Catch 22

[Plaything]

....not so sure about that....read it a coupla times over the years....it gives me many belly laughs
....the movie, not so much......LOVE Alan Arkin, tho

The casting in the movie was great. But the storytelling a little thin. Too many layers in the book to really capture on film.

[Stavros]

There is an interesting discussion of Catch-22 in City of Words, a study of post-war American fiction that was published by the late Tony Tanner in 1971. One of his arguments is that Americans have been obsessed with systems and how the individual fits into them, be it the political system with its layers of control from the Federal government down to the local County; or religion, or conspiracy theories; and in particular the way in which language as a system shapes the style of contemporary fiction. Systems are dominant in this case with the military which creates a completely enfolded system in which everything can be accounted for so that when Yossarian is in hospital a nurse tells him his leg belongs not to him, but to the US Government. As Tanner puts it, Yossarian in the War finds himself 'in the middle of a confusion dressed up as a system'. Fundamental to this predicament is the one which Tanner sees in a lot of American fiction, which concerns how individuals fit into society, posing the dilemma: too much autonomy involves loss of world, while too little leads to loss of self.

Catch-22 works because of its dark humour, because it has sharply-drawn characters, and because even though most of us have never been in the military, let alone a military at war, we relate to the individual in a rule-based society which can stifle personal expression or try to censor it, edit it, or push it in the direction others want it to go. I think in Heller's case it was the one book he had in him, like Ken Kesey's One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest, but was followed by dreary books that never matched the quality of the first.

[ScottyBabe]

I feel like the book doesn't lend itself well to the big screen. The sheer bamboozlement that's felt by Yossarian in his conversations with different people is difficult to get across when it's not written. The concept of Catch-22 is beautifully simple, but also bizarrely complex at the same time. Heller's gift was showing the humour in what is an otherwise horrid and dark subject.

It's in my top three books, that's for sure!

[Plaything]

I have a military background. And have served operationally.

In a far away desolate and desert country, we climbed and patrolled an unforgiving, and hostile, mountainous terrain with a number of donkeys carrying water.

Nothing else.

As Airborne Pathfinders we took pride in carrying our own essential munitions and supplies.

During the day the donkeys were silent, irrascible and, you guessed it, as stubborn as mules - regularly taking a bite out of any trooper stupid enough to get within snapping distance: at night, as we lay hushed in ambush position, you couldn't shut them up.

However in temperatures reaching 40 to 50 degree celcius, the additional water seemed providential.

When, eventually, I enquired about re-filling some of my soldier's water bottles, I was informed that the water, carried by the donkeys, was 'for the donkeys'.

Evidently somebody further up the chain of command was a fan of Mr Heller.

[Laphroaig]

I read a lot of books but being honest, Catch 22, is one of the few that I just couldn't finish.

Not the most overhyped book though, that award goes to The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy by Douglas Adams...

[EZWind]

I read a lot of books but being honest, Catch 22, is one of the few that I just couldn't finish.

Not the most overhyped book though, that award goes to The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy by Douglas Adams...

...I'll second that sentiment....and the same goes for that movie, which is one of the few that I just couldn't finish.

[brummie]

I agree ok book and crap film but brilliant on the radio or in a theatre