453 pages
English language
Published Jan. 21, 2004
Catch-22 is like no other novel. It has its own rationale, its own extraordinary character. It moves back and forth from hilarity to horror. It is outrageously funny and strangely affecting. It is totally original. Set in the closing months of World War II in an American bomber squadron off Italy, Catch-22 is the story of a bombardier named Yossarian, who is frantic and furious because thousands of people he hasn't even met keep trying to kill him. Catch-22 is a microcosm of the twentieth-century world as it might look to someone dangerously sane. It is a novel that lives and moves and grows with astonishing power and vitality -- a masterpiece of our time. - Back cover.
Interesante, aunque acusa el paso del tiempo. Caótico, variopinto. No salen las mujeres muy bien paradas (no lo estaban en ese tiempo).
I decided it was finally time to read Catch-22 so I could get the cultural references that come up from time to time. I couldn't finish it.
In each chapter, we meet some odd characters with odd names that are probably supposed to make the reader laugh. We encounter some kind of circular logic. We have an absurd situation. And nothing really changes, and then we move onto the next chapter with new odd-named characters, new circular logic, new absurdities. 8 chapters into the book I skimmed through the chapter titles, which are nearly all odd character names, and realized it was likely going to be the same pattern again and again. The problem is that I wasn't entertained, and so in the middle of my 8th mission I decided that it just wasn't worth it and deserted. I won't make it to 42 missions.
Repetition to drive home a …
I decided it was finally time to read Catch-22 so I could get the cultural references that come up from time to time. I couldn't finish it.
In each chapter, we meet some odd characters with odd names that are probably supposed to make the reader laugh. We encounter some kind of circular logic. We have an absurd situation. And nothing really changes, and then we move onto the next chapter with new odd-named characters, new circular logic, new absurdities. 8 chapters into the book I skimmed through the chapter titles, which are nearly all odd character names, and realized it was likely going to be the same pattern again and again. The problem is that I wasn't entertained, and so in the middle of my 8th mission I decided that it just wasn't worth it and deserted. I won't make it to 42 missions.
Repetition to drive home a point can be very effective. It seems that a lot of people have been entertained by Heller's writing. I wasn't, so I couldn't deal with the monotony. Heller, I think, wanted to show us the absurdity of the military in a time when we were still feeling good about the military after WWII. It was a bold thing to do, and the success of the novel shows it was effective for a lot of people. I appreciate the idea behind the novel, the execution just didn't work for me at all.
This was a hard book to get through. The first 200 pages I wouldn't have given more than 2 stars. After that it was ok...bringing things up to 3 stars. The last star was for the final two chapters. I could never get a good grip on who Yossarian was. Everything was just...so... ridiculous. Like the craziest parts of MAS*H mixed with Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy. But then at the end (no spoilers. I promise.) it goes way way back to an event near the beginning, telling in detail about what happened to Snowden, and suddenly Yossarian's antics and attitude to everything in the book suddenly made sense.
And the last line? Absolute perfection.
What stood out to me at first was how the book jumps from one scene to another without warning, as if the author just remembered something he wants to say, and interrupts the current story to start describing a different story.
In retrospect I realize that, while at first the humor and strange flow of the story from one scene to another were what I like best about the book, I ended up being most impressed with the characters. Yossarian, the hapless chaplain, the crafty Orr, the execrable Arfy, the near-autistically single-minded Milo. Then there are all the very human, very flawed people put into positions of power making terrible decisions. It's a wonder anything ever gets done anywhere.
Returned to this book, after not reading it since high school, and I still like it. The absurdity still seems fresh, and you could draw a straight line from Heller to someone like Gary Shteyngart.
