Catch 22

Catch 22
By Joseph Heller

This book was a very enjoyable experience. What took me so long to get around to read it? I must thank TJ for bringing it home from the bookstore. In my, er… TJ’s copy on my bookshelf, the literary essay at the front was worth the read alone. It provided a list of who’s who in authors and book titles of similar subject matter. I’ll need to clear off the next shelf and add to my Christmas reading list. The book itself was entertaining with its satirical comedy and at the same time insightful about the puzzle pieces that make up society.

The society for which Yosarian the main character and bombardier of a Flying Fortress finds himself in is an army filled with the “ego of leadership” handing down policy intending to primarily serve their own self-interest. Yosarrian himself is promoted to Captain, because in his fear of dying he failed to hit his target with the first set of bombs in his aircraft so he went around the target through all the ground artillery flack and bombed it on the second run. The officers promoted him because it was the only alternative to court marshal having shown fear in missing on the first run.

From the title Catch 22 to the final page you experience a "Catch 22”. I understand the phrase Catch 22 came from this book. Specifically for Yosarrian, Catch 22 represented his rationale to get out of being a bombardier. Yosarian had developed an extreme fear of combat missions that manifested itself in many satirically funny ways throughout the book. Army policy held that in order to be excused from combat duty you had to prove that you were crazy. Not being afraid to die would present a medical case for being crazy. Yet if you were brave in the clutches of certain death, you were exactly what the army needed for bomber crew.

The author's style in character building has each chapter telling there duplicate stories within the same small span of time which leaves you the reader in the middle of a de-jevu dream that evolves into life’s lessons and the moral of the story. The Chaplin figures it out when in the course of following orders we realizes he has sinned. “"“ The Chaplin has sinned and it was good. Common sense told him that telling lies and defecting from duty were sins. On the other hand, everyone knew that sin was evil, and that no good would come from evil. But he did feel good. He felt positively marvelous. Consequently, it followed logically that telling lies and defecting from duty could not be sins. The Chaplin had mastered, in a moment of Devine intuition, the handy technique of protective rationalization. It was miraculous. It was no trick at all, he saw how to turn vice into virtue, slander into truth, impotence into abstinence, arrogance into humility, plunder into philanthropy, thievery into honor, blasphemy into wisdom, brutality into patriotism, and sadism into justice. Anybody could do it. It took no brains at all""""

As the humor actually turns into seriousness Yosarian realizes that beyond self there are a lot of other reasons for living. Yosarian has a personal experience with a close encounter with death whereby he becomes the subject of a prostitute stalker who takes many attempts to end his life. To rid himself of this danger he flies her behind enemy lines, straps a parachute to her back and dumps her out of the aircraft. In doing so he comes to realize that her 12-year-old kid sister in Rome is now left helpless with no one to help her through life. In his search for the kid sister he discovers life beyond himself. At the same time he sets out to solve the situation he also discovers he has a range of choices for where he can contribute to the human race. The situation leaves the perfect opportunity for the author to take full advantage of multiple endings. And of course he develops them all to a crux of a conclusion. The one he chose would most likely not be the one you the reader would have hoped for. Yet in keeping with the self-serving character in Yosarian, the book defines the challenges between individual and society.

I thoroughly enjoyed this book.