Product Description

Catch-22 is like no other novel. It is one of the funniest books ever written, a keystone work in American literature, and even added a new term to the dictionary.

At the heart of Catch-22 resides the incomparable, malingering bombardier, Yossarian, a hero endlessly inventive in his schemes to save his skin from the horrible chances of war. His efforts are perfectly understandable because as he furiously scrambles, thousands of people he hasn't even met are trying to kill him. His problem is Colonel Cathcart, who keeps raising the number of missions the men must fly to complete their service. Yet if Yossarian makes any attempts to excuse himself from the perilous missions that he is committed to flying, he is trapped by the Great Loyalty Oath Crusade, the hilariously sinister bureaucratic rule from which the book takes its title: a man is considered insane if he willingly continues to fly dangerous combat missions, but if he makes the necessary formal request to be relieved of such missions, the very act of making the request proves that he is sane and therefore ineligible to be relieved.

Catch-22 is a microcosm of the twentieth-century world as it might look to some one dangerously sane -- a masterpiece of our time.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #1595 in Books
• Published on: 1996-09-04
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 464 pages

Amazon.com Review
There was a time when reading Joseph Heller's classic satire on the murderous insanity of war was nothing less than a rite of passage. Echoes of Yossarian, the wise-ass bombardier who was too smart to die but not smart enough to find a way out of his predicament, could be heard throughout the counterculture. As a result, it's impossible not to consider Catch-22 to be something of a period piece. But 40 years on, the novel's undiminished strength is its looking-glass logic. Again and again, Heller's characters demonstrate that what is commonly held to be good, is bad; what is sensible, is nonsense.

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.

From Publishers Weekly
Starred Review. It would be difficult to imagine richer material for an audiobook reader, comedically speaking, than Joseph Heller's classic novel of wartime madness. Sanders is the lucky actor chosen to read Heller's masterpiece, and he does well by it, proceeding gamely through the novel's staggering array of comic set pieces and deliriously woozy dialogue. Heller's humor is straight-faced, requiring little more than a steady, sure voice, and Sanders offers just that. Line by line, joke by joke, Sanders reels through the marvelous phantasmagoria of Heller's World War II, tongue planted firmly in cheek. Caedmon's impressive package includes a 1970s-era recording of Heller reading selections from his book. Heller is a delightful contrast to Sanders, his slight lisp accentuating a marvelous Brooklyn accent. Heller reads as if with cigar perched on his lip and turns his novel into an extended borscht belt comic's riff.
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

From Library Journal
Two modern giants (LJ 2/15/70 and LJ 11/1/61, respectively) join Knopf's venerable "Everyman's Library." If you've been searching for quality hardcovers of these two eternally popular titles, look no further.
Copyright 1996 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Customer Reviews

25 words or less
Even sloth and debauchery lose their power. Virtue and sanity are what's left over when you've tired of all vice.

Lighthearted and comical, yet dark and meaningful
First and foremost, Catch-22 is written in a circular fashion, often ignoring chronological order to aid in the atmosphere of apparent logical irrationality. Many a reader has been turned away by this lack of sensical ordering. However strive on, just as a CSI detective starts with only half the picture, as you travel through this book, all becomes clear.

There are two different appeals to reading Catch-22. The first is the lighthearted satire, mayhaps similar to what many of us have found in the comic strip "Beetle Bailey". In fact, you could open this book up randomly to any page and sample the hilarity without embroiling yourself in an immense and thought-provoking novel.

The other path is the hidden meaning which each and every one of the 50 odd characters portrays. The profound absurdity of war and the needs of the individual versus the needs of society are debated mercilessly. This book is not truly anti-war as the war itself often seems more of a backdrop to the main story, however Heller strives to emphasize the desires of the individual versus the greater payoff to society . The main character, Yossarian, desires the end of the WWII but not at the cost of his own life. The greater enemy of the novel is often not the Germans, but the bureaucracy of the American army or as Yossarian says, "The enemy is anybody who's going to get you killed, no matter which side he's on, and that includes Colonel Cathcart. And don't you forget that, because the longer you remember it, the longer you might live."

Incredible
I almost didn't include this book in my reading list - thank goodness I did in the end!

Although set during a war, the theme is about survival, insanity and humanity.

The language is disturbingly funny and can drive anyone crazy.

The story is not told chronologically, which makes it a slightly difficult read, but the book relies largely on its characters and the way that Heller sets it out presents better pictures of each character. At the beginning of the book we get the impression that everyone is crazy, Yossarian most of all. But as the story unfolds we realise that it's all just a hopeless attempt to survive the madness of their era, nobody is fool and least of all Yossarian.

I'm currently reading it for the third time - definitely one of my favourite books now. The story may be too entangled to understand at first, but the characters come vividly to life and stay with you.