CATCH 22

CATCH 22
JOSEPH HELLER
GENRE : SATIRE, DARK COMEDY, WAR NOVEL, ABSURDIST FICTION
FIRST PUBLISHED : 1961

""You mean there's a catch?"

"Sure there's a catch," Doc Daneeka replied. "Catch-22. Anyone who wants to get out of combat duty isn't really crazy."

There was only one catch and that was Catch-22, which specified that a concern for one's own safety in the face of dangers that were real and immediate was the process of a rational mind."

Reading Catch 22 wasn't for me. It was a kind of book I had never expected it to be, with an altogether different writing style which I had never experienced before. So, I will be honest; it took me much more time than I had initially thought I would take to complete this novel. A novel full of satire and dark humour was definitely what I had signed up for when I started reading this, but I had no clue how very intelligent and mad this novel was going to be. Catch 22 is a slow paced book. So if you don't have that patience to stick with a book for some time, this is definitely not the book for you. But if you struggle a bit initially, trust me you wouldn't find anything more rewarding than what the author has to give you by the end of the book. 

One issue which complicates the book is that it never explicitely mentions the order of the events. The author assumes the readers 'already know' about the events taking place. This order, is finally understood by the reader at the end of the novel. Heller makes it a point not to spoonfeed the readers in this. Though there is this non-chronological structure of this novel, I would like to mention Heller's Catch 22 is highly structured. It follows a particular pattern. It follows a structure of 'free association'; ideas run into one another through seemingly random connections. For example, a chapter ends with a particular topic; and sure enough the next chapter begins with that same topic. The transition is smooth. 

The plotline is pretty simple. It is the closing months of WW2 and American bomber Yossarian has never been closer to death. But the enemy is not the problem. Yossarian is convinced his own people are trying to kill him by keeping him constantly airborne. He wishes to esape this but the question is, can he?-considering the maddening 'Catch 22' that allows absolutely no possibility of escape. What makes Catch 22 a lot more fun and intelligent is the concept of the benign paradoxes, anti-capitalist theories and theodicy. Its characters are everything but sane, all in the US Army with their eccentricities and craziness and the bizarre policies they make in order to survive. A small instance of theodicy in the novel is:

“And don’t tell me God works in mysterious ways” Yossarian continued, hurtling over her objections.“There’s nothing so mysterious about it. He’s not working at all. He’s playing or else He’s forgotten all about us. That’s the kind of God you people talk about—a country bumpkin, a clumsy, bungling, brainless, conceited, uncouth hayseed. Good God, how much reverence can you have for a Supreme Being who finds it necessary to include such phenomena as phlegm and tooth decay in His divine system of creation? What in the world was running through that warped, evil, scatological mind of His when He robbed old people of the power to control their bowel movements? Why in the world did he ever create pain?… Oh, He was really being charitable to us when He gave us pain! [to warn us of danger] Why couldn’t He have used a doorbell instead to notify us, or one of His celestial choirs? Or a system of blue-and-red neon tubes right in the middle of each person’s forehead. Any jukebox manufacturer worth his salt could have done that. Why couldn’t He?… What a colossal, immortal blunderer! When you consider the opportunity and power He had to really do a job, and then look at the stupid, ugly little mess he made of it instead, His sheer incompetence is almost staggering.…”

The development of the novel can be split into few segments. The first broadly follows the story fragmented between characters, but in a single chronological time in 1944. The second flashes back to focus primarily on the "Great Big Siege of Bologna" before again jumping to the chronological present of 1944 in the third part. The fourth shows the growth of Milo's syndicate, with the fifth part returning again to the narrative at present. The sixth and final part remains in the story's present, but takes a much darker turn and showcases the serious and brutal nature of war and life. This final part is my personal favourite and I would talk about it later. Nevertheless, the novel ends on an upbeat note with Yossarian learning of Orr's miraculous escape to Sweden and Yossarian's pledge to follow him there.

Previously the reader had been cushioned from experiencing the full horror of events due to this eccentric characteristics of the characters and their madness, but in the final section, the gothic events are laid bare. The horror begins with the attack on the mountain village, with the following chapters involving disappearance in combat and some caused by the army,  death of most of Yossarian's friends, culminating in the horrors of  the rape and murder of the innocent young woman, Michaela. In Chapter 41 the full details of the gruesome death of Snowden are finally revealed where the insides of his gut falls into Yossarian's hands. This visibly affected Yossarian to a great extent, he not being able to save a friend who died such a horrifying death in front of his eyes due to the meaningless wars.  The incident takes place early on in the chronology and may well be what triggered the overt symptoms of rebellion we see in Yossarian throughout.

"It doesn't make a damned bit of difference who wins the war to someone who's dead.”

"Man was matter, that was Snowden’s secret...The spirit gone, man is garbage. That was Snowden’s secret." 

Catch-22 turns its back on conventional notions of heroism in order to place war in a much broader, psychological, sociological, and economic context. Hilariously funny, the novel’s insights are also deadly serious. One of the striking points in the novel is there is no 'hero' in the book. As Heller has portrayed it, there were no heroes in the war; there were only victims of a racket run by idiots, hustlers and thieves. It is much more than just a anti-war novel. In short, Catch 22 is a critique of the society that we live in. It is one of the novel’s amazing achievements that it may be the darkest, most profoundly negative vision of existence in modern fiction, yet it leaves you with a feeling of mad love for its crazy beauty. 

P. S. The paragraph on the plot line in this review was taken from Wikipedia (with mild changes) to make it more concise and crisp. 

Joseph Heller