Catch 22 is a brilliantly funny satirical novel by Joseph Heller based loosely on his experiences as a bombardier during World War II while expressing the anti war and anti establishment sentiments born out of the later Korean war. He began writing the novel in 1953 while working as a copywriter in New York. An extract was published alongside a segment of Jack Kerouac’s On the Road in a magazine as Catch-18 in 1955.
This was one of many initial titles for the unfinished work. Others were Catch 11 (Dropped because of the release of Oceans 11), Catch 17 (Rejected because of the similarities with Stalag 17) and Catch 14 (Refused by the publishers because they didn’t think 14 was a very funny number.)
Catch 22 was finally released in 1961. It wasn’t an immediate best seller but became a cult classic later, partially due to growing anti war sentiment caused by the Vietnam War and the threat of nuclear war. It also became a hit in universities across the world as it seemed to perfectly express the anti establishment voice of a new generation. There was no doubt that Heller intended Catch 22 to be revolutionary.
“There was a terrible sameness about books being published and I almost stopped reading as well as writing,” Heller said on one occasion. But then something happened. He told one British journalist that “conversations with two friends … influenced me. Each of them had been wounded in the war, one of them very seriously The first one told some very funny stories about his war experiences, but the second one was unable to understand how any humour could be associated with the horror of war. They didn’t know each other and I tried to explain the first one’s point of view to the second. He recognized that traditionally there had been lots of graveyard humour, but he could not reconcile it with what he had seen of war. It was after that discussion that the opening of Catch 22 and many incidents in it came to me.”
The Story
It’s the second half of the second world war and an American Airforce bombardier named Yossarian is in his bases hospital with a pain in his liver that’s not quite jaundice. This first chapter sets the tone of the book as we see the bureaucratic insanity of life in the war through Yossarians situation. If he has jaundice, he'll be sent home. If he doesn’t have jaundice he’ll be sent back on combat missions in what he perceives to be certain death. As he is in between, he sits in a limbo position.
Yossarian comes to realise one of the fundamental laws of life in the war – Catch 22. If a pilot is insane, they’ll be deemed unfit to fight and sent home. Only the truly insane want to fight though and it’s the sane, like Yossarian, who through self preservation will attempt to prove themselves insane to escape the horrors of war.
“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. 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 were 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.” (p. 56, ch. 5)
The novel is notable for its dark humour, the description of the same event by multiple characters through their point of view and out of sequence storytelling. It draws some of its funniest moments from paradox such as, “The country was in peril; he was jeopardizing his traditional rights of freedom and independence by daring to exercise them." (p. 413) and “Major Major never sees anyone in his office while he’s in his office." (p. 116) and "The case against Clevinger was open and shut. The only thing missing was something to charge him with."
Heller also managed to create a bizarrely funny stable of supporting characters including ultra capitalist First Lieutenant Milo Minderbinder, the bases mess officer who builds up an incredible trade network during the novel; Hungry Joe, a pervert soldier masquerading as a Life magazine photographer; Lieutenant Nately, an idealistic young officer from a good family who falls in love with an uninterested whore and Yossarians best friend Dunbar.
Despite the laugh out loud humour there is a tragic undertone running deep throughout the novel. This is a story of the madness and inhumanity of war, and despite the farce, it manages to deliver its punch.
Fifty seven years after its publication, Catch 22s legacy lives on. The Modern Library ranked it as the 7th (by review panel) and 12th (by public) greatest English-language novel of the 20th century. The Observer and TIME each listed Catch 22 as one of the 100 greatest novels of all time. The Big Read by the BBC ranked Catch 22 as number 11 on a web poll of the UK's best-loved book. The Telegraph listed the opening lines of the novel as one of the thirty best ever written.
Howard Jacobson, in his 2004 introduction to the Vintage Classics publication, wrote that the novel was "positioned teasingly ... between literature and literature's opposites – between Shakespeare and Rabelais and Dickens and Dostoevsky and Gogol and Céline and the Absurdists and of course Kafka on the one hand, and on the other vaudeville and slapstick and Bilko and Abbott and Costello and Tom and Jerry and the Goons.”
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