I discovered Joseph Heller’s satirical novel Catch-22 way back in my early twenties and went on to re-read it in that decade at least once, maybe twice. It is placed squarely on that literary pedestal known as “the great American novel” and with some justification, since it regularly tops polls and even the BBC’s Big Read survey in 2003 (the biggest single test of public reading taste to date) had it ranked number 11 in the UK’s best-loved books. It is a darkly humorous and absurdist satire, that excoriates the illogical nihilism of war, and it does it masterfully.
I won’t attempt a plot summary, so let me just briefly frame the story. The novel follows the exploits of the fictional American 256th fighter squadron, stationed on the island of Pianosa in Italy’s Tuscan archipelago, during the height of World War II. With a huge cast of characters and a narrative that switches viewpoints and chronology on a regular basis, Heller creates a delicious mix of absurdity and hilarity.
Chief lunatic in the asylum is Captain John Yossarian, bomber pilot, whose main ambition in life is to stay alive (“live forever or die in the attempt”). Yossarian doesn’t distinguish between the “enemy” and his superiors; as far as he’s concerned, the enemy is anybody who’s going to get him killed, no matter which side they’re on, and he concocts a series of ingenious, albeit ultimately unsuccessful, methods for avoiding the suicidal bombing missions. In so doing, the Yossarian character acts as the conscience of the story; his is the voice of reason and righteous anger against the war and the faceless bureaucracy that pulls its strings. It is that Kafkaesque bureaucracy that thwarts his and others’ attempts to avoid dangerous situations, most notably with the infamous Catch-22.
A catch-22, of course, is a paradoxical situation from which a person cannot escape due to its contradictory rules. It is perhaps notable that the phrase, coined by Heller, has become part of the lexicon; life is indeed full of such situations (“how do I gain experience in a job if I am always turned down for not having any experience?”). In the book it is used in a variety of different formulations to justify some military requirement or other. Incidentally, Heller’s original title was Catch-18 but for reasons of euphony (and the release of another book, Leon Uris’s Mila 18) it was changed to Catch-22. Here’s an example of how the catch works.
There was only one catch and that was Catch-22, which specified that a concern for one’s safety in the face of dangers that were real and immediate was the process of a rational mind. 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,” he observed.
“It’s the best there is,” Doc Daneeka agreed.”
