review: .......I'm an avid reader and this book is, without a doubt, the greatest book I've ever read. It'll make you laugh, cry, shudder and want to jump up and shout "how true!" all at the same time.

Joseph Heller's brilliance lies in his ability to exaggerate an issue, idea or element of society so perfectly that we see it for just how foolish it is. Catch-22 accomplishes this goal beautifully in it's mockery of war, the military and WWII era America, in general. Heller exposes the inanity of combat and the inconsistencies of American policy like no author I've read before. He creates full, well-rounded characters and places them in very real situations where their idiosyncrasies, and often self-centeredness, show through. If you hate war, you will simply love this book. If your feelings toward war are indifferent, reading this book will show the flipside of pro-war propaganda. If you think war makes sense, I challenge you to read this book, consider it's closeness to reality and then become absorbed by it and place yourself in Yossarian's shoes. The truth is that this book is too close to the reality of war for comfort.

Rating:
Summary: I'm not giving anything away.
Review: You must read this book. Scroll up the page, click on "Add to cart," and get on with it. Don't read any more reviews, don't let anyone tell you anything about the story. Discover it for yourself. This is important. You won't be disappointed.

Rating:
Summary: Excess
Review: ''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?'' (25)
Catch-22's antihero questions the ultimate logic of war. 'And what difference does that make?' This is a resounding question throughout the book (and throughout the war), both in which Joseph Heller's creation, Yossarian, plays a vital role. In Catch-22, Heller creates an array of characters whose absurdity is at once satirical, silly, somber, and scathing. Particularly, the passionate, angry, strikingly sane voice of Yossarian lends a certain ironic tragedy both to the mindless pursuit we call 'war' and to the mindless machine we call 'bureaucracy.'
It is important to read Catch-22 not only as a great piece of twentieth-century literature, but also as a primary source, written by a man whose own involvement in WWII allowed him to create this novel and this character. The characterizations that Heller creates in this novel are a clear and scathing indictment of twentieth-century ''isms,' all of which combine to perpetuate aggression and eventually escalate into the total wars of our modern era. These '-isms' include patriotism, opportunism, capitalism, heroism, individualism, and sadism. In striking contrast, Yossarian seems to transcend these evil '-isms' and capture something missing in modern warfare'sanity. Yossarian's desperate desire for self-preservation is the clearest evidence of his sanity and runs counter to all of the caricatured 'ideals' surrounding him. Certainly, like all other novels, Catch-22 has its failings'at times, it seems that 'the book is an emotional hodgepodge; no mood is sustained long enough to register for more than a chapter'; at other times, the action and characters almost seem too absurd and farcical to make a valid point; at still other times, the satire seems too formulaic, unable to grasp at the ironies of life. However, for all of its failings, the mood and voice that is uniquely Yossarian's allows the novel to maintain a joie de vivre and strength for all time. Yossarian's logic is created against the stark backdrop of a tragic and deadly war; however, this logic lives on especially now. At the conclusion of the book, the reader is compelled to ask, of war, of bureaucracy, and of all else, 'And what difference does that make?'
This book must be read by anyone who decides to weigh in on the most recent political conversation regarding war, conflict, and terrorism. Best of luck...and enjoy!

Rating:
Summary: war is......funny
Review: This book is a crack-up, literally, Yossarian's. It's a very literate but black comic street-hip and wise episode of M*A*S*H. Heller's book captured a whole generation's irreverence and took a radically new look at that oldest of western civilizations traditions, war. What the book does well it does very well, but......there is something missing. The characters are all comic book renditions of people and so the effect of the book is limited because the whole world of this book gets reduced to comic book level. A great book, but one star taken away for that last point.
What makes the novels of WWI so powerful is how they show the impact of war on the individuals psyche(Remarque, Hemingway)but here we meet Yossarian in a state already outside any recognizable norm. We like him but we don't really see his decline, the whole thing is almost tastelessly comic, and I'm saying that as a fan of the book. I highly respect the novelists and poets of WWI but WWII deserves the same solemn tone of voice. M*A*S*H itself as a series was kind of tasteless. Sorry but it was. If something can be made funny it is also made palatable and that does not serve to end war... just to make it entertaining.

Rating:
Summary: Compelling and Funny, yet Disjointed
Review: I have somewhat mixed feelings on this book. While is is a great study into the insanity of war and has many truly hillarious moments, this book just doesn't flow. You'll be reading about Yossarian's present problems and suddenly you will be reading about some incident that happened in the past, and there won't be so much as a transition, then you will be right back to the present. This is why I gave it 4 stars.

On the other hand, this is an excellent satire on war and its insanity, and is laugh-out-loud funny. The book follows a crazy bombardier named Yossarian who is uncanny for pointing out paradoxes and contradictions in the modern psyche. Yossarian wants to get out of the war, and he pursues several avenues, but is thwarted on one end by a neurotic, brown-nosing Colonel Cathcart, and on the other by the melancholy, and also neurotic, Doc Daneeka, who will not allow him to get of by reason of mental defect. I wish I could post a funny line that had me laughing, but there were really few individual lines like that. Mostly there were exchanges between Yossarian and the people he meets. This book is not beach reading: you have to really concentrate to see what's going on. But it was a fine read nonetheless.