Catch-22
by Joseph Heller
Quick synopsis: A third-person omniscient narrator recounts the events of the many characters and events in the fictional U.S. Airforce's 256th Squadron based on the island Pianosa in the Mediterranean Sea. The main character, Captain John Yossarian, deals with anxieties and rebellion against the military.
Phew, it's been a while since I've finished this book. I believe I finished it last... August. Or September. Remember how I was going to blog about it soon? Well, this is soon... ish. Relatively speaking.
I love this book. It is messy, complicated, giant -- but it is full of quick wit, perfect irony, call-back jokes and references that you've forgotten and when they sneak up on you, you feel like you're stepping out into the sun after being inside a cold house all day. It is political, it is personal, it is powerful. It's not for everyone, but it certainly is a book I will read and read and read for the rest of my life.
I guess I liked it so much because of the freedom for the (disembodied) narrator. It's third person omniscient, so that gives the narrator to do whatever the heck he/she wants. We are able to go into multiple people's perspectives and minds, and we're able to get to know them in ways that wouldn't be possible with a limited point of view. And yes, there are tons of characters -- so many I now can't even discern who's who without some Wikipedia help or a flow chart (if only I had made one, which I should have, but I guess I just didn't want to ruin the 'flow' of the reading). Like I said, complicated, but beautiful.
But it's not complicated for the sake of being complicated. Heller wanted to capture the experience of being in a war, of being with men you don't like and men you do and men who die and men who escape and men who are your brothers and men who are your superiors. It wouldn't be right if there were only a handful of main characters a few other flat ones off to the side. It wouldn't represent real life.
This book is also intricate. It's weaved together in such a way that keeps on surprising you. The plot isn't linear, which I love, and this allows for character development so that, once their crises happens, you feel for them, you know them, you don't want whatever is happening them to happen to them. Attached, clearly, I am to these characters.
As for what it has done for literature and why it's considered a classic: I don't have a straight answer. I know that this book received very polarized reviews when it first came out -- the New York Times said it sounded like it was shouted onto the page rather than written. I gave it to my dad, who was a navigator and flew in the USAF back in the day, so I figured he'd like it, and I think he did... for the most part. I think there are some things that bothered him, perhaps the rebellious nature of Yossarian, or the complexity of the arrangement of the plot, but in the end he said it was okay. But one of my English teachers (the one who assigned 32 books last semester) said it is one of her all time favorite books and she reads it every year "just to keep sane." Ironic, since the book heavily deals with insanity, and there is a point in which every reader, I believe, feels insane amidst its pages.
Regardless of the critic's thoughts or reviews or what people think about it, I do believe it, like 1984, brings up good discussions about our society, authority, our military, and what it means to have an assigned role, be it in a squadron in the military or in society in general. It may be uncomfortable for some because it pushes the boundaries of normal thought; it's an iconoclast that, in 1955, I don't think the casual reader was ready for it.
Will we ever have another Catch-22? Who knows, but I'm glad we at least have one.
