Catch-22
1961
- satire
- war stories
- fiction
- drama
- world war, 1939-1945
- catch-22 (heller, joseph)
- world war (1939-1945) fast (ocolc)fst01180924
- fictional works publication type
- bombardiers
- american aerial operations
The story
*Catch-22* is like no other novel. It has its own rationale, its own extraordinary character. It moves back and forth from hilarity to horror. It is outrageously funny and strangely affecting. It is totally original. Set in the closing months of World War II in an American bomber squadron off Italy, *Catch-22* is the story of a bombardier named Yossarian, who is frantic and furious because thousands of people he hasn't even met keep trying to kill him. *Catch-22* is a microcosm of the twentieth-century world as it might look to someone dangerously sane. It is a novel that lives and moves and grows with astonishing power and vitality -- a masterpiece of our time. - Back cover.
What it’s like
Circular, looping prose that stutters and doubles back on itself, a voice that turns bureaucratic nonsense into a kind of deadpan music, and a sun-scorched Mediterranean backdrop of olive trees, tents, and hot tarmac under a blue sky that never quite feels safe. The mood swings fast from slapstick absurdity to sudden cold dread, so it suits a sharp-minded reader who likes their jokes to carry a bite: an afternoon read with a dark edge, a long-haul flight where you can't stop laughing at the officers, or a second pass when the first one left you rattled. Paragraphs jump in time and circle back to the same scenes with new details, which makes the rhythm restless and jagged rather than smooth. Emotionally it is cynical, rueful and quietly despairing, following a frightened airman who grows more determined to stay alive while the system around him grows more insane. Violence is frequent and sometimes graphic: war deaths are described matter-of-factly and at times in gruesome detail, though much of the book is comic in tone. Written for readers who enjoy satire, anti-war fiction, and grim humour, and who can handle a brutal turn in the middle of a joke.
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