2006 Challenge - Book 10
- Strange Affair - Peter Robinson
- One Door Away from Heaven - Dean Koontz
- Little Earthquakes - Jennifer Weiner
- Echoes - Danielle Steel
- A Series of Unfortunate Events: Book the First A Bad Beginning - Lemony Snicket
- Memoirs of a Geisha - Arthur Golden
- On the Run: The Fugitive Factor - Gordon Korman
- Deception Point - Dan Brown
- Catch-22 - Joseph Heller
10. Catch-22 - Joseph Heller
I bought this book when I went out impromptu book shopping with a friend. I've always wanted to read this book, and it was on for really cheap at one of those tables that they set up in the middle of book stores that say this is a good deal, buy it!
Yossarian is a bombardier in the second world war. He is stationed at this fictional island off the coast of Italy, with a whole host of characters. Most of them are larger than life. There are so many great stories and quotes in this novel. Many of which I've heard in one form or other before.
What kind of name is Yossarian?
It's Yossarian's name, sir.
The whole premise of the story is that Yossarian and the flight crew he is stationed with, have to fly a certain number of missions before they are able to apply to go home and then be sent home. Colonel Cathcart, however, keeps raising the number of required flights. At some point the flights number 65. Each time Yossarian gets close to the required number, Cathcart raises them again. Yossarian is upset, understandably, at this, and tries to find some way to be sent home or be grounded before he hits the correct number of flights. How he manages to get any flights in, honestly, is confusing, as he spends so much of his time talking to the other characters about this problem. The only way to be grounded, however, is to be deemed insane. But there is a catch. Catch-22. This states that anyone who willingly flies the missions is insane, and therefore eligible to be grounded, they only have to ask. But as soon as they ask to be grounded, because they are insane for flying these missions, it proves, in fact, that they are not insane, but rather sane, because they do not want to fly the missions, and therefore they have to fly.
This novel explores the absurdity of war, and the bureaucracy that is inherent in anything that is governed by top-down rulings. I spent much time laughing at the exploits of Yossarian, Orr, Hungry Joe, Dunbar and the gang. It wasn't so much comedy funny, but truly situational funny. Not situational, like Friends, but real life funny. Funny in the sense that you realize that all life is so messed up, and you have to laugh, because the only other option is to cry. (453 pages)
Next up: The Five People you Meet in Heaven - Mitch Albom
10 / 50 Books
(20.0%)
4,383 / 20,000 Pages
(21.0%)
242 / 365 Days
(66.3%)