Παίρνεις ένα βιβλίο που έχεις ακούσει από κάπου κάπως κάποτε ότι είναι πολύ καλό, ότι είναι αντιπολεμικό, ότι μεγάλη μερίδα των αναγνωστών το θεωρεί αριστούργημα, αλλά δεν έχεις προετοιμαστεί για αυτή τη βόμβα πνευματωδους χιούμορ, ωμής σάτιρας, ιδιοφυούς απεικόνισης της τρέλας, του παραλογισμού, της φρίκης. Το αρχίζεις σιγά σιγά και σκας ένα χαμόγελο εδώ, ένα νευρικό γέλιο εκεί, γιατί έχει χιούμορ, δεν μπορείς να το αρνηθείς, σε κάνει να γελάς, αλλά ξέρεις ότι κάτι δεν πάει καλά γιατί ταυτόχρονα θέλεις και να κλάψεις. Ένας κόμπος ανεβαίνει στο λαιμό όσο προχωράς παρακάτω και σφίγγει όλο και περισσότερο και συνεχίζεις να γελάς αλλά ταυτόχρονα θέλεις όλο και περισσότερο να γείρεις κάπου για να κλάψεις με λυγμούς γιατί ναι, είναι σουρεαλιστικό, είναι παράλογο, είναι αστείο, αλλά είναι και τόσο αληθινό.

Η ιστορία είναι κάπως χαλαρή. Σε μια σμηναρχία της αμερικανικής αεροπορίας στο νησί Πιενόζα της Ιταλίας το 1944, παρακολουθούμε την ιστορία των Αμερικανών στρατιωτών και κυρίως του Γιοσάριαν, του βομβαρδιστή που είναι πεπεισμένος ότι όλοι προσπαθούν να τον δολοφονήσουν και εκείνος παλεύει να σώσει τη ζωή του. Γύρω του φιλόδοξοι αξιωματικοί ρισκάρουν άσκοπα τη ζωή των κατωτέρων τους, η μαύρη αγορά ανθεί, ο παραλογισμός της στρατιωτικής λογικής και του πολέμου επικρατεί, ο ιδεαλισμός κάποιων λίγων συντρίβεται βάναυσα.

Ο Heller περιγράφει τις ζωές και το θάνατο κάποιων από τα μέλη του σμήνους, τους φόβους και τις ανησυχίες τους, τις σκέψεις και τα συναισθήματά τους με βάση τη δική του εμπειρία από το δεύτερο παγκόσμιο πόλεμο και με τρόπο τόσο άμεσο και γλαφυρό που ο αναγνώστης σίγουρα βλέπει στον καθρέφτη κάποιες από τις δικές του σκέψεις (κι αν ακόμα δεν έχει δει ποτέ του πόλεμο). Καταφέρνει να αποδίδει με κωμικό τρόπο αλλά και σεβασμό τις πιο τραγικές σκηνές και να ξεγυμνώνει με αυτόν τον τρόπο το συναίσθημα του αναγνώστη χωρίς να το εκβιάζει.

Είναι ένα αριστούργημα το catch-22, οπωσδήποτε. Σατιρικό, εξοργιστικο, ευαίσθητο, αστείο, τραγικό. Έχει τα πάντα και ταυτόχρονα είναι τόσο δεμένο και τόσο συνεκτικό που δε βαριέσαι ούτε δευτερόλεπτο. Εχθές διάβασα 300 σελίδες (το μισό) και εύχομαι να είχα αφήσει λίγο ακόμα για σήμερα. Θα το ξαναδιαβάσω όμως, σίγουρα. Είναι από τα λίγο βιβλία που το λέω αυτό με βεβαιότητα και θα το ξαναδιαβάσω.

PS: Είμαι σίγουρη ότι αυτό το βιβλίο το είχε διαβάσει ο σεναριογράφος της 4ης σεζόν του Blackadder.

Maybe there's a reason this book is usually required high school reading; it reads like it was written by a 17-year old. Someone who clearly finds himself to be hilarious, and no one ever had the heart to tell him differently.

I never felt for any of the characters, I never laughed, I never cried. In fact, half way through the book I couldn't take it anymore, so I skipped ahead to the last chapter and yet it still made sense. I'm sorry, but if nothing happens in the second half of a book to impact the ending, then something is very wrong.

I know there are a lot of people out there who think this is one of the classics and that everyone should read it, but it just doesn't hold up to any of the classics I've read thus far. Hell, it doesn't even hold up to  Sheep in a Jeep.

Yes, I know that it's a great satire novel, yes, the humor was on top sometimes. But I suffered through the novel even though the narration by Jay O. Sanders was really great!

Here is my more in-depth review:
https://youtu.be/RcT_gSiCY8k

Sorry, I don't get it. So many circular conversations that at the outset we know aren't going anywhere. Too many characters to care about any of them. Failed as a moving war novel and failed as a comedic novel. It just wasn't funny!

Almost 20 hours on the audiobook, and I wish I could get those units of my life back.

2025 Reading Schedule
JantA Town Like Alice
FebtBirdsong
MartCaptain Corelli's Mandolin - Louis De Berniere
AprtWar and Peace
MaytThe Woman in White
JuntAtonement
JultThe Shadow of the Wind
AugtJude the Obscure
SeptUlysses
OcttVanity Fair
NovtA Fine Balance
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Have patience with this book, trust me you will be rewarded.

REREAD

There are two satirical novels that readers tend to love or hate. They are: A Confederacy of Dunces and Catch-22. You can tell by my rating which camp I belong to.

In Kafka’s The Trial, towards the end of his bureaucratic ordeal, Joseph K. is accosted by a priest who tells him a strange parable. A man came to the gate of the Law, but a watchman was guarding the way. The man asked if he could enter — the gatekeeper said yes, “but not yet”. The man sat by the door and waited to be admitted. He waited for a long time. He tried to bribe the watchman — the watchman accepted the man’s presents, but still didn’t invite him in. The man gave up all his belongings, all in vain. Time went by. The man kept waiting. He grew old and frail, too weak to move. On his dying breath, the gatekeeper finally addressed him: this door was meant for him, but since he never made up his mind to walk in, he would then shut the gate, forever.

You won’t find Joseph K. in Catch-22, but you will meet Yossarian, Joseph H.’s alter ego, an officer in the U.S. Air Force, stationed on a small island off the coast of Italy in 1944. He too is waiting, waiting to be discharged and sent back home. His commanding officer says yes, “but not yet”. The more combat missions Yossarian completes, the more missions his C.O. demands from his men before they can go home. Time goes by; men die; Yossarian is getting hopeless and weak. The Law is absurd, paradoxical, arbitrary, impenetrable, deadly. But, at least, that writ has a name: it is called Catch-22.

Joseph Heller published only a couple of novels in his whole career. But Catch-22 quickly rose to the pantheon of twentieth-century American literature as one of the greatest war novels. Possibly because it was the right novel at the right time: when the USA, at the very height of the Cold War, was getting bogged down in Vietnam. Consequently, the 1960s’ anti-war counter-culture generation embraced Catch-22 and turned it into one of their cult novels.

Heller writes in a unique, unconventional way: his prose is taut, jumping frantically from one situation to the next, from one character to another, with a constant sense of agitation. In particular, his dialogues often feel like a succession of sentences repeated ad nauseam, where all arguments are falling on deaf ears. This technique creates, at the same time, a sense of absurdity, a rhythmical pattern, and ultimately an aftertaste of confusion, exasperation and insanity; quite similar to the works of Céline, Beckett and Ionesco.

The events depicted in the book reflect the hysterical quality and rambling, circular, recursive, repetitive (borderline infuriating) structure of Heller’s writing. These events occur during the Italian campaign of World War II. Danger is ever-present, each mission is life-threatening, men behave erratically, the military is, at its core, a dysfunctional bedlam, victims and casualties pile up. Despite all that, the various characters in Heller’s book are trying to retain a sense of meaning and make the best of an awful job. Most of the time, in vain. Still, Heller’s grotesquely satirical, anti-dramatic, anti-heroic, anti-romantic tone throughout the novel tends to lessen the situation’s acuteness. That is, until the very last couple of chapters, where the horror grabs you by the throat.

Heller’s story is not just about wartime and the military. Heller himself declared that Catch-22 was “an encyclopaedia of the current mental atmosphere”. Indeed, his book still does mean something to us in peacetime, because it reveals a social system designed for efficiency that has nonetheless become inadequate and toxic. We are not facing an external enemy anymore (or are we?), the negative, alienating, schizophrenic forces are now corrupting the system from the inside. Try replacing the privates and officers in the U.S. regiment by employees and managers in a post-modern, late-capitalist corporate bureaucracy, and you’ll understand how visionary and apocalyptic this book is.

Heller’s Catch-22 has often been compared to Vonnegut’s Slaughterhouse-Five. Indeed, both authors share a similar experience on the battlefield and a knack for snappy prose, irony, surreal situations and “gallows humour”. It seems quite obvious, as well, that Catch-22 has been a major source of inspiration for Cold War dark military comedies such as Stanley Kubrick’s Dr. Strangelove or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb.

In the end, Yossarian manages to denounce the law of Catch-22 and miraculously paddles away to Sweden — to freedom? Who knows... For those of you who remember Crime and Punishment, Svidrigailov also managed to escape to America — with a loaded revolver inside his coat.

Signed: Washington Irving

PS: A massive thank you to my friend Michelle here, who has been kind enough to “buddy-read” this book with me. Please check out her review.

I have tried three times and can not drop into this book. It's too disjointed my brain doesn't work that way I guess. I wanted to like it. I loved the premise, the concept. It just didn't work and I'm more disappointed about it than anyone else. :-0

خیلی طول دادم تا خوندمش. تبصرۀ بیست و دو ویژگی‌هایی داره که باعث می‌شه نتونی راحت و سریع بخونیش. هرچقدر هم کتاب توی صف مطالعه‌ت داشته باشی. یک ویژگیش روایت غیرخطی داستانه. نمی‌تونیم بگیم داستان نیست، چون شخصیت‌پردازی‌ کرده و ماجرا داره و از پس خرده‌روایت‌هاش برمی‌آد. اما یک داستان واحد نداره. چرا اگه از دید یوساریان ببینیمش داره، ولی این وسط کلی ماجرای دیگه هم اتفاق می‌افته که باعث می‌شه ما یوساریان رو شخصیت اصلی نبینیم. با یه داستان پست‌مدرن طرفیم که پیرنگ معمول رو شکسته.

ویژگی دوم فضای داستان و شخصیت‌هاست. شخصیت زیاد داره، جزییات زیاد داره، و فضاش جنگ جهانی دومه. نمی‌شه چنین داستانی رو سریع خوند. وگرنه جزییات و شخصیت‌ها و فضای داستان توی ذهنمون نمی‌مونه. از طرفی راستش برای من به‌قدری فضای جنگ جهانی دوم دور از ذهنه که نویسنده حق داشته این‌قدر سر فضاسازی به زحمت بیفته. اونم نه فضاسازی‌های عادی. با دیالوگ و شخصیت‌ها. با یه نویسندۀ واقعاً حرفه‌ای طرفیم، نه یکی که مستند بسازه.

توی ریویوها دیدم بچه‌ها اشاره کردن داستان از ریتم می‌افتاد و شخصیت‌ها و جزییات زیادش باعث می‌شد آدم سخت بخونه و خسته بشه. آره متأسفانه همین‌طور هست. ینی کسانی که موقع نوشته شدنش خونده‌ن، همۀ اینا رو با چشم جان خوندن. ولی برا ما که فضای ذهنیمون یه عالم دوره سخته. اما از طرفی ویژگی‌های ادبیش به‌قدری هست که خوندنش واجب بشه. جدا ازینکه جزو بهترین نمونه‌های ادبیات ضد جنگه. توی مقدمۀ کتاب هم اومده تبصرۀ بیست و دوی جوزف هلر توی درس ادبیات آمریکا یه اثر شاخصه و خوندنش برا دانشجوها اهمیت داره. بنابراین چیزی نیست که بشه ازش گذشت، اما بسیار هم مخاطب رو اذیت می‌کنه.

دو تا تیکه هم از ریویوها توی ریویوی خودم می‌آرم.

از "ورپریده":


بى توجه بودن به جان انسان ها، تبعيض هاى نژادى، ظلم و ستم، آرمان هاى پوچ و بيهوده، قربانى شدن انسان ها به خاطر مقاصد زياده خواهانه مسئولان بلندپايه، سرمايه دارى و ثروت اندوزى با سواستفاده از انسان ها، بى توجهى انسان ها به ظلم و يكديگر و ده ها مفهوم ديگه به خوبى و خيلى هوشمندانه و حرفه اى با طنز تلخى بيان شدن.
اين كتاب واقعاً شاهكار و فوق العاده ست. بايد چندين بار خوندن ش و هربار چيز تازه اى ازش يادگرفت. عميقاً و با حوصله و سر فرصت بخونيدش.


و از سهیل:

در نهايت بايد دو ايراد از كتاب بگيرم. مسئله ى اول اينه كه پيرنگ و پرداخت شخصيت ها در حدى نيست كه مخاطب رو ٥٠٠ صفحه همراهى كنه و بعضى جاها از ريتم ميفته. بعضى جاها انگار هلر فقط خواسته داستان رو كش بده، بعضى شخصيت ها اضافى بودن و بعضى اتفاقات جذابيت زيادى براى من نداشتن


به‌خصوص که واقعاً بعضی اتفاقات برا من هم جذابیت نداشتن. اینقدر که فکر می‌کردم شاید نمی‌فهمم چی شده. یه جاهایی هم نمی‌فهمیدم ها. فضای جنگ خیلی فضای غریبیه. تلاش نویسنده تا همین جا هم ستودنی بوده.

“Just because you’re paranoid doesn’t mean they aren’t after you.”

Set during World War II, Catch-22 details the experiences of Captain Yossarian and the other airmen in his camp as they try to maintain their sanity while fulfilling their service requirements so that they can return home.

I did it! I conquered the book I was dreading most and I made it all the way to the end..... and it actually surprised me? Don’t get me wrong, I’m not head over heels for it, but I took a lot from this one and I’m very much glad I read it.

Catch-22 is often hilarious at times, but beneath all the satire and humour, there is a very bleak and harrowing depiction of war. And towards the end I actually found that I was emotionally attached to some of the characters?! Completely unexpected!

I really appreciated some of the techniques that Heller used, one of which was using the current number of missions the military personnel needed to complete in order to go home, as a way of marking exactly where we are in the timeline of events. Another was the use of each chapter to introduce a new character (or a place), but inevitably the story always veered back towards Yossarian and the other core characters.

This book is just so CLEVER. All the little contradictions at play and the commentary on how nonsensical war can really be. I really am in awe of how well-constructed and impactful it is.

Now why didn’t I give it 5 stars? The repetition, whilst effective at times, also became irritating. Some of the characters were hard to distinguish from others. And some parts just plain bored the life outta me...

BUT for me, it was more good than bad and I wouldn’t put anyone off reading it. It might just surprise you too! 3 stars.

This is the most insane book I have ever come across. I hated it on one page for being dull and next I would love it for being super hilarious.

“Insanity is contagious.”

I believe writing a tragedy is easier task but writing something which can make the person reading laugh aloud is something extraordinary.

I will definitely recommend this to everyone who has lot of patience with book and can laugh at any crazy plate served to them.

During my years of being a reader, I have realised one thing , every book is unique, every book has different set of perspectives. So when we enter the world of one particular book, we have to change ourselves in its mould. If we be stubborn, the result would be disastrous and we would end up hating it.


I'm not good at explaining so I will try to explain by giving an example here. If we are reading a fantasy where there's magic and witches and centaurs, if we keep chuckling at every point "huh they don't exist, this is so stupid" we won't be able to enjoy the book and look beyond its flaws.

Catch-22 is among those books where you are supposed to enter with a particular mindset (read crazy) to enjoy it.

Just keep your brains aside and enjoy the crazy rollercoaster ride and you will not be disappointed. If you start making sense of the things that happen in catch-22 or characters that are dipshit crazy, you wouldn't enjoy it.

“Some men are born mediocre, some men achieve mediocrity, and some men have mediocrity thrust upon them. With Major Major it had been all three. Even among men lacking all distinction he inevitably stood out as a man lacking more distinction than all the rest, and people who met him were always impressed by how unimpressive he was.”

Crazy or insane doesn't even describe this one. It makes no sense most of the times and that's the beauty of it.

“What do you do when it rains?"
The captain answered frankly. "I get wet.”

"What do you when you come across a book like catch 22?"
My answer. "I laugh out loud."

Fue un flechazo.
En cuanto Yossarian vio al capellán se enamoró perdidamente de él.
Yossarian estaba en el hospital porque le dolía el hígado, aunque no tenía ictericia. A los médicos les desconcertaba el hecho de que no manifestara los síntomas propios de la enfermedad. Si la dolencia acababa en ictericia, podrían ponerle un tratamiento. Si no acababa en ictericia y se le pasaba, le darían de alta, pero aquella situación les tenía perplejos.

Unas pocas líneas y también yo pude decirlo: Fue un flechazo. No con el capellán, sí con Yossarian y con la novela en general, amor a primera línea. Pero este enamoramiento repentino no quita que, como los médicos, pasase también por algunos momentos de perplejidad.

Y por eso mismo, es una novela difícil de recomendar. La perplejidad, el enamoramiento y el humor absurdo no entusiasman a todo el mundo. Mucho menos si van los tres de la mano, pero el que tenga la suerte de enamorarse pasará una temporada maravillosa.

Trampa 22 es una de las novelas más influyentes del s. XX. Publicada en 1961, Joseph Heller comenzó a escribirla en 1953, basándose en parte en sus experiencias a bordo de un bombardero durante la Segunda Guerra Mundial.

Cuenta la historia de los integrantes de un escuadrón de bombarderos estadounidense en Pianosa, durante la Segunda Guerra Mundial. Los personajes (un montón, al principio puede parecer difícil seguir el hilo), excéntricos y surrealistas, son de los que no se olvidan. Especialmente Yossarian, el protagonista, un capitán de escuadrilla al que habían degradado porque ya no le importaba errar o no. Había tomado la decisión de vivir para siempre o morir en el intento, y cada vez que subía al avión su única misión era bajar vivo. Un héroe.

Por mucho que casi cada párrafo esté cargado de humor absurdo, el libro no lo es. Hay veces que desde el humor se critica todo mejor, y es mucho más llevadero, más fácil de explicar. Así, carga contra la guerra, contra el comportamiento de los altos mandos y su causa, de la otra causa, que muchos no entendían (¿Quién es España? ¿Qué es Hitler?), y del sinsentido de todo ello.
Eso se ve perfectamente en la propia Trampa 22, según la cual todo el que estuviera loco, sería dado de baja del servicio y enviado a casa, pero cualquiera que quiera abandonar el servicio no está realmente loco. Sólo había una trampa, y era la 22, que establecía que preocuparse por la propia seguridad ante peligros reales e inmediatos era un proceso propio de mentes racionales. Orr estaba loco y podían retirarlo del servicio, lo único que tenía que hacer era solicitarlo. Y en cuanto lo hiciera, ya no estaría loco y tendría que cumplir más misiones.