BOOK: Catch 22 by Joseph Heller

What a roller coaster of madness!

The story of the book is about a soldier in the second world war, Yossarian, who constantly strives to get himself out of the air force. He will do anything to stop being a pilot as he is terrified of flying missions - his role is to drop bombs from a plane (with a team) and try his hardest to get out of the artillery gun fire sent from below without dying, or having any of his men die. You can understand, then, why he wants out. We see many of the horrific situations he has been in during missions, and numerous characters die throughout.

But that makes the book sound simple! Oh no. 

There are about 50 different characters, all with their own eccentricities and bits of madness, all of which are complex, fascinating people, and all of which have aspects to commend and aspects to condemn. They are all normal people who have been put through, and exist in, very abnormal circumstances which slowly drive them insane. 

The plot doesn't follow a structure. After reading it, you could sit down and work out the exact order of events if you wanted, though that wouldn't add much to the book, if I'm honest. The unstructured, chaotic jumping from one memory to another adds to the madness of the whole thing. 

I found it difficult to read, at first, because the style of this book is like nothing you will ever have read before. You get to the middle of the book and it gets good. You get to the end, and it is BRILLIANT and you want to re-read the beginning because now you understand it.

It's confusing, it's intelligent, it's witty, it's horrific, it's nasty, it's sad, it's hilarious, it's mad - and it can do all these things in one paragraph.

Every sentence is there for a reason. 

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If you're interested in the English Language and the way it works, read this book. If you want to look into the English Language and the way it works, read this book.

I don't recommend it to anyone who reads just for the sake of plot and action. This is a deeply intelligent, insightful book about madness and language and, I think, requires a philosophical frame of mind to understand it.

It is framed around the notion of 'catch 22': "a dilemma or difficult circumstance from which there is no escape because of mutually conflicting or dependent conditions."

Example:

Yossarian wishes to stop flying missions.

If you are crazy, you are allowed to stop flying missions.

Yossarian wishes to have it noted that he is crazy so that he can stop flying missions.

However, crazy people are crazy enough to want to fly missions.

If Yossarian is not crazy, he must continue flying missions. 

If Yossarian really is crazy, he would want to fly the missions.

Yossarian does not want to fly the missions, so he must not be crazy, and so, he must fly the missions.

Thus, either way, he must fly the missions.

Catch 22.