Catch-22 by Joseph Heller

Publisher: Simon & Schuster

Date: November 11, 1961

Heller does something amazing with this book.  He has written it with all the seriousness of an audit, but all the dark humor and absurdity of a Tom & Jerry cartoon.  The repetition of events, themes, and dialogue, from revolving perspectives, seemed to cement the absurdity of the whole war.

Yossarian is a bombardier in the US Army’s 256th Squadron based on an island just off the Italian coast.  He has become disillusioned with the war and wants to get out, but can’t.  He is in a living hell where everyone around him has become either crazy or brainwashed.  Catch-22 keeps him in Italy:

“There was only one catch and that was Catch-22, which specified that a concern for one’s own safety in the face of dangers that were real and immediate was the process of a rational mind. Orr was crazy and could be grounded. All he had to do was ask; and as soon as he did, he would no longer be crazy and would have to fly more missions. Orr would be crazy to fly more missions and sane if he didn’t, but if he was sane he had to fly them. If he flew them he was crazy and didn’t have to; but if he didn’t want to he was sane and had to. Yossarian was moved very deeply by the absolute simplicity of this clause of Catch-22 and let out a respectful whistle.
‘That’s some catch, that catch-22,’ he observed.
‘It’s the best there is,’ Doc Daneeka agreed.”

The agony and frustration Yossarian endures in this novel is constant and would be enough to drive most people insane.  Funny enough, Heller is saying that maybe beneficial.  You have to be insane to want to be there in the first place.

Heller lampoons bureaucracy through the whole book.  Just about everyone with power abuses it to gain more.  He hits heavily on greed through the character of Milo Minderbinder, the Mess Officer. Milo spearheads a syndicate that represents his devotion to his capitalist beliefs.  He contracts Germans to fly produce, he bombs his own base, he sells his men chocolate covered cotton, all for profit.  He doesn’t care who wins the war so long as he comes out rich.  Where at the beginning Milo is concerned for the men he is feeding, by the end they are starving and Milo’s only worry is the bottom line.

“This time Milo had gone too far. Bombing his own men and planes was more than even the most phlegmatic observer could stomach, and it looked like the end for him…Milo was all washed up until he opened his books to the public and disclosed the tremendous profit he had made.”

It has to be read to really understand how well Heller illustrates his point.  It’s shameful to have waited so long to read such a great book.