From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
.^ Catch-22 - Joseph Heller Catch-22 Joseph Heller .
^ At the heart of Joseph Heller's novel Catch-22 is a brilliant paradox: if you plead insanity to avoid suicidal bombing missions then you must be sane and can't be excused.- The Liberal Catch-22 - ABC News (Australian Broadcasting Corporation) 10 February 2010 13:013 UTC www.abc.net.au [Source type: Original source]
^ And if that doesn't work, point out the great number of American families that depend on it for income."
[2] .^ In no time at all, Orr had that fishing line out into the water, trolling away as happily as a lark.
Concept
Among other things,
Catch-22 is a general critique of
bureaucratic operation and reasoning.
.^ What does it mean, Catch-22?
^ I suggest using that tack when you call your congresspeople and write LTE. "Are you content to be a rubber stamp with no meaning whatsoever?"- Daily Kos: Catch-22: How Can "Unacknowledged" Targets Have Standing to Challenge Secret Programs? 6 February 2010 10:50 UTC www.dailykos.com [Source type: Original source]
.^ At the heart of Joseph Heller's novel Catch-22 is a brilliant paradox: if you plead insanity to avoid suicidal bombing missions then you must be sane and can't be excused.- The Liberal Catch-22 - ABC News (Australian Broadcasting Corporation) 10 February 2010 13:013 UTC www.abc.net.au [Source type: Original source]
^ Jesselyn Radack's diary :: :: Here is the catch-22 for anyone who wants to challenge this Administration's various secret programs.- Daily Kos: Catch-22: How Can "Unacknowledged" Targets Have Standing to Challenge Secret Programs? 6 February 2010 10:50 UTC www.dailykos.com [Source type: Original source]
In Heller's own words:
.^ There was only one catch and that was Catch-22, that specified that a concern for one's own safety in the face of dangers that were real and immediate was the process of a rational mind.
^ "There was only one catch and that was Catch-22, which specified that a concern for one's safety in the face of dangers that were real and immediate was the process of a rational mind.- The Liberal Catch-22 - ABC News (Australian Broadcasting Corporation) 10 February 2010 13:013 UTC www.abc.net.au [Source type: Original source]
^ There's one colonel in Pianosa who's hardly concerned any more with whether he hits the target or not."
.^ Orr was crazy and could be grounded.
.^ All he had to do was ask; and as soon as he did, he would no longer be crazy and would have to fly more missions.
^ All he had to do was ask; and as soon as he did, he would no longer be crazy and would have to fly more missions...- The Liberal Catch-22 - ABC News (Australian Broadcasting Corporation) 10 February 2010 13:013 UTC www.abc.net.au [Source type: Original source]
^ Orr would be crazy to fly more missions and sane if he didn't, but if he was sane, he had to fly them.
.^ Orr would be crazy to fly more missions and sane if he didn't, but if he was sane, he had to fly them.
^ He has to fly more missions.
^ All he had to do was ask; and as soon as he did, he would no longer be crazy and would have to fly more missions...- The Liberal Catch-22 - ABC News (Australian Broadcasting Corporation) 10 February 2010 13:013 UTC www.abc.net.au [Source type: Original source]
.^ Orr would be crazy to fly more missions and sane if he didn't, but if he was sane, he had to fly them.
.^ "Yossarian was moved very deeply by the absolute simplicity of this clause of Catch-22 and let out a respectful whistle.- The Liberal Catch-22 - ABC News (Australian Broadcasting Corporation) 10 February 2010 13:013 UTC www.abc.net.au [Source type: Original source]
^ That's some Catch: Captain Yossarian from Catch 22.- The Liberal Catch-22 - ABC News (Australian Broadcasting Corporation) 10 February 2010 13:013 UTC www.abc.net.au [Source type: Original source]
^ Being well positioned when that shift happens is not a Catch-22 it's a shrewd political move, as Abbot well knows and Uhlmann plainly doesn't.- The Liberal Catch-22 - ABC News (Australian Broadcasting Corporation) 10 February 2010 13:013 UTC www.abc.net.au [Source type: Original source]
.^ That's some Catch: Captain Yossarian from Catch 22.- The Liberal Catch-22 - ABC News (Australian Broadcasting Corporation) 10 February 2010 13:013 UTC www.abc.net.au [Source type: Original source]
^ Yossarian was moved very deeply by the absolute simplicity of the clause of Catch-22 and let out a respectful whistle.
^ "Yossarian was moved very deeply by the absolute simplicity of this clause of Catch-22 and let out a respectful whistle.- The Liberal Catch-22 - ABC News (Australian Broadcasting Corporation) 10 February 2010 13:013 UTC www.abc.net.au [Source type: Original source]
.^ "It's the best there is," Doc Daneeka agreed.- The Liberal Catch-22 - ABC News (Australian Broadcasting Corporation) 10 February 2010 13:013 UTC www.abc.net.au [Source type: Original source]
- Daily Kos: Catch-22: How Can "Unacknowledged" Targets Have Standing to Challenge Secret Programs? 6 February 2010 10:50 UTC www.dailykos.com [Source type: Original source]
.^ At the heart of Joseph Heller's novel Catch-22 is a brilliant paradox: if you plead insanity to avoid suicidal bombing missions then you must be sane and can't be excused.- The Liberal Catch-22 - ABC News (Australian Broadcasting Corporation) 10 February 2010 13:013 UTC www.abc.net.au [Source type: Original source]
.^ There was only one catch and that was Catch-22, that specified that a concern for one's own safety in the face of dangers that were real and immediate was the process of a rational mind.
^ "There was only one catch and that was Catch-22, which specified that a concern for one's safety in the face of dangers that were real and immediate was the process of a rational mind.- The Liberal Catch-22 - ABC News (Australian Broadcasting Corporation) 10 February 2010 13:013 UTC www.abc.net.au [Source type: Original source]
.^ Catch-22 says they have a right to do anything we can't stop them from doing."
^ "They don't have to show us Catch-22," the old woman answered.
^ I really had no right to say anything."
.^ That's some Catch: Captain Yossarian from Catch 22.- The Liberal Catch-22 - ABC News (Australian Broadcasting Corporation) 10 February 2010 13:013 UTC www.abc.net.au [Source type: Original source]
^ What does it mean, Catch-22?
^ Yossarian was moved very deeply by the absolute simplicity of the clause of Catch-22 and let out a respectful whistle.
.^ There is no other way.- Daily Kos: Catch-22: How Can "Unacknowledged" Targets Have Standing to Challenge Secret Programs? 6 February 2010 10:50 UTC www.dailykos.com [Source type: Original source]
^ There's no two way about it."
^ Recommended by: InquisitiveRaven , leonard145b Does this mean that no advocacy group ie AARP,NAACP etc can bring suit because they were not directly harmed?- Daily Kos: Catch-22: How Can "Unacknowledged" Targets Have Standing to Challenge Secret Programs? 6 February 2010 10:50 UTC www.dailykos.com [Source type: Original source]
The combination of brute force with specious legalistic justification is one of the book's primary motifs.
.^ Catch-22 - Joseph Heller Catch-22 Joseph Heller .
.^ That's some Catch: Captain Yossarian from Catch 22.- The Liberal Catch-22 - ABC News (Australian Broadcasting Corporation) 10 February 2010 13:013 UTC www.abc.net.au [Source type: Original source]
^ At the heart of Joseph Heller's novel Catch-22 is a brilliant paradox: if you plead insanity to avoid suicidal bombing missions then you must be sane and can't be excused.- The Liberal Catch-22 - ABC News (Australian Broadcasting Corporation) 10 February 2010 13:013 UTC www.abc.net.au [Source type: Original source]
^ "Yossarian was moved very deeply by the absolute simplicity of this clause of Catch-22 and let out a respectful whistle.- The Liberal Catch-22 - ABC News (Australian Broadcasting Corporation) 10 February 2010 13:013 UTC www.abc.net.au [Source type: Original source]
Synopsis
The development of the novel can be split into multiple segments.
.^ Hurley asks why and Des flashes through his visions once more before saying "Someone's coming."- Catch-22 - Jate - Jack and Kate Wiki 10 February 2010 13:013 UTC jate.wikia.com [Source type: Original source]
The fourth (chapters 25-28) flashes back to the origins and growth of
Milo’s syndicate, with the fifth part (chapter 28-32) returning again to the narrative "present" but keeping to the same tone of the previous four.
.^ I think it's part of their training that it's important for them to remain in control at all times.- Daily Kos: Catch-22: How Can "Unacknowledged" Targets Have Standing to Challenge Secret Programs? 6 February 2010 10:50 UTC www.dailykos.com [Source type: Original source]
^ General to appoint a Special Prosecutor to look into all the crime and corruption of the last 8 yrs, by the time they take office?- Daily Kos: Catch-22: How Can "Unacknowledged" Targets Have Standing to Challenge Secret Programs? 6 February 2010 10:50 UTC www.dailykos.com [Source type: Original source]
[3]
While the previous five parts develop the novel in the present and by use of flash-backs, it is in chapters 32-41 of the sixth and final part where the novel significantly darkens. Previously the reader had been cushioned from experiencing the full horror of events, but now the events are laid bare, allowing the full effect to take place.
.^ You know, someone who was killed in the war, like Clevinger, Orr, Dobbs, Kid Sampson or McWatt."
^ Yossarian ran to get Hungry Joe, who was sleeping like a baby.
^ "I've got it all worked out," Dobbs whispered, gripping the side of Orr's cot with white-knuckled hands to constrain them from waving.
[3]
Style
.^ It's about the optimal policy and that this is more likely to be achieved with the benefit of better quality information in a post Copenhagen environment than a prior one.- The Liberal Catch-22 - ABC News (Australian Broadcasting Corporation) 10 February 2010 13:013 UTC www.abc.net.au [Source type: Original source]
^ The ALP know that and there are just as many different views within the ALP as elsewhere...- The Liberal Catch-22 - ABC News (Australian Broadcasting Corporation) 10 February 2010 13:013 UTC www.abc.net.au [Source type: Original source]
.^ Des turns back to him and tells him that he saw a sequence of events but he doesn't know how they fit together.- Catch-22 - Jate - Jack and Kate Wiki 10 February 2010 13:013 UTC jate.wikia.com [Source type: Original source]
Specific words, phrases, and questions are also repeated frequently, generally to comic effect.
.^ At the heart of Joseph Heller's novel Catch-22 is a brilliant paradox: if you plead insanity to avoid suicidal bombing missions then you must be sane and can't be excused.- The Liberal Catch-22 - ABC News (Australian Broadcasting Corporation) 10 February 2010 13:013 UTC www.abc.net.au [Source type: Original source]
Heller revels in
paradox, for example:
The Texan turned out to be good-natured, generous and likable. ., and
The case against Clevinger was open and shut.^ We may get this answered in this case or the 9th Circuit cases, but is is not a traditional standing question because the government's position is, in essence, that no one has standing.It is not that these plaintiffs lack standing, but that all potential plaintiffs lack standing.- Daily Kos: Catch-22: How Can "Unacknowledged" Targets Have Standing to Challenge Secret Programs? 6 February 2010 10:50 UTC www.dailykos.com [Source type: Original source]
^ I wonder if there's a theory under which a state could become one of the plaintiffs in a suit against the violations of FISA. .- Daily Kos: Catch-22: How Can "Unacknowledged" Targets Have Standing to Challenge Secret Programs? 6 February 2010 10:50 UTC www.dailykos.com [Source type: Original source]
^ I suppose, one could report to the police that one has committed murder, but if no one else complains, and if no names are given, they will simply send you on your way.- Daily Kos: Catch-22: How Can "Unacknowledged" Targets Have Standing to Challenge Secret Programs? 6 February 2010 10:50 UTC www.dailykos.com [Source type: Original source]
The only thing missing was something to charge him with. This atmosphere of apparent logical irrationality pervades the whole book.
While a few characters are most prominent, notably Yossarian and the Chaplain, the majority of named characters are described in a typical extent, with fully fleshed out or multidimensional personas, to the extent that there are few if any "minor characters".
Major themes
.^ Personally, as some others have said, I don't think that the next Liberal PM is even in the parliament yet.- The Liberal Catch-22 - ABC News (Australian Broadcasting Corporation) 10 February 2010 13:013 UTC www.abc.net.au [Source type: Original source]
.^ Yossarian went to the officers' club that night and stayed very late.
^ They bombed all four squadrons, the officer's club and the Group Headquarters building.
.^ Yossarian shouted anxiously at Doc Daneeka as he ran up, breathless and limp, his somber eyes burning with a misty, hectic anguish.
^ Yossarian gawked at Doc Daneeka in grotesque dismay.
^ "Give Yossarian all the dried fruit and fruit juices he wants," Doc Daneeka had written.
.^ "But suppose everybody on our side felt that way?"
^ "Then I'd certainly be a damned fool to feel any other way.
^ "But, Yossarian, suppose everyone felt that way."
Wouldn’t I?"
.^ It was almost no trick at all, he saw, to turn vice into virtue and slander into truth, impotence into abstinence, arrogance into humility, plunder into philanthropy, thievery into honor, blasphemy into wisdom, brutality into patriotism, and sadism into justice.
^ Yossarian left money in the old woman's lap - it was odd how many wrongs leaving money seemed to right...
^ But when the government asserts that the information necessary to establish the right to seek such relief if not required to be disclosed, it is free to disregard the law and the Constitution.- Daily Kos: Catch-22: How Can "Unacknowledged" Targets Have Standing to Challenge Secret Programs? 6 February 2010 10:50 UTC www.dailykos.com [Source type: Original source]
When Major Major asks why he wouldn't fly more missions, Yossarian answers:
"'I’m afraid.'
'That’s nothing to be ashamed of,' Major Major counseled him kindly. 'We’re all afraid.'
'I’m not ashamed,’ Yossarian said. ‘I’m just afraid.'"
.^ Its simply that the other party is voted out.- The Liberal Catch-22 - ABC News (Australian Broadcasting Corporation) 10 February 2010 13:013 UTC www.abc.net.au [Source type: Original source]
^ Something like that is needed to track discovery rules, so that one party can't be forced to fail to meet its initial burden of proof simply because of the intransigence of the other party.- Daily Kos: Catch-22: How Can "Unacknowledged" Targets Have Standing to Challenge Secret Programs? 6 February 2010 10:50 UTC www.dailykos.com [Source type: Original source]
^ But again, the Federalist Society types don't seem likely to grant such limited discovery even if it is only for the purposes of establishing standing.- Daily Kos: Catch-22: How Can "Unacknowledged" Targets Have Standing to Challenge Secret Programs? 6 February 2010 10:50 UTC www.dailykos.com [Source type: Original source]
Heller suggests that bureaucracies often lead organizations, especially when run by bad or insane people, to trivialize important matters (e.g., those affecting life and death), and to grossly exaggerate the importance of trivial matters (e.g., clerical errors). Everyone in the book, even Yossarian at the beginning, is behaving insanely in their clerical decisions.
While the (official) enemies are the Germans, no German ever actually appears in the story as an enemy combatant.
.^ "I've got more than your dose of clap," Yossarian told him.
^ If I can persuade the Germans to pay me a thousand dollars for every plane they shoot down, why shouldn't I take it?"
This ironic situation is epitomized in the single appearance of German personnel in the novel, who act as pilots employed by a private entrepreneur working within the United States military. This predicament indicates a tension between traditional motives for violence and the modern economic machine, which seems to generate violence simply as another means to profit, quite independent of geographical or ideological constraints.
.^ All he had to do was ask; and as soon as he did, he would no longer be crazy and would have to fly more missions...- The Liberal Catch-22 - ABC News (Australian Broadcasting Corporation) 10 February 2010 13:013 UTC www.abc.net.au [Source type: Original source]
^ They continue on for a ways before Hurley collapses on the ground and says that he's going to have a coronary.- Catch-22 - Jate - Jack and Kate Wiki 10 February 2010 13:013 UTC jate.wikia.com [Source type: Original source]
^ Hockey is only marginally more electable than Abbott, but he stands for something more decent and reasonable than the fascist hacks that stand to benefit from Turnbull's demise.- The Liberal Catch-22 - ABC News (Australian Broadcasting Corporation) 10 February 2010 13:013 UTC www.abc.net.au [Source type: Original source]
He comes to despair of ever going home and is greatly relieved when he is sent to the hospital for a condition that is almost
jaundice. In Yossarian's words:
.^ "What have you and Colonel Cathcart got to do with my country?
^ "The enemy," resorted Yossarian with weighted precision, "is anybody who's going to get you killed, no matter which side he's on, and that includes Colonel Cathcart.
^ "He's talking to you," Colonel Korn whispered over Colonel Cathcart's shoulder from behind, jabbing his elbow sharply into Colonel Cathcart's back.
.^ Don't be so afraid of dying that you forget to live.- Daily Kos: Catch-22: How Can "Unacknowledged" Targets Have Standing to Challenge Secret Programs? 6 February 2010 10:50 UTC www.dailykos.com [Source type: Original source]
^ Don't you remember, sir?
^ You might live to be a hundred and seven too."
(Chapter 12)
List of motifs:
- Sanity and insanity [4]
- Heroes and heroism [4]
- Absurdity and inefficiency of bureaucracy [4]
- Power of bureaucracy [5]
- Questioning/Loss of religious faith [5]
- Impotence of language [5]
- Inevitability of death [5]
- Distortion of justice [6]
- Concept of Catch-22 [6]
- Greed [6]
- Personal integrity [6]
- Capital and its amorality[7]
- Fallibility of medicine[citation needed]
Characters
Influences
Although Heller always had a desire to be an author from an early age, his own experiences as a
bombardier during World War II strongly influenced
Catch-22;
[8] however, Heller later said that he had "never had a bad officer."
In 1998, some critics raised the possibility that Heller's book had questionable similarities to Louis Falstein's 1950 novel,
Face of a Hero.
.^ Catch-22 - Joseph Heller Catch-22 Joseph Heller .
^ At the heart of Joseph Heller's novel Catch-22 is a brilliant paradox: if you plead insanity to avoid suicidal bombing missions then you must be sane and can't be excused.- The Liberal Catch-22 - ABC News (Australian Broadcasting Corporation) 10 February 2010 13:013 UTC www.abc.net.au [Source type: Original source]
Instead, Heller stated that the novel had been influenced by
Céline,
Waugh and
Nabokov.
.^ Yes, I'm quite certain Italy will survive this war and still be in existence long after your own country has been destroyed."
[10]
Allusions/references to other works
Iliad and Odyssey
Heller casts Yossarian as a modern day, anti-heroic version of
Homer's epic hero
Achilles, from the
Iliad.
[12][13] Both works begin with the central character refusing to fight. But whereas Achilles heroically re-enters combat in response to the death of his best friend
Patroclus, Yossarian is anti-heroically goaded back to combat early on by mere bureaucratic pressure.
.^ He has to fly more missions.
^ "What the devil do you mean, he won't fly any more missions?
^ All he had to do was ask; and as soon as he did, he would no longer be crazy and would have to fly more missions.
Achilles is promised either fame
or a long life, and chooses fame; Yossarian, conversely, chooses life.
.^ "Who does he think he is - Archilles?
.^ "Very critical times indeed," Colonel Korn agreed with a placid nod.
^ "A man was killed in his plane over Avignon last week and bled all over him," Colonel Korn reported directly to General Dreedle.
^ Colonel Cargill came storming into General Peckem's office a minute later in a furor of timid resentment.
The comparison is made more subtly in a description of the chaplain's feeling of
déjà vu:
.^ "I've got more than your dose of clap," Yossarian told him.
^ On the other hand, I see Rudd as nothing more than a vacuous entity of smoke and mirrors, so could neither support Labor.- The Liberal Catch-22 - ABC News (Australian Broadcasting Corporation) 10 February 2010 13:013 UTC www.abc.net.au [Source type: Original source]
^ It's about the optimal policy and that this is more likely to be achieved with the benefit of better quality information in a post Copenhagen environment than a prior one.- The Liberal Catch-22 - ABC News (Australian Broadcasting Corporation) 10 February 2010 13:013 UTC www.abc.net.au [Source type: Original source]
Heller here alludes to Book XI of
Homer's epic, the
Odyssey,
[citation needed] in which the hero
Odysseus has descended to the spirit world of
Hades and met the dead
Achilles. Achilles asks Odysseus for news of the living, which Odysseus provides. In contrast, the chaplain cannot help Yossarian.
The differences between Achilles and Yossarian are explained by other literary influences for Yossarian's character:
They couldn’t touch him because he was Tarzan, Mandrake, Flash Gordon. He was Bill Shakespeare. He was Cain, Ulysses, the Flying Dutchman; he was Lot in Sodom, Deirdre of the Sorrows, Sweeney in the nightingales among trees.
Crime and Punishment
"You're crazy," Clevinger shouted vehemently, his eyes filling with tears. "You've got a Jehovah complex."
"I think everyone is Nathaniel."
Clevinger arrested himself in mid-declamation, suspiciously. "Who's Nathaniel?"
"Nathaniel who?" inquired Yossarian innocently.
Clevinger skirted the trap neatly. "You think everybody is Jehovah.
.^ We have no right to question -" "You're insane!"
^ "The enemy," resorted Yossarian with weighted precision, "is anybody who's going to get you killed, no matter which side he's on, and that includes Colonel Cathcart.
^ Well at least I'm going to come out of this war alive, which is a lot of than you're going to do."
"—yes, Raskolnikov, who—"
"Raskolnikov!"
.^ It will take many months for this process to unfold, and there's probably no better than a 50/50 shot that the Supremes will ultimately enforce the subpoenas at that point.- Daily Kos: Catch-22: How Can "Unacknowledged" Targets Have Standing to Challenge Secret Programs? 6 February 2010 10:50 UTC www.dailykos.com [Source type: Original source]
^ I'm a lawyer from the era in which the old 5th Circuit was the answer to almost every segregation issue, and the judicial branch could actually affect life for the better.- Daily Kos: Catch-22: How Can "Unacknowledged" Targets Have Standing to Challenge Secret Programs? 6 February 2010 10:50 UTC www.dailykos.com [Source type: Original source]
"—yes, justify, that’s right—with an ax! And I can prove it to you!"
.^ I make her wear it some night when Moodus is around just to drive him crazy."
^ Clevinger agreed with ex-P.F.C. Wintergreen that it was Yossarian's job to get killed over Bologna and was livid with condemnation when Yossarian confessed that it was he who had moved the bomb line and caused the mission to be canceled.
Near the climax of the novel, during Yossarian's harrowing walk through
Rome, the comparison with Raskolnikov is again made:
He heard snarling, inhuman voices cutting through the ghostly blackness in front suddenly ... On the other side of the intersection, a man was beating a dog with a stick like the man who was beating the horse with a whip in Raskolnikov's dream. Yossarian strained helplessly not to see or hear ... A small crowd watched.
.^ When I see him coming I'll shove a big log out into the road to make him stop his jeep.
^ "That's one of the reasons I never let him out of my sight, just so he can't get to a woman.
^ Then I'll step out of the bushes with my Luger and shoot him in the head until he's dead.
"Mind your own business," the man barked gruffly, lifting his stick as though he might beat her too ... Yossarian quickened his pace to get away, almost ran ... At the next corner a man was beating a small boy brutally in the midst of an immobile crowd ... Yossarian recoiled with sickening recognition. He was certain he had witnessed that same horrible scene sometime before.
Déjà vu?
Other works
So many things were testing his faith. There was the Bible, of course, but the Bible was a book, and so were
Bleak House,
Treasure Island,
Ethan Frome and
The Last of the Mohicans.
.^ She rested against him and cried until she seemed too weak to cry any longer, and did not look at him once until he extended his handkerchief when she had finished.
Had Almighty God, in all His infinite wisdom, really been afraid that men six thousand years ago would succeed in building a tower to heaven?
New Testament references to the life of Christ abound in the final chapters. When Yossarian returns to "The Eternal City," he finds it a hell, filled with starving children, beggars, people beating and raping each other.
.^ "He's talking to you," Colonel Korn whispered over Colonel Cathcart's shoulder from behind, jabbing his elbow sharply into Colonel Cathcart's back.
^ Colonel Korn inquired with sarcastic seriousness, mocking Colonel Cathcart.
^ "These are very critical times," Colonel Cathcart asserted petulantly from a far corner of the office, paying no attention to Colonel Korn.
They will send him back to America if he will only agree to like them. (The Devil offered Christ salvation if he would bow down and worship him.)
.^ When Yossarian returned the salute, the private in green fatigues turned suddenly into Nately's whore and lunged at him murderously with a bone-handled kitchen knife...
^ Nately's death, in fact, almost killed Yossarian too, for when he broke the news to Nately's whore in Rome she uttered a piercing heartbroken shriek and tried to stab him to death with a potato peeler.
Yossarian, like Christ, achieves resurrection when he learns that Orr has not died but has rowed to Sweden. This gives Yossarian the power to rise up and head for Sweden and safety himself.
If they pricked him did he not bleed? ...
.^ Recommended by: RickWn , cotterperson , WI Deadhead , frandor55 , possum reading the stories about the appellate decision, but it seemed so obvious that it never occurred to me to diary it.- Daily Kos: Catch-22: How Can "Unacknowledged" Targets Have Standing to Challenge Secret Programs? 6 February 2010 10:50 UTC www.dailykos.com [Source type: Original source]
^ I just assumed you would want the enlisted men to be present, since they would be going along on the same mission."
.^ Some men are born mediocre, some men achieve mediocrity, and some men have mediocrity thrust upon them.
The chapter "Havermyer" alludes to the poem
Dover Beach by
Matthew Arnold, using verbatim the final phrase of the poem: "ignorant armies clashed by night."
.^ "Flying combat missions for General Dreedle is not exactly what I had in mind," he [General Peckem] explained indulgently with a smooth laugh.
Explanation of the novel's title
The title is a reference to a fictional bureaucratic stipulation which embodies multiple forms of illogical and immoral reasoning. That the catch is named exposes the high level of absurdity in the novel, where bureaucratic nonsense has risen to a level at which even the catches are codified with numbers.
A magazine excerpt from the novel was originally published as
Catch-18, but Heller's agent, Candida Donadio, requested that it change the title of the novel so it would not be confused with another recently published World War II novel,
Leon Uris's
Mila 18. The number
18 has special meaning in
Judaism (it means
life in
Gematria) and was relevant to early drafts of the novel which had a somewhat greater Jewish emphasis.
[14]
The title
Catch-11 was suggested, with the duplicated 1 paralleling the repetition found in a number of character exchanges in the novel, but because of the release of the 1960 movie
Ocean's Eleven this was also rejected.
.^ "How did you know it was Catch-22?
[14]
A 1950s/early 1960s anthology of war stories included a short version as "Catch-17".
[15]
Literary significance and criticism
.^ Catch-22 - Joseph Heller Catch-22 Joseph Heller .
.^ "Very critical times indeed," Colonel Korn agreed with a placid nod.
^ "These are very critical times," Colonel Cathcart asserted petulantly from a far corner of the office, paying no attention to Colonel Korn.
.^ Because Americans were born in freedom, we have a hard time even considering that it is possible for us to become as un-free - domestically - as many other nations.- Daily Kos: Catch-22: How Can "Unacknowledged" Targets Have Standing to Challenge Secret Programs? 6 February 2010 10:50 UTC www.dailykos.com [Source type: Original source]
[16]
.^ The wierdest part was when they tested my carry-ons for explosive residue, and another time when they questioned whether a Black and Decker tool battery was an explosive.- Daily Kos: Catch-22: How Can "Unacknowledged" Targets Have Standing to Challenge Secret Programs? 6 February 2010 10:50 UTC www.dailykos.com [Source type: Original source]
[2] Scholar and fellow World War II veteran
Hugh Nibley said it was the most accurate book he ever read about the military.
[17]
Rankings
- The Modern Library ranked Catch-22 as number 7 (by review panel) and as number 12 (by public) on its list of the greatest English language novels of the twentieth century.[18]
- The Radcliffe Publishing Course ranked Catch-22 as number 15 of the twentieth century's top 100 novels. .
- The Observer listed Catch-22 as one of the 100 greatest novels of all time.^ There was only one catch and that was Catch-22, that specified that a concern for one's own safety in the face of dangers that were real and immediate was the process of a rational mind.
^ Recommended by: KenBee The OP is clearly on the "no fly" list because 19 times in a row is just not random.- Daily Kos: Catch-22: How Can "Unacknowledged" Targets Have Standing to Challenge Secret Programs? 6 February 2010 10:50 UTC www.dailykos.com [Source type: Original source]
^ All they kept saying was 'Catch-22, Catch-22.'
.
- Time puts Catch-22 in the top 100 English language modern novels (1923 onwards, unranked).^ The first time I catch him putting a hand on her or any other woman I'll bust that horny bastard right down to private and put him on K.P. for a year.
[21]
- The Big Read by the BBC ranked Catch-22 as number 11 on a web poll of the UK's best-loved book. [22]
Adaptations
.^ Catch-22 - Joseph Heller Catch-22 Joseph Heller .
^ There was only one catch and that was Catch-22, that specified that a concern for one's own safety in the face of dangers that were real and immediate was the process of a rational mind.
Yossarian.
[24]
Catch 22 is also the name of a ska band from New Jersey that takes the name of the book.
Release details
.^ If Congress had the votes (huge if), could they pass a bill removing classification from all wiretaps not covered by FISA or by other warrants?- Daily Kos: Catch-22: How Can "Unacknowledged" Targets Have Standing to Challenge Secret Programs? 6 February 2010 10:50 UTC www.dailykos.com [Source type: Original source]
Other print publishers include;
Dell, Corgi,
Vintage,
Knopf, Black Swan, Grasset & Fasquelle and Wahlström & Widstrand.
- 1961, Simon & Schuster ISBN 0-671-12805-1, pub date June 1961, Hardback
- 1961, Simon & Schuster ISBN 0-440-51120-8, advance Paperback with signed bookplate
- 1978, Franklin Library ISBN 0-8124-1717-8, signed limited edition Leather Bound
- 1984, Caedmon Audio ISBN 0-694-50253-7, Audio Cassette
- 1996, Simon & Schuster ISBN 0-684-83339-5, pub date September 1996 Paperback
- 1980, Books On Tape ISBN 0-7366-8962-1, unabridged Audio Cassette reader Wolfram Kandinsky
- 1980, Books On Tape ISBN 0-7366-9085-9, unabridged Audio CD reader Jim Weiss
- 1994, DH Audio ISBN 0-88646-125-1, abridged edition Audio Cassette reader Alan Arkin
- 1999, Simon & Schuster ISBN 0-684-86513-0, pub date October 1999, Hardback
- 2007, Caedmon ISBN 9780061262463, unabridged Audio CD reader Jay O. Sanders
See also
Notes and references
- ^ Paul Bacon cover artist
- ^ a b "What is Catch-22? And why does the book matter?" BBC
- ^ a b Clinton S. Burhans, Jr. Spindrift and the Sea: Structural Patterns and Unifying Elements in Catch 22. Twentieth Century Literature, Vol. 19, No. 4, pp. 239-250, 1973. JSTOR online access
- ^ a b c Catch-22 Themes BookRags
- ^ a b c d Catch-22 Themes, Motifs and Symbols SparkNotes
- ^ a b c d Catch-22 Themes CliffsNotes
- ^ DEADLY UNCONSCIOUS LOGICS IN JOSEPH HELLER’S CATCH-22, RM Young - Psychoanalytic Review, 1997
- ^ DM Craig. From Avignon to Catch-22. War, Literature, and the Arts 6, no. 2, 1994 pp27-54.
- ^ Personal testimony by Arnošt Lustig
- ^ [1]
- ^ Random House ISBN 978-0-09-947046-5 Vintage Classics
- ^ Charlie Reilly, An Interview with Joseph Heller, Contemporary Literature, Vol. 39, No. 4. 1998, pp. 507-522.
- ^ Quote taken from Melvin Seiden, in The Nation, 1961
- ^ a b N James. "The Early Composition History of Catch-22". In Biographies of Books: The Compositional Histories of Notable American Writings, J Barbour, T Quirk (edi.) pp. 262-290. Columbia: University of Missouri Press, 1996.
- ^ Anthology formerly in the possession of this Wikipedian.
- ^ The Internet Public Library: Online Literary Criticism Collection
- ^ Hugh Nibley and Alex Nibley, Sergeant Nibley PhD.: Memories of an Unlikely Screaming Eagle, Salt Lake City: Shadow Mountain, 2006, p. 255
- ^ http://www.randomhouse.com/modernlibrary/100bestnovels.html Modern Library's 100 best novels of the twentieth century
- ^ Radcliffe Publishing Course: the twentieth century's top 100 novels
- ^ The Observer's greatest novels of all time
- ^ Time's top 100 English language modern novels
- ^ The BBC's Big Read
- ^ Phythyon Jr., John. R. (2008-03-02). "‘Catch-22’ a nearly perfect adaptation". The Lawrence Journal-World & News. http://www2.ljworld.com/news/2008/mar/02/catch22_nearly_perfect_adaptation.
- ^ Catch-22 at the Internet Movie Database
- ^ Heller archive, Brandeis University
External links