Catch 22

[pjclarke]

“They're trying to kill me," Yossarian told him calmly.
No one's trying to kill you," Clevinger cried.
Then why are they shooting at me?" Yossarian asked.
They're shooting at everyone," Clevinger answered. "They're trying to kill everyone."
And what difference does that make?”

--

“What is a country? A country is a piece of land surrounded on all sides by boundaries, usually unnatural. Englishmen are dying for England, Americans are dying for America, Germans are dying for Germany, Russians are dying for Russia. There are now fifty or sixty countries fighting in this war. Surely so many countries can't all be worth dying for.”

--

“From now on I'm thinking only of me."
Major Danby replied indulgently with a superior smile: "But, Yossarian, suppose everyone felt that way."
"Then," said Yossarian, "I'd certainly be a damned fool to feel any other way, wouldn't I?”

“There was only one catch and that was Catch-22, which specified that a concern for one's 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.”

Then there's the fact that it is Catch 22, implying that there are at least 21 more catches out there ....

Try Slaughterhouse 5, it is another classic antiwar satire/fantasy, but a lot shorter.

[WTFH]

Then there's the fact that it is Catch 22, implying that there are at least 21 more catches out there ....

Try Slaughterhouse 5, it is another classic antiwar satire/fantasy, but a lot shorter.

But if someone finds Heller confusing, I’m not sure Vonnegut is any easier (certainly his later works required a bit of thinking)

[Pip in a Poke]

Then there's the fact that it is Catch 22, implying that there are at least 21 more catches out there ....

Heller originally wanted to call the phrase (and hence, the book) by other numbers, but he and his publishers eventually settled on 22. The number has no particular significance; it was chosen more or less for euphony. The title was originally Catch-18, but Heller changed it after the popular Mila 18 was published a short time beforehand (wikipedia)

Try Slaughterhouse 5, it is another classic antiwar satire/fantasy, but a lot shorter.

Yes, Kindle also recommended that alongside Catch-22.

Can't remember what on earth I've read for it to come up with those suggestions

[psychocandy]

Tried once too many big words for me.

[IR35 Avoider]

Some other memorable scenes/lines from the book involved Captain Aardvark. I remember him as having killed Nately's whore, but I found the relevant bit in wikipedia (many of the characters have their own wikipedia entry!) and it wasn't actually her.

Toward the end of the novel, Aarfy rapes and murders a maid, Michaela, while on leave in Rome. This inadvertently forms the emotional center of the novel. When an aghast Yossarian tells him that he will be arrested and possibly executed, Aarfy laughs dismissively that no one would do that to "good old Aarfy":

"But I only raped her once!" he explained.
Yossarian was aghast. "But you killed her, Aarfy! You killed her!"
"Oh, I had to do that after I had raped her," Aarfy replied in his most condescending manner. "I couldn't very well let her go around saying bad things about us, could I?"
"But why did you have to touch her at all, you dumb bastard?" Yossarian shouted. "Why couldn't you get yourself a girl off the street if you wanted one? The city is full of prostitutes."
"Oh, no, not me," Aarfy bragged. "I never paid for it in my life."

His insouciant view is vindicated when the police arriving on the scene show no interest in Aarfy and instead arrest Yossarian for going AWOL.

Also, I can't find the quote, but the scene where Captain Aardvark crawls down the tunnel to the bomb-aimer position at the front of the plane, appearing behind Yossarian and blocking his only exit to a place he can bail out from should the plane be hit during the bombing run. I have this image in my head of Captain Aardvark smoking his pipe and affably asking "what's wrong old man" as Yossarian is hysterically attacking him, trying to drive him back.

That scene really comes across with a nightmare quality, like a dream where you are on the railway tracks, see the train coming, but somehow can't move out the way.

(It was 30 years ago I read it, so may not have the details right.)

[Pip in a Poke]

Some other memorable scenes/lines from the book involved Captain Aardvark. I remember him as having killed Nately's whore, but I found the relevant bit in wikipedia (many of the characters have their own wikipedia entry!) and it wasn't actually her.



Also, I can't find the quote, but the scene where Captain Aardvark crawls down the tunnel to the bomb-aimer position at the front of the plane, appearing behind Yossarian and blocking his only exit to a place he can bail out from should the plane be hit during the bombing run. I have this image in my head of Captain Aardvark smoking his pipe and affably asking "what's wrong old man" as Yossarian is hysterically attacking him, trying to drive him back.

That scene really comes across with a nightmare quality, like a dream where you are on the railway tracks, see the train coming, but somehow can't move out the way.

(It was 30 years ago I read it, so may not have the details right.)

Yes, the chapter set in Rome towards the end of the book is one of the most bleak.

I often found myself wondering if the writers of BlackAdder had taken any of their inspiration for General Darling from any of the top brass portrayed in Catch-22.

In my mind, reading any dialog involving General Scheisskopf and his obsession with parades or general Peckham and tight bomb formations, I couldn't not hear Stephen Fry's voice.