Caught-22

I finished Catch-22 last night, and I say it was a wonderful book. I'll restate my earlier comment that it read a lot like Alice's Adventures in Wonderland, and say that 42 chapters isn't a long read at all. There's just a lack of perseverance.

What I thought might happen didn't come true, although I was partly right. It got incredibly hilarious right where it also got incredibly sad and began it's own downpour. But within the space of a sentence you could be handed a very solemn, deep confirmation of the sad, unlucky parts of all of human existence, anger, heated rage, and then but brought into full blasts of sunshine with the unexpected, comedic, humour. I guess humour CAN'T not be comedic, but there's good jokes and great jokes. These jokes are slapstick (some of them) stick on a page in a book, but you can see the action perfectly. It's like an old writing trick: never tell the reader what X, Y or Z look like. You can give vague descriptions, and their meager knowledge of "weird thing in book", plus their imagination, will have to work together to draw up something far worse than you can describe. By simplifying the 'action' of the slapstick, the reader is free to draw the funniest picture they know, and Nately and co are hilarious.

I'd suggest the book to everyone, and suggest they keep it by their bed at night. Get them to dedicate reading the whole thing, because it's seldom the same old stuff. Some books are very samey, but this is on the list for being so original and for such a length!

Themes aside, what happens to Yossarian!?
+What? I'm not telling you that, READ THE BOOK!

But it's about boring army stuff?
+There's hardly any army in it. No guns, going over the wall into no mans land. Most people compare it instantly to MASH, and imagine the MASH theme is running through their head while they read.

What is the actual Catch-22 within the story world?
+Go read the book! If I told you, they'd shoot me, Catch-22 is approximately X.

While it'll take some time to gather everything that happened in the book into a real space within my head, I do feel like it's a real show being put on for the reader. Moments of humour and seriousness but otherwise, just funny characters being bastards.

Thematically Milo is most assuredly the devil, while the chaplain represents intelligence with emotion/religion, while Yossarian represents just intelligence, no devote religion, but intelligence enough to appreciate the other. He never says so directly, but the chaplain is one of his better friends, when all your friends are chumps.

The war begins to represent a business opportunity as far as the generals and such are concerned, where there is a strict line drawn between the men who're getting shot at, and being used to win the war, and men behind the danger line, thinking about how to better their position, and if men die they'll just have to send more out.

Women are treated in a very light, pleasant way, meaning that's how most of them respond to the soldiers on their time off in Italy. There's plenty of disrepute occurring, but also a hallowed reverence for anyone attractive enough to keep all the boys tongues wagging but never giving herself to any of them. Almost as if to say that giving them someone to dream about is a valued and true service, slightly edging out in front of the girls who do let them shake hands.

I'd definitely read it again, but not within a year. I actually feel like some more Clockwork Orange right now, seeing how much I enjoy reading with a totally new language. I imagine I've written about Clockwork Orange, it was one of the 9 original books I'd read, but it's another I've returned to multiple times. The movie ended vastly different, thanks to leaving out the lastest chapter of the book

Next from the list though? Probably "Beloved". I also have TWO copies of Ragtime, because it's getting to the point where I have plenty of books, and rebuys are going to occur.

Thanks!
FM.