Review: Catch-22 by Joseph Heller

Alright.

I've had a few weeks to mull over this fascinating novel and come up with some sort of position on it.

It starts with the protagonist, Yossarian, in a hospital with some sort mysterious disease "that fell just short of being jaundice." The ambiguity that we see here pervades the whole text.

Cach-22 is, of course, the delineation between perception and reality, between sanity and insanity.

But, this novel provides much deeper insight.

Summarily, Heller citiques the role of identity in a large and faceless organisation, i.e. the army, and he suggests perhaps that a person in an organisation is bigger than the organisation itself.

Contradictory I know, but this is the joy of reading Heller's work, which is an absolute ripper.

I could easily quote one of the characters of the novel, Doc Daneeka, explaining to Yossarian the logic behind Catch-22. But, to do that would be to miss the point.

The point of this novel is to highlight the transience of perception and the ultimate futility of the past, and also of war.

You see, Yossarian is a fighter pilot taking time off from the war in hospital, where, later in the novel, he develops a relationship with the plain Nurse Sue Ann Duckett.

The interesting thing about this novel is that it presents a single event through the eyes of different characters and through different chapters. This means that the book is not chronological at all.

I don't mind it. For some reason it reminds me of catching up with a group of mates when one recalls an anecdote - then the others offer backstory, different interpretation etc. It's strangely pleasing and it emphasises the informality of Heller's writing.

Only the last chapter offers any real drama/emotion, yet there are still loose ends as the final page is turned.

Again, the familiarity of Heller's prose kept me turning the pages.

I could rant on about the horrors of war, the pedantry of the bueracracy and the military-industrial complex. But that would be a waste of my time.

Instead, what Heller gives us an incredibly moving and even humanist - I'll get to that in a sec - account of life in a regimented structure.

You can easily parallelise the army to organised religion in this novel.
Indeed, the resident chaplain, Robert Shipman, is castigated and shunned throughout the piece. Clearly, what Heller lampoons is the extreme and religious-like effort that people put into anything - especially the army.

Heller lampoons Milo Minderbinder, the almost-fascist mess officer for turning upon his own army to enhance and give profit to "the syndicate".
Heller lampoons the chaplain for religion's supposed mildness.
Heller lampoons the Doc for his inability to find a disease.

Indeed, Catch-22 reminds me of Hamlet and The Wizard of Oz in that the protganist is surrounded by characters who only seem to have a fraction of the humanity of the main character.

Plot and themes are inextricably linked in this novel, which means that it will be pretty hard to give details away; suffice it to say that there is some sort of happy ending but what is more important is the journey.

And perhaps there isn't any. After all, this book is only really full of ranbling anecdotes.
Why then complain?

In altre parole don't read this book expecting to be morally enlightened. No. It's fun, funny, a little bit dirty but most of all a somewhat funny but mostly sad endictment on the army as an organisation in general.

Sure, be cynical if you want to about its lack of structure (like this review itself, but did not Oscar Wilde himself contend that the critic is just as important as the artist?), but instead enjoy the ride that is Joseph Heller's Catch-22.