Catch-22, by Joseph Heller
I don't often read books twice, but this is the second time I have read Catch-22. I read it first a few years ago, and I remember I liked it, but I found it very weird. It was just such an unconventional book - it didn't really have a plotline, and it kept sliding between narrative past and narrative present, to the extent that I was never quite sure what the narrative present even was. I remember people asking me what it was about, or what was happening in the bit I was reading, and I remember finding it quite difficult to answer.
Now, having studied literature a bit more, I decided to give it another go. This time I approached it as a literary construct to be appreciated, rather than a conventional book to be enjoyed, and I did actually enjoy it a lot. I think it's a fantastically clever piece of literature.
'Catch-22' satirises the war. That's the whole point of it, and everything Heller writes, every technique he uses, every situation he sets up, leads back to this idea - war is crazy.
A lot of this book is absolutely hilarious. It's all just so bizarre, and so exaggerated. Some of the situations Heller creates are bafflingly nonsensical. For example, a plane that is officially carrying three men crashes, killing everyone onboard. The character Doc Daneeka was supposed to be on the plane, but he never got on it. He is clearly alive, but the paperwork has him down as 'killed in action' because his plane crashed - so news of his death is sent to his wife back home, a funeral is held for him, his position is given to someone else, people stop talking to him... Bonkers!
My other personal favourite is the scene in which we learn about Milo Minderbinder the mess officer's intricate dealings, buying and selling food from all over the world in a very complicated business set-up. The scene is written in rhyme ('Peas. Peas, that are on the high seas...') making it sound like a comedy number from a Gilbert and Sullivan musical.
The characters themselves are just as mad. The lack of a discernible plotline is thoroughly compensated for by Heller's fantastic cast - they are all unrealistic,
2-dimensional and stereotyped. Yes. While I would be unimpressed by this kind of characterisation in any other book, it works absolutely brilliantly in this satire.
There's Colonel Cathcart, who cares only about getting his name in the Saturday Evening Post and will ruthlessly raise the number of required combat missions until he gets some recognition; there's also Orr, who spends his spare time breaking the plumbing so that he can fix it again; and Major Major (a mediocre man with a great name) who will only allow people into his office to see him when he is not in his office. And amongst them all is Yossarian, the main character, who represents the ordinary man. All he wants is for the war to be over and to go home, and instead he is caught up in the crazy system.
Heller uses these scenarios and these characters to ensure that his readers are constantly thinking That's ridiculous! and What's the point of that? Ultimately he is making the point that war is ridiculous, and pointless, and so insane that it is actually laughable.
It's certainly also true that Catch-22 muddles with one's sense of the narrative present. It glides seamlessly between different times, from chapter to chapter and sometimes even from paragraph to paragraph. Characters who were dead three pages ago appear talking in another scene. Events that were alluded to as a memory in the early chapters happen in real time halfway through the book. The date is never given, and really the only way to keep track of where in time we are is to note the number of required combat missions. Since the number is always being raised, a scene where the characters allude to flying fifty missions must be happening after a scene where they have only flown thirty-six. It's complicated, and it's so unbelievably clever.
By robbing us of a sense of time, Heller ensures that we have no idea how the war is progressing. We don't know if the end is near, and we've lost track of how long we've been going. Which I imagine is probably how the soldiers felt. Their existence seems so distanced from the war itself, because Heller makes it very difficult for us to see any wider impact they are having. This is enhanced by having the squadron based on an island (particularly far-out and isolated). Depressingly, the only thing we ever know for sure is that the war is still going on.
The other thing Heller does is repeat scenes that have already happened. This is rather disconcerting. There's a scene in the hospital where Yossarian sees a soldier bandaged from head to foot in white. This scene happens about three times, with slightly different details included each time, and always phrased as if it's the first time we've heard it. It gives the sense that we're going round in circles - which I think is quite a striking point about the nature of war.
Another scene that recurs features Yossarian and several others in a plane, with a man called Snowden dying in the back. It surfaces throughout the book with the quality of a recurring nightmare - both the characters and by extension the readers are haunted by it. Each time it happens, Heller goes into slightly more depth, and it's only right near the end of the book that we see the scene unfold in all its terrible detail.
It's moments like this that give the book its tragic, dark, and serious quality - reminding us that although we have just spent 400-odd pages giggling at the stupidity and the futility of it all, the brutal truth is that war is no laughing matter.