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Loading... Catch 22 (original 1961; edition 1996)by Joseph Heller
Work detailsCatch-22 by Joseph Heller (1961)
I kept a dictionary with me at all times while reading this book. (  )  katemo | May 16, 2013 |  Top 10 enough said. ( ) IanMPindar | May 16, 2013 | Proof that a book written in accessible language, in an easy reading style, can be one of the greatest, as well as funniest books, ever written. The chaotic plot order of the chapters can be a little confusing, but given the 'catch 22' nature of the theme you should expect to be sent all over the place a little. A challenge to read without laughing. ( ) Hubster | May 12, 2013 | Proof that a book written in accessible language, in an easy reading style, can be one of the greatest, as well as funniest books, ever written. The chaotic plot order of the chapters can be a little confusing, but given the 'catch 22' nature of the theme you should expect to be sent all over the place a little. A challenge to read without laughing. ( ) Hubster | May 12, 2013 | A brilliant, sprawling satire on war and organization life. This sensibility has become a commonplace in our society with relative trivializations like Mash and Dilbert, but the power of this novel still stuns. Yossarian and a group of American airmen cynically survive the trails of World War II with work, humor, pranks, and sex. Nothing in their world makes rational sense, decisions by superiors are freakish and ill-formed, success comes to the undeserving, and death is arbitrary. The ferociousness and bitterness of the satire make the book hard going, and I had to interrupt my reading for extended periods of time. The comedy is worthy of Twain at his most bitter, the very funny dialogue exploits the calculated misdirections of a Groucho Marx routine, the exaggerated incidents have the cheeky insouciance of the American tall tale. The complicatedly structure plot keeps circling back on itself with each revisit bringing new complexity to the situations and characters. (  ) sjnorquist | May 9, 2013 |
 "A wild, moving, shocking, hilarious, raging, exhilarating, giant roller-coaster of a book"  "doesn't even seem to be written; instead, it gives the impression of having been shouted onto paper.... what remains is a debris of sour jokes" "the best novel to come out in years"  This kind of magnificent illogic whips like a mistral all through the novel, blowing both sequence and motivation into a rubble of farcical shocks and grisly surprises. Catch-22 is held together only by the inescapable fact that Joseph Heller is a superb describer of people and things... Heller's talent is impressive, but it also is undisciplined, sometimes luring him into bogs of boring repetition... but an overdose of comic non sequitur and an almost experimental formlessness are not enough to extinguish the real fire of Catch-22. "Catch-22," by Joseph Heller, is not an entirely successful novel. It is not even a good novel by conventional standards. But there can be no doubt that it is the strangest novel yet written about the United States Air Force in World War II. Wildly original, brilliantly comic, brutally gruesome, it is a dazzling performance that will probably outrage nearly as many readers as it delights. In any case, it is one of the most startling first novels of the year and it may make its author famous. Has the adaptationHas as a student's study guide
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Yossarian says, "You're talking about winning the war, and I am talking about winning the war and keeping alive."
"Exactly," Clevinger snapped smugly. "And which do you think is more important?"
"To whom?" Yossarian shot back. "It doesn't make a damn bit of difference who wins the war to someone who's dead."
"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."
Mirabile dictu, the book holds up post-Reagan, post-Gulf War. It's a good thing, too. As long as there's a military, that engine of lethal authority, Catch-22 will shine as a handbook for smart-alecky pacifists. It's an utterly serious and sad, but damn funny book.
(retrieved from Amazon Wed, 02 Jan 2013 12:42:26 -0500)
Presents the contemporary classic depicting the struggles of a United States airman attempting to survive the lunacy and depravity of a World War II airbase.
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