|
Catch-22 (平装)
by Joseph Heller
| Category:
Fiction |
| Market price: ¥ 178.00
MSL price:
¥ 158.00
[ Shop incentives ]
|
| Stock:
In Stock |
MSL rating:
 Good for Gifts |
| MSL Pointer Review:
Brilliantly written and fiirst published in 1961, Catch-22 is a timeless classic satire on the murderous insanity of war. |
| If you want us to help you with the right titles you're looking for, or to make reading recommendations based on your needs, please contact our consultants. |
|
| |
AllReviews |
1 Total 1 pages 10 items |
|
|
Chicago Sun-Times (MSL quote), USA
<2007-01-05 00:00>
An apocalyptic masterpiece. |
|
|
The New Republic (MSL quote), USA
<2007-01-05 00:00>
One of the most bitterly funny works in the language... explosive, bitter, subversive, brilliant. |
|
|
John (MSL quote), USA
<2007-01-05 00:00>
A monumental artifact of contemporary American literature, almost as assured of longevity as the statues on Easter Island... Catch-22 is a novel that reminds us once again of all that we have taken for granted in our world and should not, the madness we try not to bother and notice, the deceptions and falsehoods we lack the will to try to distinguish from truth. |
|
|
, USA
<2007-01-05 00:00>
There's a war on, everyone is crazy, and none of the airmen who has flown close to the mandatory number of missions seems very happy when someone raises the number of mandatory missions. There's a way out: all a crazy airman has to do is to ask the doctor to ground him. But there's a catch.
"There was only one catch and that was Catch-22, which specified that concern for one's own safety in the face of dangers that were real and immediate was the process of a rational mind. 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. Orr would be crazy to fly more missions and sane if he didn't, but if he was sane he had to fly them. If he flew them he was crazy and didn't have to; but if he didn't want to he was sane and had to. Yossarian was moved very deeply by the absolute simplicity of this clause of Catch-22 and let out a respectful whistle."
Thus Joseph Heller introduced a new term into the English vernacular. Catch-22 is a view of the world in all its absurdity and contradiction. It's a novel that explores critical issues like war, identity, and the struggle of the individual against bureaucracy run amok - all while being tremendously funny.
The story centers around Yossarian, a bombardier trying desperately to save himself; men he knows keep dying because they're sent on one dangerous mission after another in an effort by their commanding officer to show his zeal and to be promoted.
Each chapter in the novel is entitled for a character or location in the story, allowing us to focus before moving on to the next part of the story. In this structure, we learn the absurdity of the situation, the apparent inability of anyone to stop the wheels of the bureaucracy, and the success of those who exploit it to their own ends, all while proclaiming themselves to be working for the greater good. (Everyone, after all, has a share.) Then there are the efforts to achieve recognition by the sincerity of the form-letters sent to the families of the airmen killed. And the work of a schemer trying to get his picture the Saturday Evening Post.
Some call it bitter or critical of bureaucracy. I call it an honest look at the results of consolidating power. Catch-22 is a brilliant work, well- deserving of its reputation as a classic of American literature, one of the best novels of the twentieth century, a thoughtful commentary that apparently heeds the advice offered by another brilliant explorer of the human condition from a century before.
|
|
|
Jesse Van Sant (MSL quote), USA
<2007-01-05 00:00>
Catch-22 is probably the best book I've read in a while. I could really identify with how Yossarian felt torn between his desire to remain loyal to his friends and country, and his desire to survive the war despite the arbitrary and idiotic requirements imposed upon him by superior officers whose reckless, bureaucratic ambition goes completely unchecked.
I also liked the book for its scathing critique of bureaucracy in general: Heller, with his acute sense of the absurd, delights in pointing out the ridiculous inefficiency of bureaucracy, its reliance on procedure over intelligence and creativity, its susceptibility to manipulation and abuse, and its detached indifference to the human lives it destroys.
Another remarkable aspect of Catch-22 is that some of the funniest moments in the book are also among the most disturbing, as various characters rub up against the cold machinery of bureaucracy and are helpless to resist its crushing, absurd irrationality. Probably the most famous expression of this absurdity, although certainly not the most distrubing, is Yossarion's first encounter with Catch-22, after he asks to be grounded due to insanity: in order to be grounded for insanity a pilot must ask to be grounded, but any pilot who asks to be grounded is sane, since sane people would never want to fly a deadly bombing mission.
So if you're crazy you can be grounded if you ask to be, but if you ask to be you can't be grounded, and the pilots are forced to either fly the ever-increasing number of missions arbitrarily required by an ambitious colonel for the sole purpose of earning him a promotion to general, or desert their country and leave their friends to fly their missions in their place.
In this regard Catch-22 feels slightly different than some of the more recent anti-war efforts, because bureaucracy and senseless suffering receive the novel's sharpest criticism rather than America's motives for fighting World War II. Yossarian never really questions whether fighting the war itself is the right thing to do; in fact, he would probably feel that it would be wrong not to fight the war, that there are some things worth dying for. But he is absolutely unwilling to die simply to further the ambitions of Colonel Cathcart, which is altogether different than being unwilling to die for his country.
The question then becomes how to save your own life from useless destruction without betraying your country or your friends. If your life is all you have, should you save it by any means necessary, or are some values more important than survival? Yossarian's response is to live forever or die trying. But with all that said, for me the best part of the book was just caring about Yossarian and his friends and hoping everything would come out all right in the end. Yossarian truly is one of the most likeable anti-heroes of all time, and my main thought through- out the book was simply "let Yossarian live!" Great book. |
|
|
Corey (MSL quote), USA
<2007-01-05 00:00>
Catch-22, by Joseph Heller, is the story of Yossarian, a bombardier fighting for the United States in World War II. Heller takes a lighthearted and satirical approach to address the serious topic of war. While doing this, he addresses several themes including the idea that money and power corrupt, and conveys the loss of religious faith and the overall uselessness and destructiveness of war.
Catch-22 takes place on Pianosa, a small island in the Mediterranean Sea. The reader witnesses Yossarian and his desperate attempts to get out of the war. He was once a great bombardier, but loses interest after he witnesses the death of a man on his plane. He no longer cares about the assigned missions and instead "had decided to live forever or die in the attempt, and his only mission each time he went up was to come down alive" (29). Yossarian finds himself trapped in the war due to his antagonist, Colonel Cathcart, a man so interested in being promoted that he will put other people's lives in danger. The problem is that Cathcart continually raises the number of missions required of the men in order to complete their service in the army. "They were in a race and knew it, because they knew from bitter experience that Colonel Cathcart might raise the number of missions again at any time" (27). Yossarian finds himself closing in on the number of missions he needs to get out of the war, but sees the number rise just before he can get there. He can also be excused from service if he is insane, but Catch-22 makes this option impossible. One part of Catch-22 says that a man is insane if he flies his bombing missions, but if the man says that he is insane and asks to be excused from duty, the fact that he is requesting this proves that he is in fact perfectly sane because "a concern for one's own safety in the face of dangers that were real and immediate was the process of a rational mind" (46).
Catch-22 features many separate characters, all of which have their own side stories. The book often switches from present to past to allow the reader to learn much about many of the characters. Most of the focus, however, is given to Yossarian, a character who is hard not to like and feel sorry for. The novel shows how Yossarian and the other characters spend their time in the army-both during missions and during their free time. The reader gets to witness how the characters deal with the war and watch as some of them, characters like Colonel Cathcart and the cook, Milo Minderbinder, use the war to their advantage. Catch-22 is a constant struggle by Yossarian to save his life and to stop flying bombing missions.
Catch-22 features several important themes. The first shows how power and money corrupt. Most people would hate being at war, but Colonel Catchart and Milo Minderbinder definitely do not mind. Cathcart is a man who cares about little else than being promoted. His powerful position and hunger for more power drives him to raise the number of missions his men must fly in order to complete their military service in order to impress his superiors and possibly get his promotion. Milo, on the other hand, is totally driven by money. He runs a syndicate where he is constantly buying and selling goods throughout Europe. However, he begins to lose money and is willing to do just about anything to make money back. "One night, after a sumptuous evening meal, all Milo's fighters and bombers took off, joined in formation directly overhead and began dropping bombs on the group. He had landed another contract with the Germans, this time to bomb his own outfit" (257). Both Milo and Cathcart are willing to endanger the other soldiers just to feed their appetites for money and power. Their corruption is only one of the several themes present in Catch-22.
Other ideas that are introduced in the novel are the loss of faith and the uselessness of war. After being involved in the war for so long, Yossarian has abandoned any belief in a higher being. He says, "And don't tell me God works in mysterious ways. There's nothing so mysterious about it. He's not working at all. He's playing. Or else He's forgotten all about us...What in the world was running through that warped, evil, scatological mind of His...Why in the world did He ever create pain?" (179). The war, along with the viciousness and selfishness of the people that Yossarian deals with have led him to lose any religious faith he might have had. He does not agree with the war that he is fighting in and seeing his friends die in. War, in the novel, is overall depicted as useless since there is no real reason why the men are fighting, except for the benefit of people higher up in command.
Overall, Catch-22 is an excellent book. The only complaints that could be made about it is the fact that it is sometimes difficult to follow since the plot jumps from the present to past without warning. Also, there are numerous characters with many names and military positions to get confused. However, after a while, one will get used to this and it will not be hard to finish the novel. Joseph Heller decides to depict war in a comical and satirical manner, styles that are not often used for books in the war genre. It is a very funny book, but is also deeply significant since it addresses the ideas of power, money, corruption, religion, and the uselessness and viciousness of war. It is a great read and is whole- heartedly recommended to anyone who is interested in reading a classic. |
|
|
Gallagher (MSL quote), USA
<2007-01-05 00:00>
I went into this book with mixed feelings. On the one hand, this book is widely considered a masterpiece, and friends who know my reading tastes were shocked that I hadn't read and fallen in love with this book. On the other hand, the (newer) copy of the book I read starts out with a pretty lame preface by the author: he writes about what great reviews the book got, and how well-received the book was. It's hard not to come away from such a self-congratulatory preface without a bad taste in your mouth.
So did the book live up to the hype? No, not really. Heller is exceedingly clever at times, and he displays a masterful command of the language. The characters are all top-notch - well illustrated and interesting to read about.
However, the flaws were also very apparent. Catch-22 weighs in at 452 pages; while the characters remain interesting, the zany predicaments they land themselves in become repetitious. For example, a chapter after Yossarian learns about Catch-22, he has a conversation with a prostitute, who tells him that she won't marry him because he's insane, and he's insane because he wants to marry her. I felt like I was reading a recycled joke - nowhere near the laugh-out-loud hilarity I was expecting.
The story is not told in a linear fashion - characters will talk about an event in chapter 2 that isn't described until chapter 10 - and this gives the story a meandering, episodic sitcom sort of feeling. Sometimes this works, sometimes it doesn't. So far as themes go, the book does a decent job of mixing absurd inanity with serious war-time events, but I personally feel that Vonnegut mixes tragedy and comedy far more skillfully than Heller.
Also, I thought Catch-22 would be the story of Yossarian trying to act crazy in order to bypass Catch-22, but this isn't the case. Catch-22 is really a collection of loosely-related zany incidents that Yossarian's squadron go through - the story of Catch-22 is really just one in a series of clever conversations.
Despite all my reservations, Catch-22 is still a better book than most books you'll read, and most definitely worth reading if you haven't already. I just felt that all of the unqualified praise that this book is getting needed some counterpoint.
|
|
|
Michael Mazza (MSL quote), USA
<2007-01-05 00:00>
Catch-22, by Joseph Heller, follows the activities of a World War II aviation squadron in the European theater. Much of the novel revolves around Captain Yossarian, a bombardier in the squadron. Heller has crafted an outrageous satire of the military. He mercilessly mocks many aspects of the military: rank structure, chain of command, protocol, the military justice system, the chaplaincy, the military medical establish- ment, and more. Heller's squadron and its higher headquarters form a world of cowardice, opportunism, and scheming; particularly biting is his portrait of jealousy, vanity, and self-serving ambition among the senior officers.
The book is filled with many absurd images and zany situations, as well as with characters who have such names as Major Major, Colonel Korn, and Lieutenant Scheisskopf. Heller's prose is a delight; the pages crackle and pop with clever wordplay and witty lines. The book made me laugh out loud. But the wacky comedy and merry prose style are wedded to a dark vision; the book is full of graphic violence and Kafkaesque nightmarish- ness. There are also some vividly rendered scenes of aerial combat. It's quite a remarkable blend.
The story follows Yossarian and his comrades in combat, while being treated in the hospital, during down time on their base, and on their recreational excursions into war-torn Italy. We see the relationships among the squadron members, as well as their dalliances with the women they meet during their tour. And we also learn the meaning of Catch-22, a bureacratic clause that controls the destinies of these military men. Yossarian is a compelling antihero, and Catch-22 is a richly ironic work of satire. The book has endured for decades, and is, in my judgment, more relevant than ever in the "global war on terror" era. |
|
|
An American reader (MSL quote), USA
<2007-01-05 00:00>
Catch-22 is a savagely funny, bitter, and terrifying novel. How can such diametrically opposed terms be applied to the same book? The answer is simple: Catch-22 is brilliant. The novel appears on many 'top novels' lists, and justifiably so. This anti-war satire is set in WWII and the story gravitates around Yossarian, a bombardier stationed in Europe and subjected to an ever-extended number of bombing missions. The more missions he flies, the more missions he is ordered to fly. Yossarian realizes that he will never go home, and thanks to the "spinning reasonableness" of Catch-22, he can't escape.
Surrounded by an insane military complex, with two rival generals and competing, glory-seeking colonels who "never hesitated to volunteer" the bombardiers for endless missions, Yossarian concludes, "the enemy is anyone who's going to get you killed." Behind the battles and the air strikes, there's the shadowy war profiteering system known as the Syndicate engineered by the ultra-capitalist Milo. The Syndicate places the bombing missions in as much danger as the German anti-aircraft weapons. Frozen eclairs are smuggled in by the French underground, but parachutes and morphine are missing at crucial moments. In a war bureaucracy designed to "elevate mediocre people to positions of authority" the good, the decent, the young and the powerless die, and the officers who command them award medals to the dead, and send meaningless letters of condolence home to the survivors.
In spite of the subject matter - which is just about as depressing as it gets - most of the humour in the novel comes from the decent characters' attempts to deal with the circular logic and insane, meaningless orders hurtled down from the upper ranks. There are some marvelous characters here - Colonel Cathcart, Colonel Korn, Orr, the arch rivals General Peckem and General Dreedle and the generous Nurse Duckett. Yossarian is one of the greatest antiheros of all time, and he's one of those rare fictional characters who remain long after the book's conclusion. I grew particularly fond of Yossarian's friend, the Chaplain who struggles to keep his faith while realising "immoral logic seemed to be confounding him at every turn." He tries to stick up for the men, but he is soon involved in accusations that he is the mysterious letter censor, Washington Irving.
If you haven't read Catch-22, I urge you to do so. It's one of the greatest novels of the twentieth century - not a particularly easy read for many reasons - but brilliant nonetheless. The author never loses control of the prevailing sense of insanity, and while I laughed at some of the craziness here, the book carries a powerful, timeless message. |
|
|
A reviewer (MSL quote), USA
<2007-01-05 00:00>
It is hard to know what to think after you read a book like Heller's Catch- 22. This is Heller's comical "masterpiece" in the eyes of many. It is definitely comical, but a masterpiece? That was a tough sell for me.
The story shifts time, plot, and characters in manner that is confusing. It works well in this novel because the entire book is an ode absurdity. The total and complete absurdity of war. One can probe deeper into the real depth of the story underlining the humor, but ever Heller himself commented that it was little more than a dark, comic act on the stupidity of war. He did not even intend it to be a thundering social statement, but rather a refreshing look at the irony that exists in all wars.
The main character of the novel is Yossarian. He is kind of the books anti-hero, if you will. Certainly he is the most famous. The book is filled with ridiculous and memorable characters and they are all interconnected by Heller in a rather ingenious fashion. No concrete plot exists, it is rather a map a random events that occur in the lives of these madmen during World War II. There ranges everything from a quiet, gentle priest, to a psychotic whore, to rich, indignant soldiers, to ordinary a Major; to ruthless a General's and so on. It would take too long to go into depth about every character. Rest assured, they are drawn out with style and individuality by Heller in some of the wackiest scenes you will ever read in a novel.
Catch-22 is told in third person, but the majority of the focus is on Yossarian. Yossarian has his fair share of flaws and mishaps, but he tends to be the one we sympathize and root for more than any other person. Yet it is hard to root for, or care about anyone too deeply because it seems like you are always laughing. You laugh even when you should be horrified, because some of the scenes are indeed horrifying, but they are downplayed so much by Heller that our reaction becomes tampered with. Instead of a feeling of power, we are left with a feeling of confusion.
The only novel I can compare it to is Vonnegut's darker, wiser Slaughterhouse-Five. In that novel, the author was able to maintain a delicate balance between sarcasm, humor, and pain. It was easy to see the author was hiding the pain of his experiences in the war through the dark, sarcastic humor. That made it powerful and breathtaking, along with the humor. In Catch-22, the sarcasm and humor exist; in fact, it is actually a funnier book. However, the power and the pain do not shine through and the book seems like an attempt to downplay the seriousness of war. It left me confused at times with its dark, disturbing passages that should be powerful, but are not, because the book, for the most part, is usually told in a style of a comedic satire.
Catch-22 is a funny and original tale of World War II. At times, the passages reach a level of total genius with witty and cutting remarks. At times, it even makes you laugh and think deeply on how ridiculous war really is. I admired the numerous weirdo characters Heller described. I just didn't feel any real power or awe to it all. It was like watching a dark comedy unfolding in front of your eyes. You laugh, but when it is all over it is quickly forgotten.
Perhaps that was the flaw for me in Catch-22. I wish I could have taken it a little more seriously. I think Heller goes a bit too extreme with his silliness and comedy, because when the "powerful" scenes of horror and anguish did finally come, I found myself not really caring too much, but I felt that I should have been moved in some way. It was an awkward mix for me. Not to say that I don't recommend Catch-22. Many passages are genius and I love the originality. It is definitely, for the majority of the time, a hilarious read. There is just that one catch, and who knows, maybe the confusion I felt was just another intended Catch-22, among many others in the novel.
|
|
|
|
1 Total 1 pages 10 items |
|
|
|
|
|
|
