Catch 22 by Joseph Heller REVIEW
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- čas přidán 30. 06. 2018
- Yossarian lives.
The article about Pynchon, with a reference to Heller and Catch-22 toward the end.
www.lrb.co.uk/v31/n24/bill-pe...
Buy Catch-22 on The Book Depository (yep I'm an affiliate):
www.bookdepository.com/book/97...
Also buy Alan Gibbs' excellent Contemporary American Trauma Narratives; if you are a scholar or college student, chances are you can find it at your institution's library.
www.bookdepository.com/book/97...
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Finally, a review of a book I've read LOL.
It took me 3 attempts to get through the first 60 pages. Once I got past that hurdle I could not put the book down and re-read it immediately afterwards. Heller is one of my mentors as a writer.
I read the first like 30 pages and thought it was good, but put it away. Then I finally got to it because a friend said it was his favorite book. I had the same experience you had of that first bit being pretty meh, and then around page 100 (I believe whenever major major major major’s story is) I had the same experience of not being able to put it down. Certainly the funniest and one of the saddest books I’ve ever read. The only book that’s made me both literally laugh and cry.
@@nickcalabrese4829 I literally just dropped a lit cigar out of my teeth reading your response to my response of a response to the book that both of us somehow casually experienced.. fuck I hope my house doesn't burn down.. It wasn't mine anyway
Mann your review was so on point! Thank you so much for this! The book was truly hilarious and thought-provoking at the same time
Love it when you review darker 20th-century stuff, Bookchemist. Crossing my fingers for more.
One of the few truly laugh out loud novels for me
I see everything twice!
I see everything once!
I also found it hard to get started with this book. I read maybe 50 pages and let it sit for a couple years. Then when I went back to it, I also found it to be just stunning. It became more and more funny, but also more and more moving and was really surprised how much I came to care about the characters.
I never read Catch 22 and I just turned 50 years old. I am going to start this book today!! Thanks for the review!!
Love your channel man, been watching for years and never have commented. Great stuff.
Catch-22 has been on my shelf for years, but I only got round to starting it a few days ago. I’m going to reserve judgment until the end, but I am enjoying the absurd nature of it.
Did you ever finish it?
💚 thanks 22 billion times Joseph 💚
An academic book recommendation \😃/ Because we love insights.
Great review!!! AMAZING ANALYSIS!!!
I’m so glad I took the time out of my day to watch this video. You truly explained the book so well, and I felt I could relate to what you were saying most of the time. I got so attached to all of the characters, and I love reading about their lives and experiencing everything and I’m reading. I just finished reading the book for the second time last night, and I’m already planning on reading it again later this year or next year. Definitely my favorite book!
I've been recently told great things about Something Happened, Heller's second novel, and now I kind of want to read that one too!
@@TheBookchemist Good luck with _Something_ _Happened_ mate. I never managed to get through it.
And it wasn't because I'm not a Heller fan. I consider _Catch-22_ the greatest novel ever written, maybe, even though (like everyone else) it took me two or three tries to get past the first hundred pages.
(But then one day I suddenly "got it" - just clicked onto Heller's weird wavelength, and only then did I understand what Heller was trying to do, and only then did I realize just how truly, profoundly great _Catch-22_ is.)
And yet, with all that under my belt, aware of the potential pitfalls ahead, my loins girded, etc. . . . I still could not get more than about halfway through _Something_ _Happened._ Heller does a number of odd things in that book. (For example, he employs nested parentheses in a manner that I would describe as psychotic.) But that's not really the issue; it's just written in a deliberately boring manner. It was like a cereal that _only_ contained bran - no sugar, nothing else, just bran all the way down. I just could not digest it.
Hilarious and depressing at the same time. A stunning novel.
Such a fantastic and nuanced review! I love Catch-22 so much, but I totally appreciate the criticisms you have and see how the repetition or lack of direction at certain parts of the novel can be off-putting for some readers. You articulated the spirit of the novel perfectly when you talked about the absurdity - maybe with a capital 'A'? - of the lives of the characters. Even though I guess one can class the novel as 'black comedy', but as you say the themes and depictions of trauma in the novel are not for the faint-hearted.
Glad you enjoyed the review! Also - maybe I couldn't convey it well enough in the video, but I too loved it to bits and even though I only finished it last week my heart breaks a little when I think back to it!
Good review mate, going to read catch 22 soon!
Just read Catch-22 for the first time this past November. Great book and great review!
you're slowly but surely working your way through my favorite books list! Catch 22 is either my second or third favorite.
What's first/second :)?
actually, it's a tie for first between Mary Shelley's Frankenstein and Edwin Abbott's Flatland. it'd be awesome if you did reviews for either one of those! :) if you've never read Flatland, you should. it is one of those rare books that succeeds on numerous levels, from mathematical, to psychological, to philosophical, to social commentary. that's why it and Frankenstein tie for first, because they both work on so many levels!
Very interesting! I loved Flatland but I confess I wasn't that big a fan of Frankenstein - high time I re-read it though!
I can totally understand why some people might not like Frankenstein, I mean it is pretty much the quintessential example of the Romantic period, and as such it can get pretty, well, flowery, I guess, in terms of the writing. I like it though because, with our advances in science and technology, its message has actually become more relevant than when it was written!
“That crazy bastard maybe the only sane one left.”
I've read this book at least 3 times. I've learned not to read it in public because I usually laugh out loud and attract wary glances. I recommended it to my brother, who trusts my judgement, but apparently he couldn't see the point of it. Takes all kinds, I guess.
I read Catch 22 when I was still in my 20s (quite some time ago!) , and I had no difficulties at all, but maybe that was down to my weird sense of humour. What strikes me, though from your review, are the thematic similarities between Catch 22 and Heller's Something Happened, a book of long gestation which I read recently. It dealt with American corporate life in the same way that 22 dealt with military life, it also had a great ant-hero in Bob Slocum, it has a recurring structure, it's humour is bleak but horribly funny, and the something that happened is also a traumatic event, although not revealed until at the end of the novel. It makes a very interesting contrast and compare.
Sure, they look like they're ripe for a comparative study (unless someone already wrote it, which sounds likely)! Thanks for the comment - in particular because I've never heard anything about Heller's other novels and I was wondering where to go next.
After your comment, I did an investigation, and Heller himself is in conversation, discussing both Catch 22 and Something Happened, and the interviewer is comparing and contrasting. It's on YT and the title is Joseph Heller & Stephen Banker, ca 1975, and it is really worthwhile.
This is on my TBR but I've been putting it off for a while!
read it!
Great review thank you. I read it 20 years ago - really loved it and can still recall a few of the scenes and characters. And I agree that it seems to be less read nowadays. It is the only Heller I've read so should I try others? I always liked the anecdote that someone once asked Heller why he had never written another book as good as Catch 22 - apparently his reply was "Who could?"!
I like the anecdote too!
A very good review but I don’t think you understand the circular nature of Catch-22 that made it so difficult for Heller to write. The humor in the book is based largely on absurdity and logical irrationality that are created by the characters using circular reading logical fallacies to explain their behavior. So Heller tells the story out of time sequence and in a circular pattern to emphasize the circular reasoning of the characters. That fact that he not only pulled this off with substantial literary skill but did so with like 20 characters all of whom are completely developed characters. Most writers have one or two fully flushed out central characters with all the other characters being one dimensional cliches. In Catch-22 you understand Yossarian as a character but also McWatt, Dunbar, Clevinger, the Texan, Milo, Nately, Arfy, Col. Cathcart, Major Major, Nurse Duckett, Scheiskopf and the Chaplain, etc,. Even the soldier in white is literally completely flushed out.
Loved the movie. Must check out the book.
Very hard read. You are right about the repeating themes...
What? Painful? Long? Look, I was 14 and we'd just moved out of a housing project when I started this book. I was in a funky Southern mill town in 1971. I was a comic book fan and a movie fan. Especially The Marx Bros. Word play used to attack the rich and powerful (As Groucho used it) was my thing. The Marx Bros served it up nonstop.
And so does Catch-22, which I started reading summer 71 because it was promoted as being hilarious and racy, the qualities I most admired in everything from movies to females.
The first page had me giggling. I zoomed through the book in 3 days and reread it immediately. I didn't care if the story started a flash back in mid-sentence, then leaped ahead, then back again for four time shifts in one paragraph. I was there for it, and I let it take me where it wanted to go. Heller was such a decent guy, I trusted him to keep Yossarian safe for me.
Some bits are so obvious I was surprised I'd never seen them in a movie or on a tv show: the whole 'read me back the last line' courtroom scene was astonishingly funny, doubly so when you realize no one had ever tried it before or since. It's better than Who's On First or the 'bet all our dough on Hur. Who? Hur. Her? They don't have female charioteers! I know. That's why I want you to bet on Hur. I got an inside tip. Okay, so what's her name? I told you. Bet it all on Hur. I know, but I need the name of the driver. Hur. Yes, her. I need her name...
Read Me Back The Last Line is gold. And that scene isn't repeated. And it wasn't in the 73 movie or recent miniseries. And not even Groucho thought of it.
After 2 or 3 years of reading it all summer every summer, I was finally lured in to literature. By that I mean Fitzgerald and Faulkner. Then Philip Roth, Bellow, Peter Decries, Perelman, Stanley Elkins, some Hemingway. I read Stephen King for fun.
It astonishes me to hear Catch-22 described as LONG. Would you call Raquel Welch or Kate Upton fat? Would you say that half the songs on SGT. PEPPER are snoozefests that should never have seen daylight? Would you call Tupac or Cobain notalent bums who never would have known success if they hadnt died? Personally I blame Star Wars for ruining the attention span of the under 20 (in 1977) of America's youth. If something doesn't grab you in 2 minutes, on to the next song or movie. And how can a.movie be a thriller without tons of gore?
That's why hearing a Stephen King book called long kills me. It's a comic book!! Written down and without pics, in 12 pt. type and double spaced. Maybe people just listen to books now because they're 'so busy' getting high and watching TV and trolling the internet to help Trump. I worry about. the dumbing down of America. People calling Catch-22 long should stick to listening to CZcams edits of movies and songs.
And Peter Decries should be Peter De Vries. My phone tries to help me spell.names the way it wants them spelled. I think there are 4 or 5 Great American novels. Huckleberry Finn, Great Gatsby, Absalom!Absalom! , and Catch-22..All feature American Icons: Finn, Yossarian, Gatsby, and Thomas Sutpen. Maybe The Talented Mr. Ripley belongs there, too. He's awfully American. Maybe iconically so. He might be #5. And it's time Highsmith got her due.
Read Heller's Now and Then, a semi autobiography. He reveals himself to be a sweet, decent guy, almost naive, and determined to see the good in everyone and everything. But as he told Dick Cavett in 1972, "if America was still at war with Germany, I'd still be happily dropping bombs on them. There are some fights you shouldn't run from. WW2 in both Europe and the Pacific was one I'd fight forever if we had to.
"What's your view on Hiroshima and Nagasaki?"
"Okay by me. Throw Berlin in there if the Nazis hadn't surrendered. Maybe Moscow if we'd known then that Stalin killed as many of his own people as Hitler."
"Really? Youd've gone after the Soviets, too.?"
"As long as we had the bomb and they didn't. I talked once on a panel with Ski York. He was one of the Dolittle Raiders. He had to ditch just inside of Russia. He and his crew were interred there for the rest of the war. He grew to hate the Russians almost as much as he hated the Japanese. He wasn't mistreated but he wasn't free. And he saw a lot."
So Heller wasn't blind. But neither was he a warmonger. And Catch-22 wasn't antiwar. It was about the1950s McCarthy America. He used the backdrop of his war experience to make the stakes higher and give it more action.
You might find this interesting. It's Heller's outline for Catch-22. www.openculture.com/2018/06/joseph-hellers-handwritten-outline-catch-22-one-great-novels-20th-century.html (follow the link at the bottom of the page for a legible version)
This is amazing! Thanks!!
I found it a very difficult read -- good, but difficult. I couldn't follow the story, found it tedious at times, and the humour felt too understated for me. I do feel like I need to give it another go, though, now that I'm a little more used to surreal stuff. Also, when recommending it to people, I never know whether to mention its disturbing side. I'm normally not one to care much about "spoilers", but I felt like when this book became darker, it was quite the sucker punch, and that's what I remember it for more than the humour and satire.
I see what you mean and I absolutely agree with you about its disturbing nature; I would not necessarily be too catious when recommending it to people, but that's only because the disturbing part, while shocking, is quite limited in terms of number of pages.
I also relate to what you say about its humor; I feel it's very much of its time and may not be as effective today as it was on publication. I recently re-watched Kubrick's Dr. Strangelove, another comic/disturbing work making fun of the military, and there too I could recognize the humor but wasn't exceedingly moved by it.
Yes, I definitely felt that way about Dr Strangelove as well!
you have to read it like a comic strip. Piece by piece, it was a series of stories written by several people from several points of views.
Well thanks for spoiling me!
Just remember that the repetitive nature of this story serves a purpose. Heller does this to emphasize the circular reasoning of the characters thinking and that a Catch-22 is a product of circular reasoning. Each time he circles back to a central event he provides more detail and less humor until he uncovers the brutality and horrors of war which isn’t funny at all. It was brilliantly done.
Just started this novel after finishing Ice by Kavan.
Your review is great. The novel is extremely sad, so your tone worked well. I struggled immensely, mainly because you can read 50 pages and “get it” so why keep reading... as the novel progresses, it begins to be more and more about the story of Yossarian, and that’s what kept me going. His trauma compelled me to keep reading. The woman character who concludes the novel was also super compelling. That, to me, was the most enigmatic part of the novel. The ending was perfect and one of the most perfect endings I’ve ever experienced in literature, but if you asked me to put it into words and say what it meant, I really couldn’t. It was a feeling at the end. How did the end make you feel? Can you break it down for me?
I agree that it's one of the most powerful endings I've ever read, and I'd need more time to articulate why it's so great (I've finished the novel too recently), but off the top of my head I'd say it's great because, among other things, it gives the plot a brilliant conclusion - the type of closed/open conclusion that's possibly the very best way of ending a story: you know what Yossarian would do, and the same time you don't quite: it almost invites you to finish writing the story yourself, even just in your head. It points at an escape from Catch-22 and from all of its absurdities, but it's a narrow one, almost nonsensical, definitely crazy: it offers a solution to the main character's dilemma without making it too simplistic, too optimistic, too straightforward or political. It is definitely an uplifting ending, with characters finding their balance again - which is especially rewarding after the very bleak, depressing chapters toward the end of the novel. And in the very final paragraph you get that woman trying to kill Yossarian again - the novel basically ends with one of its recurring jokes, which is both hilarious and sad at the same time (if you think of the joke's background and the woman's trauma). And there's a specific poignancy in endings where characters run away (Against the Day, Kavalier & Clay, I Malavoglia/The House by the Medlar Tree) that is sad yet uplifting and reveals something "happily ever after/everyone's dead" types of endings try to hide: the open-ended nature of all stories and literature. Does it make sense?
The_Bookchemist thank you so much for that insightful reply. I like the way you worded it-closed/open ending. That’s exactly how it felt and I couldn’t quite find the wording. Kind of opposite of a Hemingway ending where it’s just open and you feel no sense of resolution. It felt like a very clean ending, but that he is running away (AGAIN) does add to the absurdity (he will never escape, right?) and it is just so sad because of her trauma (thanks again for pointing to this very important theme). Sincerely appreciate your reply. I look forward to watching more of your reviews. Seems like we have similar taste. I spy House of Leaves behind you.
Really tried to like this book. So repetitive and occasionally funny.
Put it down and never finished. Good review man
Off topic. Motherlesss Brooklyn reminds me of Yiddish policemens union - The grittiness. Do you think Chabon influenced Lethem? Im not sure of the time specifics (Who wrote what first) but there is something familiar. I love catch 22 Heller used universal themes in comedic and also thoughtful ways. Vonnegut did it great too. Probably not easy to do when writing about war. Especially as a Veteran.
First things first, Motherless Brooklyn came much earlier - 1999 versus 2007 for Yiddish. Also, Lethem addressed precisely your question in "Against Pop Culture," an essay collected in The Ecstasy of Influence, where he says that he and Chabon are not influences on each other; rather, that they both share a passion for certain authors (most notably hard-boiled detective classics) that influenced them both. More recently too, in an interview published in an Italian website, Lethem underplayed the similarieites between their fiction, saying that they're friends rather than anything else.
As someone who studies both of them and love their fiction to bits, I definitely see the similarities you mention but too believe they stem from a shared love rather than from influencing each other. Also, I get the feeling (entirely personal, mind) that Lethem may be slightly annoyed with being constantly compared to Chabon, as he all too often is, not always in ways that highlight their differences carefully enough.
I didnt realize there was such a gap between the publications. I should have looked. But its good to know thats what the thinking is. I understand the logic. Motherless Brooklyn is the only lethem that ive read. And. I wasnt criticizing lethem, i loved it. I understand the idea that they share the same passions for certain Writers. I feel that passion for them as writer! When i read a writer for a long period i tend to imitate their writing too. Purposely or not sometimes. Not comparing myself to these writers, i just get it. I was merely making an observation and wanted to get the Bookchemists thoughts on it. Thanks for the clarity. I want to read that book by lethem. I bet its real interesting for someone who loves writers and books. Thanks again man!
I love "Catch 22", but what about the first two paragraphs of Chapter 27 ("Nurse Duckett")?
--
i am 200 pages in, the first hundred pages were hilarious for me, after it bored me a little because the jokes become predictable but it is still unique and amazing specially the prose. what attracts me is idea that whole army and war is a bad joke
Where are the Snowdens of yesteryear?
I tried to read Catch 22 twice and never made it past page 25. Each page is a bite of a meal that I don't care to eat. I owned Infinite Jest three times and never made it past page 188. Orwell is my kind of fiction or Erskine Caldwell or A Confederacy of Dunces & The Wanderer by Fritz Leiber
Have you read Barth's The Floating Opera?
No! The only Barth I've read so far is Lost in the Funhouse. I'm positive I'd love his fiction, but at the same time I'm afraid I might find it too difficult - I've heard from so many people disparaging him.
I would definitely recommend The Floating Opera. It was a breeze. I was really surprised at how much I enjoyed it. I think some of his later work gets more difficult but Opera is his first novel and its only potential difficulty is the digressive nature of the narrative, but you're used to that kind of thing. Barth is definitely a unique voice in postmodern literature. Anyway, I'm reading Against the Day right now, based partially on your glowing review of it. It's wonderful. Especially enjoying Kit's adventures in Belgium.
Is Belgium where he gets into that mayonneise factory? I love that passage so much! (if it's not there, it's still a great passage ^^) glad you're enjoying it :)
Great review, as always. This one's been sitting on my stack for a while; perhaps it's time to knock it out now. On another note, I'm about halfway through a short novel called The Dead Father by Donald Barthelme. It's absolutely strange...and I'd love to hear what you'd have to say about it. For a small slice of Barthelme, check out this very short story by him, titled "The School": www.npr.org/programs/death/readings/stories/bart.html
Thanks man! Not only I'm really interested in Barthelme - I'm a bit ashamed I've never read anything of his... he's very much in my research area and I should definitely know him much better! I've always though I'd start with Snow White but I could go with The Dead Father either ;)
That'd be cool to hear your thoughts! Hope you can check out that short story, "The School," too. :)
Im still trying to decide on whether or not the handful of gut busting comedy passages were worth the tedious length, the uninteresting subplots like Milo’s or the Washington Irving bits
Well it's a catch 22 whether I liked it or not.
Lenny Bruce and James Joyce are glaring.
You never did a review on Lovecraft. Maybe an in-depth review of a tale or some tales which have something in common
Or just an unedited video of me obsessing in full fanboy mode over how mind-blowing the last paragraph of the Silver Key is :D seriously though, I'd love to film something like you suggest, why not :)
The_Bookchemist I just had an idea! Why not do both \😃/
Who is spain
You have flies in your eyes.
You've got peanut brittle crumbs on your face
this thread makes me happy
@@TheBookchemist I'd rather have peanut brittle crumbs on my face than flies in my eyes!
And apples in your cheeks.
I just watched the mini series and was surprised how unfunny it was.
Dude, i lmao, i liked
Hated this book. Yup. Thought it could have been cut in half, so damn repetitive.