Catch‐22 Reading Guide ‘Catch‐22 n. 1. a situation in which a person is frustrated by a paradoxical rule or set of circumstances that preclude any attempt to escape from them. 2 a situation in which any move that a person can make will lead to trouble (C20: from the title of a novel (1961) by J. Heller)’ (Collins) Synopsis Joseph Heller began work on Catch-22, the story of a US airman’s attempts to survive the madness of the Second World War, shortly after returning from the conflict himself. The son of Russian Jewish immigrants to the United States, Heller had joined the US Air Force in 1942 at the age of nineteen, going on to fly sixty bombing missions against enemy targets over southern Europe. After the war, while working as an advertising copywriter, he spent seven years writing a novel that reflected his experience, and what he saw as the insanity of military life. The book - which was originally titled Catch-18 - tells the story of Captain Joseph Yossarian, a member of a US bomber crew stationed on the Mediterranean island of Pianosa. Yossarian is convinced that the military is trying to get him killed, and that those around him are insane, and he spends the course of book trying to get out of flying any more seemingly suicidal missions. Yossarian is surrounded by a cast of bizarre characters, including Colonel Scheisskopf, who is obsessed with military parades at the expense of just about everything else, the newly promoted Major Major, Major, Major, who spends most of the war trying to hide from his men, and the profiteer Lieutenant Milo Minderbinder, a pure capitalist whose only ambition is to make money out of the war, and who ends up charging a commission on every military engagement. Using satire, black humour and seemingly undefeatable logic, the book argues that war is insane, that the military is insane, and that, quite probably, modern life itself is insane too. Critical Reception ‘The greatest satirical work in the English language’ Observer ‘In Yossarian, Joseph Heller minted a counter‐culture Everyman for the late 20th century’ William Sutcliffe, Independent ‘My all‐time favourite war novel’ Andy McNab, Spectator ‘Catch‐22 is about World War Two but is prophetic about Korea and Vietnam... Heller’s hilarious novel is dedicated to the desire of the ordinary man to live through the madness and come through alive’ Anthony Burgess ‘I was thrilled by its joyous iconoclastic atheism, its cynicism, its imaginative breadth, its human warmth’ Andrew Davies, Independent ‘A hilarious but savage indictment of the mechanised military system that came to define the anti‐ Vietnam generation... Heller’s dazzling, surreal achievement is undimmed’ Guardian ‘I liked it very much indeed... Extraordinary’ Graham Greene, 1962 ‘The most striking debut in American fiction since The Catcher in the Rye’ Kenneth Tynan, Observer, 1962 ‘Written with brilliance. Echoes with mad laughter’ Time, 1961 ‘One of the most bitterly funny works in the language... Explosive, bitter, subversive, brilliant’ New Republic, 1961 ‘This novel is not merely the best American novel to come out of World War Two, it is the best American novel that has come out of anywhere in years’ Nation, 1961 ‘It is an original. There’s no book like it’ Normal Mailer, Esquire, 1961 Biography ‘We do have a zeal for laughter in most situations, give or take a dentist’ Joseph Heller Joseph Heller was born in 1923 in Brooklyn, New York. He served as a bombardier in the Second World War and then attended New York University, Columbia University and then Oxford, the latter on a Fullbright scholarship. He then taught for two years at Pennsylvania State University, before returning to New York, where he began a successful career in the advertising departments of Time, Look and McCall’s magazines. It was during this time that he had the idea for Catch‐22. Working on the novel in spare moments and evenings at home, it took him eight years to complete and was first published in 1961. His second novel, Something Happened, was published in 1974, Good As Gold in 1979 and Closing Time in 1994. He is also the author of the play We Bombed in New Haven. Author Interview From ‘Joseph Heller in Conversation with Mark Lawson’ (South Bank Centre) March 1998 His voice is raw and growly, like a Coney Island ice cream vendor’s. He is an old man now with snowy white hair and his genial demeanour is that of a man who has long basked in the steady sunlight of self‐approval. Hell’s bells, why not though? Who else wrote Catch‐22? What other novel has been in print continuously for nigh on 40 years? Heller’s in England this week and Mark Lawson, a journalist, treats him reverentially. Isn’t the way that he writes his novels quite unique? Lawson prompts. Heller guffaws at that. Of course it is – like much else about him. The novels never begin with plans – nothing so simple or unoriginal as that. Every one of them has begun with a sentence leaping into his head, demanding to be written down before it disappears. This is the way Heller works, then: he sits back in the sun and waits for a sentence. Then he chips away at the thing, maybe 300 words a day, for year after year if necessary – the follow‐up to Catch‐22 took 13 years. He has no regrets that he hasn’t written more books. Frankly, he tells us, ‘I don’t know what books I’d have written if I’d had more time. Ideas come one at a time…’ And, yes, generally speaking, he had a good time as a bombardier in the war – in spite of what Yossarian may have intimated. He may have won the war against Hitler, but he lost the war of independence by taking a job. Heller smiles and quotes himself: ‘If we’re not careful, we grow up into the kind of people we used to despise.’ The legacy ‘When I read something saying I’ve not done anything as good as Catch-22 I’m tempted to reply, “Who has?”’ Joseph Heller Catch‐22 is set in World War Two but was published in 1961 at the time of the Vietnam War, the year that John Kennedy was sworn in as president of the United States. Initial reviews were mixed, but within two years it had developed a cult following. Since then it has sold 10 million copies in America alone, it is one of the bestselling novels of the century, and its title has fallen into common usage. Yossarian’s war illustrated a world in which the only way out was to go crazy, and to go crazy in such circumstances was proof of sanity. The catch, wrote Heller, ‘was the process of a rational mind’. ‘When Catch‐22 came out, people were saying, “Well, World War II wasn’t like this.” But when we got tangled up in Vietnam, it became a sort of text for the consciousness of that time. They say fiction can’t change anything, but it can certainly organize a generation’s consciousness.’ E. L. Doctorow Cast of Characters John Yossarian A 28‐year‐old Captain and B‐25 bombardier in the 256th Bombardment Squadron of the Army Air Corps, stationed on the small island of Pianosa off the Italian mainland during World War Two. Captain AardvarK Captain Aardvark (called Aarfy) is the navigator in Yossarian’s B‐25 bomber. He is oblivious to incoming flak, repeatedly gets lost on missions, and always smokes a pipe. Chaplain Tappman Tappman is a naïve Anabaptist minister who is tormented throughout the novel by his rude, manipulative assistant, Corporal Whitcomb. Easily intimidated by the cruelty of others, the chaplain is a kind, gentle and sensitive man who worries constantly about his wife and children at home. Colonel Cathcart A full colonel, Cathcart is a group commander at the U S Army Air Corps base in Pianosa and is obsessed with becoming a general. As such, he does whatever it takes to please his superiors, in particular by repeatedly raising the number of missions the men have to fly to complete a tour of duty beyond that normally required by other outfits. Doctor DaneeKa Doc Daneeka is the squadron physician and a friend of Yossarian. Doc Daneeka’s main motivation is for his own welfare, whether that be making money or protecting his own life. He generally forgets his moral duty as a physician except in the most extreme of circumstances. Milo Minderbinder Milo is the mess officer at the U S Army Air Corps base obsessed with expanding mess operations and trading goods for the profits of the syndicate. Snowden Snowden is a member of Yossarian's flight during a mission. His death leaves a lasting impression on Yossarian. Further resources • Interview with Heller from 40th anniversary: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kan1Ez5YIjI • Older archive interview on Picture This: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IHeBr1BsuJw • Kurt Vonnegut and Joseph Heller in conversation http://www.vonnegutweb.com/vonnegutia/interviews/int_heller.html • Little known facts about Catch‐22: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YSFCC1D6R2Y Suggested Further Reading Something Happened, Joseph Heller Slaughterhouse 5, Kurt Vonnegut The Thin Red Line, James Jones Questions for Discussion 1. Catch‐22 is often cited as one of the greatest novels of the twentieth century. Do you agree? 2. One definition of a classic is a book that has meaning for each generation of readers. fifty years after publication, is Catch‐22 relevant? 3.