Wednesday, May 11, 2011

"There's a dead man in my tent"

Otherwise known as the review of Catch 22 by Joseph Heller.

This is one of the funniest books retrospectively I have read in a long time. It didn't make me laugh out loud during reading but looking back on the book as a whole it's pretty bonkers!

The book is set in WW2 in an American Air Force camp based in Italy and follows various different characters who fill in bits of the story which don't always make sense from another character's perspective.

So why did I find it funny? It was the complete lunacy which runs throughout the book. The enlisted men are seen as savage creatures, as opposed to those who were already in service before the war. At one point the chaplain explains that the enlisted men believe in the same God as the officers and should also take part in the prayer sessions. The Colonel is horrified and promptly cancels them!
Another character is declared legally dead by a commanding officer, even though he is alive and quite well and stood right next to him, because according to the records he was in a plane that crashed.

It could be seen as a bit sexist as the only women in the book are whores, and even the nurses are treated as the same but just go with it - there's a twist in the tale!

If you are even slightly anti-establishment or revel in seeing a perfect system being unravelled this book is for you. One recommendation is go through it a chapter at a time, don't stop in the middle of a chapter because it causes great confusion when you're reading about the same event for the second time.

Has anyone else read it?

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