”You mean there’s a catch?”



“Sure there’s a catch, “ Doc Daneeka replied. “Catch-22. Anyone who wants to get out of combat duty isn’t really crazy.”



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

Originally Catch-22 was Catch-18, but because Leon Uris was publishing a novel calledthat same year Joseph Heller’s agent decided the title needed to be changed so as to not confuse the book buying public. Also given that 22 is a double 11 they liked the way it represented the many déjà vu moments that occur in the book. The East Coast publishing intelligentsia really embraced the book even though there were doubts if it would ever gain traction with the American public.I understand the frustration that publishers feel with the American book buying public. They have all been scorched by a book they felt should have sold by the wheelbarrow only to have it crash and burn with the majority of the first printing sold off to a remainder company. Sometimes a book needs a lightning strike in the form of Oprah or a school banning the book (thank-you Strongsville, OH), but for Heller all he needed was the 1960s.The book is set during WWII, the last good war according to everyone from Tom Brokaw to the school janitor at Phillipsburg High School. Fat novels glorifying the war, some extraordinarily good, were hitting bookstores at a fast clip from the late 1940s on. By the time Catch-22 came out in 1961 the world had changed. So those people who bought this book who thought they were in for another “weren’t we great” novel about World War Two were in for a shock. A typical reaction was:Some thought it was irreverent, but there were a growing group of people who thought it was among the best American novels they had ever read. Both reactions helped juice the novel and sales began to climb.At the tender age of 19 in 1942 Joseph Heller joined the U.S. Army Air Corp. By 1944 he found himself on the Italian Front as a B-25 Bombardier. He flew 60 missions most of which he categorized as milk runs; these were flight missions that encounter no or very little anti-aircraft artillery or enemy fighters. Heller admits that his disillusionment with the war in Korea colored the novel. It gives me the shakes to think how different the novel would be if he had published the book in 1951 instead of 1961. Little did he know how prophetic his novel would be regarding the Vietnam War.Yossarian has reached the end of his rope. He has flown the required number of combat missions several times, but each time Colonel Cathcart keeps raising the number of missions required to go home. A similar circumstance plagued Hawkeye Pierce and his fellow doctors in the Korean War based TV series M*A*S*H. The pressure of thousands of people he doesn’t even know and hundreds he does know trying to kill him is just too much for him to bear. As he becomes more and more insane(sane) he becomes more and more qualified to fly combat missions as far as the military is concerned. He comes up with various ailments to keep him in the hospital. He shows up to receive his war medal naked except for a pair of moccasins. He finally refuses to fly any more missions and begins parading around the camp walking backwards. This does start to foment rebellion among his fellow flyers and drives Colonel Cathcart to distraction.Heller surrounds Yossarian with a wonderful cast of detailed characters of which I will only be able to mention a few.Lieutenant Nately is one of Yossarian’s best friends, a trust fund baby with red, white, and blue blood running through his veins. He is a good looking kid and could have any woman he wanted, but he falls in love with an Italian prostitute who begrudgingly sleeps with him when he pays for sex with her, but would rather he just disappeared. He has this great discussion with her “107” year old pimp.Nately continues to be the straight man for the old man as they discuss the absurdity of risking one’s life for their country.Milo Minderbinder is in charge of the mess at the U.S. Army Corps base. As he learns more and more about how goods are moved around the globe he begins a business of supply and demand (war profiteering). He becomes the ultimate capitalist with no allegiance to any country. He trades with the enemy and as part of contract negotiations he also warns the Germans once of an impending attack even to the point of guiding anti-artillery against American planes and in another case bombs his own base to fulfill another contract. The absurdity of his position is that he is too important to the American high command to get in trouble for any of these acts of treason. He tries to explain one of his more successful schemes to Yossarian.Hungry Joe keeps meeting the flight standards time and time again only to have his paperwork take too long to process before the flight standards have been raised again. He packs and then he unpacks. He is a fat, pervert who convinces women to take their clothes off to be photographed by telling them that he works for Life Magazine and will put them on the cover. Unfortunately the photographs never turn out. Ironically he did work as a photographer for Life Magazine before the war.Women do play a role in this book mostly as objects of lust. Heller has these wonderful, creative descriptions of them.And then there is a nurse that brings Yossarian nearly to his knees with desire.You will probably need to google the next one.Paradoxes abound even when Heller describes a character he will have countering characteristics like she was plain, but pretty or he was handsome, but ugly. Aren’t we all a sum of those characteristics anyway?This book is hilarious, (I laughed out loud at several points.)but wrapped with increasingly more tragic circumstances. As Yossarian’s friends die or disappear his desperation increases. His behavior becomes more and more erratic. The absurd traps him time and time again. There are a whole host of reasons why everyone should read this novel. I’m not saying that everyone will like it as much as I did, but it is IMHO one of the top five most important American novels ever written. It impacted our culture, added words to our language, and gave voice to a generation of people dissatisfied with the war aims of this country. More importantly don’t be the one person in the middle of a Catch-22 discussion who hasn’t read the book.If you wish to see more of my most recent book and movie reviews, visit http://www.jeffreykeeten.com I also have a Facebook blogger page at: https://www.facebook.com/JeffreyKeeten