World War 2. Americans in Italy wait every day for the next mission.Some people are just crazy about it, others detest the entire business.And for those who detest it there are only two ways of getting rid ofit: a) you could get killed, or b) you could get grounded. So, thesystem works in a way that makes the in-charge-of-grounding-peoplepeople ground every man who’s physically damaged or mentally crazy.Therefor, in order to be grounded, all you have to do is to be, orpretend to be, crazy. There is only one catch. Catch-22.
What CATCH-22 really is, is the evil circles that society frequentlygets us into - in this book it takes shape in form of anon-non-mission-flying kind of evil circle. In fact, everybody who dofly the missions are considered crazy, and all they have to do to begrounded is ask for it. But, and here CATCH-22 enters the picture, everybody who do not want to fly the missions and for that reason asksto be grounded, are no longer considered crazy, and must thereforcontinue to fly the missions.
Joseph Heller was, just as the principle character "Yossarian", abombardier during World War 2. In this book it is very clear that hehas reflected his own experiences that he experienced and the thoughtshe thought during that time. In an extremely ironic way he hasdescribed the war and the dead-stupid system that lies behind it.
The book begins in a hospital, and at once you get theoh-no-not-one-of-these-again feeling. But if you only give it a chanceof a few pages, you will notice that this war novel is not like any ofthe others. This book does not really describe the war itself, but howit is between the battles and how the war changes people and the waythey look upon things. And people is just what the entire book is builton.
Almost every chapter is titled after one of the men in the squadron.And the person gallery is big and impressive. At times you feel it isalmost too big for a normal consumer to keep in mind. You meet, ofcourse, the protagonist Yossarian himself, but also the crazy colonelwho assigns his men to the most fatal missions just to get into theSaturday Evening Post about his newly introduced system for tellingrelatives that the one they love is dead. We meet the mess officer whois mayor in cities all over Europe, and has created a whole tradingempire all by himself, and can buy eggs for seven cents a piece, sellthem for five, and still make a profit. There is Major Major MajorMajor who will not let anybody into his office to see him as long as heis there himself, and there is the dead man in Yossarian’s tent whodidn’t even have time enough to sign himself into the squadron until hewas killed on duty. All these people and many, many more are describedin detail with an easy-to-read and easy-to-get language.
Most interesting of them all, though, is Yossarian. As Joseph Heller himself describes him: "Yossarianwas a lead bombardier who had been demoted because he no longer gave adamn whether he missed or not. He had decided to live forever or die inthe attempt, and his only mission each time he went up was to come downalive."
It is easy to compare yourself to Yossarian.Although it is much more serious for him, you can recall situationsfrom your own experience when you know you must have felt exactly thesame way. For example, when you are supposed to play football in gymclass, but you are in a strict non-football-playing mood, and youreally strain yourself to get in a position where you know you won’t beable to get the ball. Yossarian too does a lot of work so that he willnot have to work. He poisons the men so that the mission has to becanceled, he sneaks up at night and moves the bomb line on the map sothat everybody thinks that their mission target is already captured, hebreaks the radio on his plane before the mission target is reached andreturns to the base because the radio is broken. Even though he mightseem extremely lazy, which he is, he appears to be one of the smartestcharacters in the entire book.
It is in fact a real masterpiece, but we shall not forget thenot-so-good sides. In the beginning the number of persons to keep inthe head are far too many, and although they are described thoroughlyone by one, you never really get the grip of it. And even if thedescriptions of the persons are very, very and very again detailed, there is still something you miss - their background. You only get toread about what they do and what they have done since they came to thesquadron, but not many words are said about where they come from andwhat they did before the war. And that - I think - is very sad, becauseit would help the reader a great deal to understand the way they think.Of course the war has changed them, but deepest down they are very muchinfluenced by the people and the conditions they’ve been living withfor many, many years. If it is a good or bad thing that the book isn’twritten in chronological order can be discussed, I myself do not findit disturbing.
Comparing the good sides against the bad, you see that this really is agood piece of work, and it really should be read. It delivers a lot ofhumor, and it might teach the reader to look somewhat differently onthe society we live in today - that isn’t a hundred per cent saneeither...