The Latent Book Club examines Joseph Heller’s Catch 22: A masterpiece replete with tragicomedy, farce, and irony, told non-linearly; concerning characters so focused on empire building, and settling petty vendettas, they seemingly have forgotten there is a war on.
Catch-22 is a masterpiece replete with tragi-comedy, farce, and irony, told non-chronologically. And it concerns characters so concerned about living in the moment, empire building, or settling petty vendettas they seemingly have forgotten there is a war on. Except one, that is.
The novel’s subject is the (fictional) American bomber crews of the 256th squadron, stationed in Pianosa, a small island near the north west cost of Italy, in the closing years of WWII. The crews are ineptly commanded by Colonels and Generals more concerned with point scoring and building petty fiefdoms than contributing to, or concluding the conflict. For anyone who has served in any kind of operational role, this absurd (from the outsider’s point of view) way of waging war will be instantly recognisable. Kingsley Amis, deployed as an officer in the Signals for the British Army during WWII, who famously never fired a single shot, alleged in his autobiography that he could, when reading, identify if the author was a real military man if: a) the alleged chain of command they described was chaotic or absent; or b) they described spending time and resources doing anything other than what sense would dictate.
The book largely revolves around Captain John Yossarian, and how the peripheral characters interact with him. While few take the war seriously, for Yossarian its deeply personal: both friend and foe alike are out to kill him.
Written non-chronologically, the book largely revolves around Yossarian, and how the peripheral characters interact with him. While few take the war seriously, for Yossarian its deeply personal: both friend and foe alike are out to kill him. As we open, Yossarian is once again hiding in the infirmary. His liver is a problem, so he says, and he’s crazy.
He’s crazy, because he doesn’t want to fly. He doesn’t want to risk being vaporised by flak, being shot down, and dying in an inferno. Crashing on the sea. Crashing on land. Being drowned. Being caught by the enemy. Crashing anywhere. He visualises in detail a thousand grizzly deaths he is certain are coming for him, and does anything he can to avoid them. Contemporarily, we may be sure Yossarian is suffering from panic attacks and a crippling anxiety, almost certainly induced by post-traumatic stress disorder, and not without a strong basis in reality: he has seen many of his colleagues die. In the book however, he is told repeatedly he is a coward, and is willing to accept that fact.
To this point: One might think that flying a bomber is easier than being in action with ground infantry. Perhaps. They do have relatively well equipped bases to fly back to, and are reasonably well provisioned and fed. The relative risk of death might be less: that is certainly why Yossarian joined the air corps - he was confident that by the time his training was over, the war would be too. But on this count he was wrong. And just because bombers often either come back, or they don’t, does not mean the airmen are spared the injustices of war. There is one particularly harrowing scene in which Yossarian futilely bandages a gaping wound in Snowden, the plane’s bombardier’s leg, only to discover that inside his flak jacket Snowden hides a grizzly secret: he has been ripped apart by flak.
When Yossarin undoes his jacket, as Snowden plaintively and futilely whimpers that he is cold, Snowden’s ghastly secret is disgorged. Yossarian vomits: he can do nothing to help his friend, other than watch him die. It is a disturbing scene; no wonder he doesn’t want to fly.
As we open, Yossarian is avoiding the conflict in the hospital. While there he is censoring letters in the most absurd way possible. To keep himself engaged with the task, he censors anything and everything, including all the text but the salutation, all the salutation but none of the text, the addresses on the envelope. He rewrites letters to express desire that the authors presumably never intended. And then to top things off, he starts signing his censorship ‘Washington Irving’, a fact that comes to haunt the Chaplain later in the novel.
But he can’t stand the hospital, or the people within it for too long. And soon enough, he is back out in his b25 with his crew, doing his job in the bomb bay, ensuring the bombs are released on target. While there, he is extremely vulnerable from the ominous clouds of flak that threaten to rip him apart at every instant.
For Yossarian, it is a moot point who is trying to kill him. The enemy is just one amongst many in the list of potential assassins. It is as much his own sides’ fault if he dies - for putting him in harm’s way; his pilot for being inept; his colleagues for sabotaging the plane’s survival aids for private gain. This is all aimed at him. They are all trying to kill him, directly. As Yossarian states in an argument with an idealistic young colleague, Clevinger:
‘Open your eyes Clevinger. It doesn’t make a damned bit of difference who wins the war to someone who’s dead.’
Clevinger sat for a moment as though he’d been slapped. ‘Congratulations!’ he exclaimed bitterly, the thinnest milk-white line enclosing his lips tightly in a bloodless, squeezing grind. ‘I can’t think of another attitude that could be depended upon to give greater comfort to the enemy.’
‘The enemy,’ retorted Yossarian with weighted precision, ‘is anybody who’s going to get you killed, no matter which side he’s on, and that includes Colonel Cathcart. And don’t you forget that, because the longer you remember it, the longer you might live.’
Yossarian reflects, and with, it must be admitted, some validity:
That men would die was a matter of necessity; which men would die, though, was a matter of circumstance, and Yossarian was willing to be the victim of anything but circumstance.
Yossarian therefore does anything he can to avoid flying more combat missions. He’s done more than enough. As we open, we are told he has flown 50 missions, more than enough to be relieved and go home. But Colonel Cathcart keeps increasing the number of missions, and each time he does so, it is less likely Yossarian will ever see home.
Surrounding Yossarian are the peripheral characters that each get their own chapters, during which time flies forwards, or backwards, without any signposting. We’re not sure how, but Heller somehow makes this style just work.
Surrounding Yossarian are the peripheral characters that each get their own chapters, during which time flies forwards, or backwards, without any signposting. We’re not sure how, but Heller somehow makes this style just work. It was never unclear where or when we were supposed to be, despite the lack of clues.
One of Yossarian’s more prominent colleagues is Milo Minderbinder. Despite only having 5 combat missions, Milo becomes the epitome of wartime absurdity. He is a mess officer and entrepreneur who uses his position to engage in an extensive black-market operation, profiting from a variety of schemes, including buying and selling goods at inflated prices. Milo's unbridled capitalism and amoral pursuit of profit underscore the book's satirical examination of the dehumanising effects of war and the absurdity of bureaucracy. His character exemplifies the moral ambiguity and moral erosion that can occur in wartime, making him a central figure in the novel's critique of the absurdity of war.
In an effort to avoid death, Yossarian engages in feigning illness, sabotage (moving the bomb line on the map), abandoning missions due to faulty equipment, and after one particularly fateful mission, just running away.
This is how the novel ends. Yossarian is convinced that his colleague Orr, who has been shot down and crashed in virtually every mission he has been on, is dead. However, it becomes clear in the final chapters, that Orr has merely been practicing crash landings to do so and go AWOL. After being caught AWOL himself, and threatened with a court-martial (not in the face of the enemy; but rather on the basis of him going AWOL) Yossarian is offered a deal by the sinister Colonel Cathcart: he can sign a loyalty oath, which would secure his release from further missions, but also compromise his principles.
Colonel Cathcart wants them to be friends. For Yossarian the prospect is untenable: he will be forced to identify the person who has been trying most proactively to kill him for the entire novel as his friend. He initially agrees to sign, but then changes his mind, tearing it up. In doing so, he is one of the few people in the novel that survive with some integrity.
The novel concludes with Yossarian's decision to flee the military base and go AWOL rather than continue to participate in the senseless violence and inhumane bureaucracy of the war machine.
Yossarian knows there is no other way out for him. And this is because of Catch-22. He just has to not fly, and to do that he needs to be declared crazy.
This is the catch: if he is too crazy to fly, he is sane enough to know he doesn’t want to. And therefore he can’t be crazy in the first place.
This, however, is the encapsulation of Catch-22. To not fly, to be grounded, all Yossarian needs do is demonstrate that he really is crazy. Too crazy to fly. And he succeeds in persuading the squadron’s Doctor, Doc Daneeka, that he is. But this is the catch: if he is too crazy to fly, he is sane enough to know he doesn’t want to. And therefore he can’t be crazy in the first place. As Yossarian asks Doc Daneeka:
'Can't you ground someone who's crazy?'
'Oh, sure. I have to. There's a rule saving I have to ground anyone who's crazy.'
"Then why don't you ground me? I'm crazy. Ask Clevinger?'
'Clevinger? Where is Clevinger? You find Clevinger and I'll ask him.'
'Then ask any of the others. They'll tell you how crazy I am!'
'They're crazy.'
'Then why don't you ground them?'
'Why don't they ask me to ground them?'
'Because they're crazy, that's why.'
'Of course they're crazy, Doc Daneeka replied. 'I just told you they're crazy, didn't I? And you can't let crazy people decide whether you're crazy or not, can you?'
Yossarian looked at him soberly and tried another approach. 'Is Orr crazy?'
'He sure is, Doc Daneeka said.
'Can you ground him?
I sure can. But first he has to ask me to. That's part of the rule.'
'Then why doesn't he ask you to?'
'Because he's crazy; Doc Daneeka said. 'He has to be crazy to keep flying combat missions after all the close calls he's had. Sure, I can ground Orr. But first he has to ask me to.
'That's all he has to do to be grounded?'
'That's all. Let him ask me!
'And then you can ground him?' Yossarian asked.
No. Then I can't ground him.'
'You mean there's a catch?'
'Sure there's a catch,' Doc Daneeka replied. 'Catch-22. Anyone who wants to get out of combat duty isn't really crazy’
There was only one catch and that was Catch-22, which specified that a concern for one's own 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.
The Catch in Catch 22 has been interpreted in many ways. At its heart it is a bureaucratic paradox: a rule that makes it impossible for a soldier to escape dangerous and absurd situations. The term ‘Catch-22’ comes to symbolise the absurdity, hypocrisy, and irrationality of war, military bureaucracy, and the human condition.
But the reality is that Catch-22 is actually so much more than just a satire on bureaucracy; or a criticism of military hierarchy; an illustration of the futility of war. The reality is we encounter Catch-22s throughout our own lives which are equally insane. Do we rail against them, as Yossarian does, or do we merely accept them? In this way, Heller’s allegory has something to teach us outside the mere bleakness of conflict.
Heller himself was born in 1923, in Brooklyn, New York. He grew up in a Jewish family and later enlisted in the U.S. Army Air Corps during WWII, which gave him the foundational experiences he drew on in Catch-22. Heller went on to write other novels but none would reach the same level of acclaim as his first. He died in 1999.
There are some themes that haven’t aged particularly well. We may balk at thee treatment of the Italian civilians, and particularly the Italian women in the book. There is a lot of misogyny on display. Does that go hand in hand with war? Perhaps. It is uncomfortable to read? Yep. There is some less than appropriate language. But really, Yossarian has such sympathy for most of his fellow characters, when we recall the novel is of its time, it is quite forgivable.
The way the squadrons are run, the way the missions are run, the way the war is run seems to be no-one’s principal concern. What should be the focus of their passions isn’t; and what shouldn’t be is. That really is a Catch-22.
Heller’s style in describing the conflict in Catch-22 is inimitable. He has a profound take on the absurd; nearly every character lives irrational lives, and carries unresolved conflict in them. This theme is expanded throughout the setting of the book: the way the squadrons are run, the way the missions are run, the way the war is run seems to be no-one’s principal concern. What should be the focus of their passions isn’t; and what shouldn’t be is. That really is a Catch-22. It is a theme which, we the reader, like Yossarian, sees once then spots everywhere. It is a phenomenal book.
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