I’ve never read anything like Catch 22

Catch 22 has a few different stages. The first decent chunk of the book is absurd and ironic humor, the actual concept of “Catch-22” is a good example of this. Finding humor in the absurd and illogical. Some kind of arbitrary constraint that leads to any decision resulting in the same conclusion. The beginning of the book can be a bit jarring, as characters are introduced rapidly and the book is out of order chronologically. The characters are all caricatures. Character traits are turned up to 11 to emphasize whatever the author wanted to satirize. I struggled through the first 50 pages, then it clicked and I found it *extremely* enjoyable. There were plenty of moments that had me laughing audibly and loudly at that.

Some examples are:

– Chief White Halfoat getting kicked off base because a rumor spreads that ex-PFC Wintergreen struck oil

– Yossarian telling Colonel Cathcart a rumor about a massive glue gun the Germans have built

– Major Major Major Major

– Clevinger’s trial

– Yossarian saying that everyone is out to kill him specifically

I really really really enjoyed the first 200 or so pages. But I think it gets a tad bit played out. After the first 200 pages it somehow gets even more convoluted. It ramps up the absurd to the point where I felt the need to put the book down more frequently to get my head out of it. I felt like the point was hammered maybe more than it needed to be. Maybe a more specific critique is that it had long drawn out descriptions of absurd events with absurd characters but, to be straightforward, it got less funny. To its credit I think the book starts to make more pointed satire around this part. Milo and the unshakable American love of free enterprise and profit. To the extent that Milo literally starts bombing his own base and it doesn’t matter because it’s in the name of entrepreneurship, and, of course, everyone has a share. The satirization of bureaucracy, which definitely applies to the military, but can also be extrapolated to any sort of structure like this. Around this time it also starts to show glimpses into the reality of the situation. It’ll mention briefly and without follow up that “this was before or after so-and-so died”, and that’s how you find out they died. Which again, is jarring and therefore harder to resonate with. I actually appreciated this. I think it was effective in showing the reader how quickly people die. I think of the dead man in Yossarian’s tent who is not in the war long enough to unpack his bags before he’s blown up into not existing anymore.

I started to enjoy it again much more towards the end. The last chunk of the book switches the mood to a much darker tone. It’s not particularly sudden or unexpected, like I said the book foreshadows it a bit. The deaths are brutal and quick. Reading about the deaths of Nately and Dobbs was genuinely shocking. The entire situation takes place in three paragraphs at the end of a chapter about another character. Nately specifically is revealed to have died in one sentence. Yossarian walking through Rome in a state of chaotic horror, internally rambling about the horrors and suffering of humanity, finding that Arfy had raped and killed an innocent woman, only for Yossarian to be taken away by MP for not having travel papers was a great use of non-humorous irony that felt deserved and poignant. Despite this it managed to have a few brief funny moments to not let you be completely engulfed by the despair. The ending was good too. Yossarian finally leaving the war on his own terms felt like poetic justice. It was the inevitable conclusion, barring him getting killed.

Overall, this book was great. It’s definitely something I’m going to re-read soon. I don’t think it’s plausible to think that I picked up on everything on the first read, or that the vast majority of people did, for that matter. The biggest issue is that it can sometimes feel so overwhelming and convoluted that it’s sometimes hard to pick up on things. I think you spend too much time and brainpower trying to remember everybody and keep the sequence of events in your head to retain everything going on. But those are issues that may resolve themselves upon multiple readings.

The last bit I wanted to ask of people that love this book, is critique of religion/organized religion a known feature of this book? I saw that in a review I read and the very last text in my physical copy is written by Christopher Hitchens. I could pick up on some subtle critiques but I thought it was fleeting and not really worth mentioning. Is that something I missed?