This is one of those books that people think is either totally brilliant or just annoying. As one can tell from the rating, I fall into the latter catergory. Maybe I just can't appreciate the genius of Heller's prose, but I prefer character developement and plot to rambling confusing anecdotes that go nowhere.
War is a paradox. WE GET IT.

Read for: 12th grade AP English

Early In my adulthood I learned that to be considered crazy and be given asylum from my superiors in an establishment catering to lunatics, I had first to be proven crazy enough to be excused from my Alpha Male immediate superior's stiff medicine.

Catch-22.

In my twenties, I had an enormous problem with Yossarian… because he was me. I LIVED Catch-22 in my brain and in my private life.

For years, every time I’d pick this battered paperback from off my shelf, I would laugh at first. But then, my chuckles choked me up!

WHY did it make me angry?

There must be a perfectly plausible and logical explanation in my grossly medicated memory!

And there was… but in itself that explanation is so Implausibly Logical that it itself could be none other than -

A Catch-22.

A desperately CHOKING Catch-22.

A Catch-22 that can bury you alive, and I don’t just mean in endless forms completed in block letters and in triplicate.

No, a Catch-22 that can SUFFOCATE you. Happened to me fifty-one years ago…

When I admitted myself to hospital, I must have signed the doctors’ OWN Catch-22, to whit: ‘I’m crazy to let myself enter this Hell-hole; but if I should become sane later on - and try to get myself released - I Can't,' because I can’t be sane if I run from predators' stiff medicine into a Nut House.

“Haha. So there -

“Catch-22… You’re stuck with us, Fergus.”

And yes, of course, they took turns gently giving me my stiff treatments while there.

I think it was the ferociously cool dude von Clausewitz who once infamously told us that the modern world is run on a militaristic model: as an Iron Fist in a Velvet Glove. The Ministry of Peace.

Well, that velvet glove dupes us to the fact that we’re being used, and our choking chuckles PROVE we’re insane. As I was therefore proved insane: Catch-22.

So How could I be sane?

Especially with my doctors’ immediate use of heavy neuroleptics that made me, temporarily, the opposite. Sounds crazy? Then I WAS legally crazy -

BBB. BS Baffles Brains. Bingo!

Happy Catch-22, Fergus.

Never mind that I was hounded into that place by sexual predators: I was sane, so therefore I must be crazy. Catch-22, Fergus. You were CRAZY to come here. Haha.

If you wake up, that’s, well… forbidden. But we have Some Supplements to ensure you never do. If you perchance DO wake up, no one really cares.

You’re cornered.

Catch-22.

How do you think the incredible author, Joseph Heller, saw all this so plainly?

Because he couldn’t be a War Hero and a Peace Protestor at one and the same time. Catch-22, my friends. Pleased to meet you, Herr von Clausewitz, old bud.

But then… Heller wrote it all down, so that the Blind might have Eyes to See.

Catch-22:

Tag and You’re IT.

READ IT!

And you’ll SEE, for a change.

As I did after all my hard knocks.

And the only option then is the Grace that makes everything OK.

I read this in 2017.

I finally finished this landmark book, and it’s one of the most horrifyingly gruesome novels I've read on the casualties of war.

It's also to be said, darkly humorous with satire dripping all over it's pages. Scenes of the absurd and implausible seem to rule Yossarian's world, amidst the backdrop of shady profiteers such as Milo; sassy prostitutes, and sociopathic men without any moral compass.

I felt it’s really relevant to the political climate of today- President Trump's administration, full of buffoons, the insane, and straightforward alternative universes where there is no truth beyond the horrible lies and gaslighting. It's timely indeed I read this.

Life would be beautiful if it wasn't for the war; Captain John Yossarian is not happy, flying in an U.S. Army B-25 plane as a bombardier during WW2 ... continuous take- offs and landings on the small Italian island of Pianosa near the west coast of Italy is no real fun ( the isle in reality was too small for runways). Flak may seem pretty in the sky, from below, however above...but to Yo Yo his nickname, the anti- aircraft fire will pulverize you into tiny bits of unrecognizable
debris... Thought he was a loyal American until ambitious Colonel Cathcart raises combat missions from 25 to 30 ... 35... 40..50..55..60...70...maybe soon 80 ? The cold Colonel Korn his second in command urges more missions if his boss desires to become a general, a sacrifice they are willing to take for their men, after all both stay on terra firma .... A man could be killed around here thinks Mr. Yossarian and not thrilled about such a prospect.That occurs to him when he notices most of his friends are dying in the strife and not eager to join the unliving, can he just go home? The nervous warrior invariably seeks admittance to the hospital, a frequent visitor to get out of flying other times
has real wounds not always from the enemy, now needs to escape from the island yet the people he meets there, doctors, nurses and especially patients are more unhinged than he... The strange one is covered from head to foot in bandages or plaster, creeps the others out with just a minuscule entrance to breath, like a whale's blowhole, alive maybe..that's highly debatable. Nevertheless a certain nurse attracts him, there is joy in the most unpromising situations and nurse Duckett is attractive ...And swimming in the sea and laying on the beach with her has its compensations... Be understanding some advise this , ( there are shortages of qualified airmen for combat duty ) including Chaplain Tappman, a man not sure of his own duty; war or peace... like everyone else he desires to get back to America.. Milo Minderbinde , Captain Yossarian mysterious pal emerges from the mess hall to stardom as the always conniving entrepreneur doing deals, doesn't matter if they are enemies, business is business and the object is to make money. Spain, Egypt, Turkey, Portugal, Sicily anywhere where there is a buck to make and planes can reach, he thrives in the madness. Still while the airmen live, Yossarian and friends travel to Rome for relaxation and the best way is...finding loose women those not too particular about looks or manners or clean rooms and wild ways , will tolerate much for gratuities... Everybody calls everyone crazy in the book which is quite accurate, war is insane but never unfashionable, some believe this will happen on Earth for perpetuity ... Joseph Heller's anti- war black comedy classic has given the world the phrase catch-22 meaning a dilemma, whatever you choose you lose. This novel though not for all, is a magnificent trip into the horrors of brutal mindless discord you have to laugh, in order to survive..

Αυτή ήταν η τρίτη απόπειρα που έκανα να διαβάσω το Catch 22. Συνήθως γύρω στις 100 σελίδες το άφηνα αν κ πάντα γελούσα μέχρι εκείνο το σημείο. Αν θυμάμαι καλά, η έλλειψη ενός κεντρικού plotline με έκανε να πιάνω ένα άλλο βιβλίο, κ μετά ένα άλλο μέχρι που έφτανα σε ένα σημείο που δεν θυμόμουν τίποτα πια κ έπρεπε να το ξαναξεκινήσω. Αυτή τη φορά, κάπου στη σελίδα 180, σκέφτηκα κ πάλι να το αφήσω αλλά η παράλληλη ανάγνωση του comic book του Delisle με ξεκούραζε αρκετά ώστε τελικά να συνεχίσω χωρίς να το έχω ακριβώς αποφασίσει.

Η αλήθεια είναι λοιπόν ότι για τις πρώτες 250 σελίδες δεν είχα ενθουσιαστεί κ πολύ αλλά ταυτόχρονα δε με ενοχλούσε κάτι ιδιαίτερα. Σιγά σιγά προχωρούσα. Τελικά διάβασα τις τελευταίες 300 σελίδες μέσα σε ένα 24ώρο γιατί δεν μπορούσα με τίποτα να αφήσω απ'τα χέρια μου ένα τόσο ιδιαίτερο βιβλίο, ένα κείμενο τόσο καλό που φαινόταν ότι ο Heller είχε υπολογίσει την παραμικρή λεπτομέρεια. Δεν λέω βέβαια κάτι καινούργιο, ούτε πρόκειται να το κάνω στη συνέχεια. Τώρα πια, ούτε ο Heller λέει κάτι που δεν γνωρίζουμε ήδη αλλά παρ'όλα αυτά βλέπουμε τα ίδια πράγματα να επαναλαμβάνονται.

Το Catch 22 είναι κάπου μεταξύ Pynchon κ Vonnegut, χωρίς βέβαια να υπάρχει η ιδιοφυία (κ το χάος) του πρώτου ή η αμεσότητα (κ το ανυπέρβλητο χιούμορ) του δεύτερου. Ο Heller στήνει μια στρατιά χαρακτήρων που αντιπροσωπεύει κάθε κομμάτι της κοινωνικής δομής της εποχής (τον ιερέα που αμφιβάλλει για τον θεό, τον γιατρό που δεν καταλαβαίνει γιατί είναι στον πόλεμο κοτζάμ επιστήμονας, τον ραδιούργο σιτιστή που χτίζει το μοντέλο αισχροκέρδειας του πολέμου, τους φιλόδοξους αξιωματικούς που δεν νοιάζονται για τίποτα κοκ), οι οποίοι είναι φυσικά μονοδιάστατοι για να κάνουν τον κεντρικό ήρωα, τον αξέχαστο Γιοσάριαν κ κύριο πρωταγωνιστή να λειτουργεί ως αντίβαρο στο παραλογισμό που συναντά, όχι μόνο στον πόλεμο αλλά στην ζωή την ίδια όπως την "καταντήσαμε".

Όλα αυτά γίνονται με μπόλικο χιούμορ αλλά κ πολύ αίμα, κ όταν αυτό ξεκινάει ο Heller είναι ασταμάτητος. Ακόμα κ αν το πρώτο μισό φαίνεται σχεδόν μάταιο, αν το εξαιρετικό κατά τ'άλλα φινάλε γίνεται λίγο διδαχτικό, μην έχετε περαιτέρω αμφιβολίες. Είναι εξαιρετικό βιβλίο.

"Τι φριχτός κόσμος! Αναρωτήθηκε πόσοι άνθρωποι ήταν άποροι εκείνη τη νύχτα ακόμα κ στη δική του πλούσια χώρα, πόσα σπίτια ήταν παράγκες, πόσοι άντρες ήταν μεθυσμένοι κ πόσες γυναίκες κακοποιημένες κ πόσα παιδιά ήταν τυραννισμένα, κακοποιημένα ή εγκαταλελειμμένα [...] Πόσοι ειλικρινείς ήταν ψεύτες, πόσοι γενναίοι ήταν δειλοί, πόσοι πιστοί ήταν προδότες, πόσοι ηθικοί άνθρωποι ήταν διεφθαρμένοι, πόσοι άνθρωποι σε ��μπιστευτικές θέσεις είχαν πουλήσει τη συνείδησή τους σε αγύρτες για πενταροδεκάρες, πόσοι δεν είχαν ποτέ συνείδηση; [...] Αν τα πρόσθετες όλα αυτά μαζί κ έπειτα αφαιρούσες, θα έμενες μάλλον μόνο με τα παιδιά κ ίσως με τον Άλμπερτ Αϊνστάιν κ κάποιον γέρο βιολιστή ή γλύπτη".

У 18 років мені було весело читати книгу.
У 23 чи 25 мені було цікаво перечитувати цю книгу.
У 35 мені було сумно перечитувати цю книгу. Життєво, абсурдно, іронічно, щемко.

Одна з найкращих книг в моєму житті.

E YOSSARIAN PRESE IL FUCILE NEL MATTATOIO N° 6


La miniserie TV in 6 episodi, prodotta e in parte diretta da George Clooney.

Romanzo manifesto dell’antimilitarismo, col tempo è diventato l’emblema dell’assurdità e della demenza militare, e il suo titolo, che oltre al comma intende una trappola, un tranello, è diventato uno slogan.
Eccolo qui il famoso comma 22: solo chi è pazzo può chiedere di essere esentato dalle missioni di volo, ma chi chiede di essere esentato dalle missioni di volo non è pazzo.
Che magnifico paradosso! L’affermazione di un principio e l’immediata negazione dello stesso.
Figlio diretto del paradosso per eccellenza: la frase seguente è falsa - la frase precedente è vera.
L’effetto comico è assicurato.
Ma, forse, molti lettori l’hanno trovato ripetitivo, monotono, il ritmo sostenuto non è certo il suo pregio più appariscente. Rimane opera di teatro dell’assurdo, del grottesco, una satira feroce, nella quale è bello perdersi, ghignare, e farsi percorrere da brividi: perché quello che Yossarian sente e pensa e dice è angosciante e terrorizzante, suscita paura anche se fa ridere.



La storia si svolge in Italia verso la fine della seconda guerra mondiale.
Yossarian, ufficiale dell’aeronautica militare USA, pilota bombardiere di B25, è sull’isola di Pianosa per compiere incursioni sulle linee nemiche e proteggere l’avanzata degli alleati.
L’ambientazione italiana si suppone si debba al fatto che lo stesso Heller fu puntatore a bordo di un bombardiere B-25 Mitchell dell'aviazione americana operante dalla Corsica durante il secondo conflitto mondiale.

Il protagonista è l’antieroe per eccellenza, ossessionato dal fatto che migliaia di persone sconosciute, alle quali lui personalmente non ha fatto nulla, tentino continuamente di farlo fuori.
Il romanzo è popolato di personaggi stravaganti e maniacali che applicano la disciplina militare con zelo meticoloso, inconsapevoli di mettere in ridicolo la folle logica del Comma 22.



C’è chi lo considera uno dei primi romanzi post-moderni dato che il racconto non procede per ordine cronologico, uno stesso evento è narrato più volte dal punto di vista di diversi personaggi, alcuni concetti vengono ripetuti da un interlocutore all’altro e a furia di rimbalzare creano una circolarità che diventa un dialogo dell’assurdo.



Insieme a Mattatoio n° 5, E Johnny prese il fucile, All’ovest niente di nuovo, entra di diritto nei più celebri romanzi contro la guerra. Anche se più che questi suoi degnissimi fratelli di lotta, a me fa venire in mente Kafka (Il processo), Orwell (1984), o Hašek (Il buon soldato Sc'vèik).

Pubblicato per la prima volta nel 1961, e inizialmente stroncato dalla critica, anche quella importante (New Yorker, New York Times), fu con l’edizione tascabile e l’uscita in UK che divenne un best-seller da 10 milioni di copie.

Ai tempi del Vietnam molti dei pacifisti che manifestavano davanti alla Casa Bianca portavano sul petto una spilla con lo slogan "Yossarian vive".
In Italia invece approdò sulle pagine di Sturmtruppen i cui soldati lo enunciano tale e quale al romanzo: Chiunque sia pazzo può chiedere di essere esentato dalle azioni militari, ma chi chiede di essere esentato dalle azioni militari non è pazzo.



Il regista Mike Nichols poteva permettersi quello che voleva dopo il successo de Il laureato, anche la quinta flotta aerea del mondo, trenta veri bombardieri B-25 “Mitchell” a disposizione, anche un cast da brivido (Alan Arkin, Anthony Perkins, Charles Grodin, Martin Balsam, Art Garfunkel, Buck Henry, Martin Sheen, Jon Voight, Bob Balaban, e last but not least, un indimenticabile Orson Welles), tempi interminabili di ripresa, location sperdute del Messico dove il grande direttore della fotografia David Watkin (più tardi premiato con l’Oscar per La mia Africa) aspettava le 14:45, l’unico momento del giorno con l’illuminazione perfetta. Nichols si diverte in regia, sperimenta, piani sequenza, campi lunghissimi, coreografie degli enormi B-25…
Ma il film fu un flop, non resse la competizione con M.A.S.H., uscito cinque mesi prima, che ebbe invece grande successo.


Candice Bergen e Peter Bogdanovich in visita sul set di Catch 22: mentre la Bergen scatta foto, Bogdanovich e Orson Welles lavorano al celebre libro intervista

This is the best book I've ever read.

It keeps me out of trouble.

I first read it in high school, senior year AP Lit. We read it alongside Kafka's The Metamorphosis and had engaging discussions about what the hell was going on (in the books and in life itself), culminating in a detailed "compare and contrast" essay.

I read it again on my own the next year, my freshman year at college, just for fun.

I read it a third time my junior year, and actually recited a section as a dramatic reading in my Oral Comm class.

I read it again shortly before graduating, then again shortly after landing my first job as an English teacher, then I bought a copy for my classroom library in case some precocious student wanted to pick it up on their own.

I read it twice more after moving to a new state, once cover to cover and once again in semi-random excerpts, starting with whatever page I happened to thumb to.

I read it as my 52nd book of 2016, the last one to complete my 2016 Goodreads Reading Challenge. What can I say? More than 60 years after publication and it hasn't lost any of its charm, or its poignancy, or its power. More than any other book, this one has shaped my worldview. I love the wordplay, how perfectly beauracracy is skewered and mocked, how relentlessly logical thinking leads to illogical ends. I love how it makes you stop and think and appreciate, how it reminds us of the fleeting nature of life and of the value of living. I love how it encourages us to question everything: authority, beauracracy, faith, government, society. Just who the hell is in charge, and what the hell are they doing, and where the hell do I fit in? I love the ending, the final masterful decision Yossarian makes to stop being a pawn and make himself a king -- more than that, to leave the game and its arbitrary rules altogether.

I love this book.

So, I will read it again, and this review will get a little longer, and I will always affirm:

This is the best book I have ever read.

It keeps me out of trouble.

I realize that CATCH 22 is said to be one of the greatest literary works of the twentieth century, but it was just not my cup of tea. I found it confusing at first and when I did sort out the storyline, had to force myself to stay with the repetition of it all. (Still worth 3 Stars though for its uniqueness.)

If you want to read a dark satire about the atrocities of war where a U.S. Army bombardier fights to retain his sanity in a world of contradictions, this 1961 classic is for you.

Novel set during WWII on an American airbase in Southern Italy near to Rome. This is entirely incidental. This is a book written in the spirit of the The Iliad - life is war, and the nature of war is absurd - but we do it anyway, indeed we must, war must be absurd since we are absurd, and if this wasn't so we wouldn't fight each other. One might detect a hint of 1984, but this time with a smile, 'war is peace' and 'peace is war'. The war is in the background, it is the most important thing and the most irrelevant, the web of black marketering, now that is something that has meaning and consequence, but what is wheeling and dealing, profit and loss but war by another name? Another front of human mobilisation and struggle. Is the Major, major? We all will die, why worry if death comes from below while sitting in an absurd flying contraption, rather than after twenty or thirty years in the advertising business trying to persuade housewives to shift their preferred brand of cigarettes or to get unduly excited about soap powder. Heller only knew.

“Just because you are paranoid does not mean that they are not after you.”



I have high-functioning anxiety, I’ve had it for most of my life: I can usually manage it pretty well, but it has the oddest side-effects sometimes. I first read “Catch 22” when I was going through a very serious high anxiety period, and I’ve noticed over the years that when that happens, I will read at more or less my normal pace, but I will then immediately forget the book as soon as I am done with it. It’s as if my brain’s capacity to record thing just short circuits – and this was pre-Goodreads, so I wasn’t taking notes or sharing thoughts about books with anyone, so there was nothing for my memory to hold on to.

My husband loves this book so much, and he was baffled when I told him that I couldn’t remember much about it, that I hadn’t really found it good or funny. Earlier this year, we watched the miniseries on Hulu and I decided I had to re-read it. Because it was a great story, and it was funny, and it was weird: all the things I like! And now I am really ticked off at my anxiety for just erasing this from my brain, because barely 10 pages in and I was giggling and shaking my head.

This episodic novel is the tale of woe of young Captain Yossarian, a bombardier in the 256th US Army Air Squadron: he and his squadron are based on a small island in Italy, at the tail-end of World War II, and they are all, in their own way, going crazy. Yossarian is trying to use his slow descent into insanity as a way out of active service – but anyone who is able to file a request for relief of duty on the basis of insanity is considered of sound mind, so such requests are never actually granted.

This Kafkaesque anti-war book features a broad cast of characters all coping with their circumstances in odd ways. And they are all, in their weird ways, kind of endearing and kind of detestable. I don’t know how one can summarize a novel like this adequately, but let’s just say that corruption, war profiteering and forgery are part of this story, as well as love, grief and the very real trauma that many men lived through during this very violent period of history.

It’s a tough book to read, because the narrative is non-linear and all over the place, but you have to trust Heller: this isn’t messy, this is done very deliberately, and by the end, the final pieces of the puzzle fall into place and paint the full picture of why this squadron is as crazy as it is. I don’t think it’s a perfect novel: it drags in places, and some jokes get a bit repetitive, but that is also done on purpose, to give the readers a sense of the tedium experienced by the characters. Even with its flaws, though, I think this book easily falls into the mandatory reads pile, because its skillful illustration of the absurdity and violence of war, and of the bureaucratic morass that is the military industrial complex is a relevant and important subject, as is the effect of such events on the mental health of people who go through it. Coincidentally, I was reading it during Remembrance Day… It put a bit of a different spin on this holiday, but I think it was a good perspective to have.

Very recommended, as is the Hulu series – though the different ending changes the tone of the overall story a little bit.

It was a slow read. I wanted to put the books aside many times but finally, I finished it. And I found out its power on the unconscious level: two nights I was tortured by dreams about war. On the surface, the book looks like a mess of comical and satirical, and cynical moments, spread in time and space. Nevertheless, after deep thinking, all the comical elements become tragical, because we are talking about the WWII and about human life which is wasted so pointlessly. Nobody wants to fight, but everybody does for the freedom and for the world, and for America - all the loud words people in power like to apply to offer excuses for any of their actions. Most of the heroes of the book die as they lived - in a strange way, and you don't notice the cruelty of their deaths until you realise it is death we are talking about. The main hero is the only one who started to fight against the system and only, in the end, we see Heller's hope for escape from this bloody unfair mess.