Young Writers Society

Finished reading this a couple of weeks ago. Had heard both good and bad things about it, but have to admit it is probably one of the best books ive ever read. The story focuses around a WW2 pilot named Yossarian. It flucuates back and forth in time, something which though was a little complex to begin with, but really drew me in towards ths end. The book itself is a tragically funny tale (a massive contradiction there) about the morality and insanity of War. As well as this it also introduces the now infamous term Catch 22.

I would definetly recommend this to the more mature readers out there. Though i usually detest the term classic, i certainly feel that Catch 22 is a perfect example of this. It is nearly forty years old now, but the issues raised still resonate strongly today and will do in the future.. This should most definetly be on everyones to read list.

Enjoy!

Ah, Catch-22. Simply a great book.
My only problem was that I found it a bit wordy -- like, 100 pages too long.
At the time, the skipping around bothered me so much that I wanted to rip out the chapters, place them in a sensical order, and scream at Heller: "That's how you right a book!"
But now that I've re-read it, I appreciated the skipping much more.
Parts of these book were funny, some were horrifying. Heller crafted the most superbly written death scene I've ever read. It was gorgeous, and kind of flew off the page.
It's just an amazing, amazing book.

Nice to see another lover of it. ^_^

--Antigone

Oooh! If you liked this book, you should really check out Slaughter House 5 by Kurt Vonnegut. Same sorts of messages, but completely different. Both classics.

Antigone stole the words out of my...keyboard. XD

The death scene at the end is simply chilling and horrible, but brilliant. A wonderful book through and through. It's been a while since I read it (junior high, now that I think on it...), probably something I should reread.

I was about to point out the Slaughterhouse-Five connections too. XD

I couldn't agree more. Having tried unsuccessfully once before to read it, I recently finished Catch 22 and found it to be one of the best things I've ever read. I fell out with it the first time for the reason the rest of you have mentioned; the constant moving backwards and forwards in time. However, as I got about a third of the way through the second time round, something just clicked and it started to make some kind of twisted, tragic sense.

The main selling point of Heller's novel for me was the way in which he so effortlessly, almost unnoticeably, changed styles throughout the story. He writes farce and surreal narrative better than anyone else I've come across; the characters of Major Major and the later Milo demonstrate completely bizarre and surreal situations fantastically. This is then set against the tragic and bleak parts of the novel, which are in turn more effective when received imediately after a brilliant piece of surrealism. The three parts that stood out for me were the death scene towards the end, the scene of the bombing in which Aarfy goes frustratingly a bit mad, and the scene in the depraved, destroyed Rome. The latter literally blew me away, with Heller being able to make such a concise and relevant point in such an eloquent and stylish way. Truly amazing

I read Catch-22 for a class assignment, and hated it at first, convinced that Heller would be joining Gregory House as the only person/character on Earth more sarcastic than I, and /really/ hated the skipping, but on re-reading it, loved it.

Catch-22 is amazing.

That said, M & M Enterprises sends me a nice check monthly.