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.

FILM: Aguirre, The Wrath of God

This was the first in a line of Klaus Kinski films directed by Werner Herzog. Kinski, possibly mad himself, is brilliant at playing the insane.
This is a slow moving film about a group of Spanish soldiers (though the film is in German) who are searching for El Dorado against all odds.
They befall many troubles along the way, a lot of them due to the madness of Aguirre, and the following he gathers when threatening violence.
From starvation and sickness, the group of soldiers all die, and the film ends with a mad Aguirre stumbling around, talking to himself.
With hints of incest, and clear madness, and a lot of death, this film is dark in a calm sort of way.
It's a 'stick at it' kind of film - it's an exploration into madness and leaders, not plot.
If you're interested in discovering arty foreign films, this is a good start.

FILM: Mullholland Drive

I struggled with this one.
Basically, the plot is told backwards. The question is, when you reach the end of the film, can you work out the sequence of events? Can you work out what is actually going on?

The acting is great, and the cinematography etc etc, however, the plot is very hard to grasp and, though that's kind of the point of the film, there's being subtle and mysterious, and then there's downright confusion.
It's always good when you finish a film and find yourself discussing its finite details - but what if? Why did he do that? I loved it when...etc. It's not so good when you finish the film so dumbfounded that you have to spend half an hour working out what actually happened - and even when you've worked it out, you're not 100% sure you're right.
That could appeal to some - those who like films about madness, films full of mystery, films that play with the idea of plot...I just found it difficult to keep track of things.
There were so many bizarre things that went unexplained (what was the homeless guy about?). I suppose you could say they were left to the imagination...but we were given no hint as to how some scenes had any correlation to anything that the imagination simply has no idea what to do with itself.
The concept itself, once you begin to understand what you just watched, is brilliant. It's a really clever look into madness. Sometimes you hear people say "just stick with it, it's gets good" or "things start to unravel soon". With this film...stick to the end (I know that may be a big ask for some). It becomes a very good film at the end, and it might unravel itself to you.