Catch-22 (Madeline Kacen)

Catch 22, Joseph Heller, Simon & Schuster, 416 pages

My neighbor recommended me the book and I found it at the South Hadley Public Library.

My Summary: Basically the book is a chaotic series of events and odd experiences that happen to the American soldiers in the novel. The soldiers are on an island called Pianosa fighting battle during WWII. The main character’s name is Yossarian, he doesn’t like fighting in battle. He doesn’t like the fact that a bunch of people he didn’t know were trying to kill and attack him; he was somewhat frustrated. He avoided fighting in battle by pretending to be sick in the army hospital in hopes that he would get sent home. I got the conscience that the actual Catch 22 of the book was that if you don’t want fly combat you were considered wacko. But if you were afraid of dieing in combat you were considered “normal” and were forced to fly. All this is thought to be true by the characters when in reality it doesn’t even exist at all! A Catch 22 is something that has no resolution and just goes right back to the original situation.

The Audience: I think this is a book for anyone who enjoys a gripping challenge, because the book is at times frustrating to read and comprehend. Also if you like a good battle book this may be a good read for you, because it’s about a war battle.

The style: The style (for me) was kind of confusing and chaotic. Especially with the characters, it seemed to jump all over the place and was hard to keep up. I feel it was written this way to give you the same frustration that Yossarian felt in the novel.

“Captain Black, who who had aspired to the position himself, maintained that Major Major really was Henry Fonda but was too chickenshit to admit it.” (91)

Passages:
"Sure there's a catch," Doc Daneeka replied. "Catch-22. Anyone who wants to get out of combat duty isn't really crazy." (109)
This passage is proof that the whole idea of the Catch 22 is just a frustration and doesn’t really exist at all.

"'What is a country? A country is a piece of land surrounded on all sides by boundaries, usually unnatural.” (247)
This is saying how a country is no more than just a piece of land and that’s all it will ever be. The only thing that protects it from collapsing is the physical barriers around it.

“He wondered often how he would ever recognize the first chill, flush, twinge, ache, belch, sneeze, stain, lethargy, vocal slip, loss of balance or lapse of memory that would signal the inevitable beginning of the inevitable end.” (166)
The main character realizes that he will die somehow in the battle; he just starts to see how fragile life really is. He is not sure how his life will end though and what will be the death of him.

My relationship: In Catch 22 I could relate to the frustration of some of the characters, especially Yosarrian. Not only his frustration with the government of the battle in general, but the way he was frustrated with the situation of trying to stay alive or die trying. He feels in will fail in one aspect or another. The part that spoke to me was the Catch 22 in general and how it didn’t even really exist in the novel as much as everyone thought. So is that true for life in general, do Catch 22’s even really exist?