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Catch-22 (Vintage Classics)

Author: Joseph Heller
Publisher: Vintage
Category: Book

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Rating: 4.5 out of 5 stars

19 reviews
Sales Rank: 27452

Media: Paperback
Edition: New Ed
Pages: 544
Shipping Weight (lbs): 0.8
Dimensions (in): 7.6 x 5.1 x 1.3

ISBN: 0099470462
EAN: 9780099470465
ASIN: 0099470462

Publication Date: February 7, 2004
Availability: Usually dispatched within 1-2 business days
Condition: unwanted gift, never read it, has just been sitting on my shelf

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Customer Reviews: Read 14 more reviews...

5 out of 5 stars

A classic Great American novel that's worth reading for pleasure January 4, 2008
0 out of 2 found this review helpful

This is a book with a massive contradiction. Any book with a heavy weight reputation is/should be dull, ponderous, difficult and unreadable by anyone without the word Professor in front of their name.

Instead Catch-22 is a stupid, silly, almost without pretension novel with a lot of substance beneath the gags. It took me 100 pages to get into it. I eventually realised that it's a silly romp with lots of second rate jokes and mediocre wordplay. It's the sort of book were characters get tripped up in the complexities of their own words, and everyone gets lost in their own conversations as they insist on ploughing on no matter how confused things get. After the penny dropped it became an enjoyable read.

It's not a totally easy read as I did find chunks of it to be confusing (the brothel visit in Italy when they talk to an old man with loyalty issues feels like it's from a different book), but it's well worth plodding through the dull bits. I'm not even convinced the book's that well written. It's an episodic book that feels almost like a season of sitcom episodes.

There are lots of great incidents like the soldier who at last fitted in socially for the first time in his life, who is then suddenly promoted, losing all his friends within a second. Eventually he becomes a recluse who hides from everyone, even getting between his office and living quarters in secret.

My favourite part is the embarrassingly failed bomb run. They cover it up by making it look like a triumph. They celebrate it as loudly as possible and give a meddle to the man who got someone killed due to his cowardice. What a way to cover up a disaster! Probably explains how Fame Academy, or any dreadful sitcoms, get a second series?

The film version is dreadful and is not representative of the content, or humour of the book. They removed all the details and left just the basic story behind. The good stuff is in the details and the tangents, like Douglas Adams' Hitchhikers Guide To The Galaxy.

It's a book that's well worth reading. It might not be the funniest book ever written, but it's probably the funniest book ever written with a heavyweight literary reputation. How many jokes does Moby Dick have?

3 out of 5 stars

not among my favorite novels December 2, 2007
0 out of 3 found this review helpful

I never really got into this book, and I'm not quite sure what all the fuss is about. It's at least semi-creative, and it is well written, but I didn't find it all that funny. And humor is supposedly the main selling point here. I didn't find Yossarian that memorable, or particularly likeable for that matter. Author of Adjust Your Brain: A Practical Theory for Maximizing Mental Health.

5 out of 5 stars

One of the best 20th century novels about the absurdity of war July 29, 2007
5 out of 6 found this review helpful

This used to be required reading when I was at school: it wasn't on the syllabus but it was a 'mind-broadener'.

It is incredibly dense and the cast of characters is unwieldly until you settle into Heller's rhythm. At that point, when you're settled, you realise just what a joy the book is and what a superb study of greed, corruption, madness, sanity, vanity, selfishness and humour. Most of all humour, set against the backdrop of a horrible war that always seems to be taking place somewhere else.

Only by retaining his sense of humour does Yossarian, the protagonist, survive the bumbling inefficiencies of his own side and the stubbornness of the enemy.

What war it is, what century it is, what nation it is are almost irrelevant because Heller drills down fast into what makes human beings tick, especially when put into impossible and absurd situations.

If you haven't read this, do yourself a favour and give it a whirl. It is not an easy read, as other reviewers have commented, but it is an immensely rewarding one. It'll have you going all summer long (that is, if we have one - UK readers will understand).

5 out of 5 stars

Both funny and sad June 1, 2007
1 out of 2 found this review helpful

This is one of the funniest books I have ever read (I literally laughed out loud at a few points), but it is also one of the saddest. Humour has a strange way of being able to make very serious points, and Heller's ability to show the absurdity that is war through the eyes of the everyman Yossarian is brilliant. The BBC comedy "Blackadder Goes Forth" certainly owes a lot to it.

If you aren't rolling on the floor with tears in your eyes over the brief T.S. Elliot phone conversation, I'm afraid you have no sense of humour.

5 out of 5 stars

A tough read at times, but ultimately rewarding October 11, 2006
5 out of 6 found this review helpful

"One of the books you have to read" - when I was an English A-Level student, I had tutors telling me this was one of the best books to read in the run up to an interview at Oxford. I didn't, and I failed the interview. So maybe there's some wisdom in there somewhere.

Years later, I decided to have a crack at this. I faltered, and gave up. Finally, this year, I managed to read the whole thing. And was duly rewarded. The book itself is written in a series of contradictory statements - adding to the difficulty of finding a flow to the story - but soon you adjust to this (a friend of mine, during my years of Catch 22 purgatory advised that after the first 60 pages, you suddenly find yourself wondering why everyone doesn't write like this), and you can start to enjoy the absurd, comical and sometimes tragic tale of John Yossarian and his band of quirky crew-mates, commanding officers, nurses and prostitutes.

The book is an indictment of the absurdity of management/authority and the dangerous line we walk if we trust those charged with protecting us to act in our best interests. (See the opportunist mess-hall officer who ends up funding German raids on Allied outposts, while also funding the Allied outpost against an impending German attack, and somehow getting lumbered with an entire Egyptian cotton harvest that he just can't sell in the process.)

It's a delightful read, despite the first impressions it can sometimes cast. However, my one gripe with the particular edition I read (Vintage Paperbacks take note please!) is that the typeface used is very difficult to read for long periods. (There are those of you out there who are now rolling their eyes at my pickiness, but I'm not the only one who's commented on this...). I must admit, I am unfamiliar with this later reprint, and can hope this has been addressed.

But back to the story itself...

Read this book. Stick with it. Be rewarded. (even if you do develop a twitch)

You'll believe you can eat cotton!