Joseph Heller

Book : Catch-22
Author : Joseph Heller
Rating : 5/5

There is a place in a world where irony meets comedy, courts it, marries it and from this marriage reality is born. This world is called Joseph Heller's "Catch-22" - Simon Cleveland

Sad, depressing, anti-war, crazy, unapologetic and funny as hell ! The book boasts of one of the greatest ever collection of fictional characters : Colenel Catchcart, General Dreedle, Dunbar, Nately, Nately's whore, Nately's whore's kid sister, Chaplain, Major Major Major Major, Milo Minderbinder, Orr, Ex-P.F.C Wintergreen, Doc Daneeka and last but not the least Yossarian.
"What kind of name is Yossarian?" you wonder.
Well, quoting the book : "It's Yossarian's name sir."

But the most remarkable feature of this book for me was the convoluted plot and dialogue. A tool that Heller uses for most of the humor in the story and a tool which makes it nearly impossible for the reader to keep track of the timeline of the events. The book is basically a satirical look at the madness of war, a look at how sometime selfish motives of some insane men lead us to those insanely deadly yet avoidable tragic situations and a look at the underlying principle of the book : Man is Matter. It follows Yossarian, a B-25 bombardier, and his misguided attempts to break free from crazy bureaucratic laws binding him to the war and return alive to his home. His only aim in life is to survive, his enemy is everyone who wants to get him killed regardless of what nationality.
Quoting the book again : "He had decided to live forever or die in the attempt." because "It doesn't make a damned bit of difference who wins the war to someone who's dead."

Finally Catch-22, a term coined by Heller through this novel, is a situation where you lose regardless of your choice, most of the times because of a catch in the law. Picture this :
"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," Yossarian observed.
"It's the best there is," Doc Daneeka agreed."