(Original Review, 1981-02-20)



The most memorable part for me is Milo sitting in a tree. He passes Yossarian something and encourages him to taste it - it is disgusting. What is it? Chocolate covered cotton. He's bought up the entire Egyptian cotton crop and can't find a way to sell it on. Every time I come across some disgusting processed food in the supermarket I think of that scene.

 

 

 

If you're into stuff like this, you can read the full review.

For a lot of this book, it's just ridiculous. I mean the men don't want to be in war. They try to come up with every way possible to get out. The weird rules always block them. It's crazy and humorous, but then at the same time, people are dying. I guess war really does feel this way when you're in it.

Classic satirical take on the futility of war and the chasm between the accompanying rhetoric and the reality of conflict. Wonderfully witty and thought-provoking, Heller serves up one of the top 100 novels of modern literature, a 'must read' book, which has the quality to remain significant over time, if not to be viewed as quite profound.

I started skimming this for 30 minutes, just as I was leaving a library in Croatia. Other reviews tell me there's a good deal of (warranted?) character assasination in the book, but hovering around the beginning of the book, I somehow snatched the meat. Heller was an advertising exec who'd grown up visiting the Jewish vaudeville centers in the Poconos. That helped explain his amazing ear for words and his ability to make the ridiculous sublime.

But truth be told, it appears to have been his editor working with him over the manuscript, rewriting it again and again, which helped tone down the humor and turned it into a "serious" book.

Strange to say, although not apparently mentioned in this book, the same editor rejected rewrites of "Confederacy of Dunces" numerous times for being too funny or pointless, which is said to have lead to O'Toole's fatal depression. Catch-22 is the better book, but I can's see why being incredibly funny is any kind of demerit.

This is one of those books I was forced to read in High School. They were in such a rush to move on to the next book I don't remember reading more than a chapter or two. So here I am checking it out years later. I can't believe how wonderful, funny, sad and relatable Catch 22 is! Yossarian may be the character the plot evolves around but that amazing cast of whack-jobs characters surrounding him are priceless.  Colonel Korn, Colonel Cathcart and every other commanding officer are delusional. Chapter 8 was so funny and perverse I snorted in public...repeatedly! The Chaplian & Major Major made me so sad. Orr was wonderful and oh I could go on. This is what they mean when they call a book a Classic!