Catch 22

By
Joseph Heller
Wyatt Current

10/03/10

Catch 22 is a amazing book filled with a mixture of satirical

humor and a cold sense of the insanity of war. Based on the story
of a bomber pilot in the 256th squadron in world war two he and
his friends are so realistic that you start believing that they
are real as each has their own personalities and flaws, These are
not the gung ho GI's you think about they are just human beings to
the truest sense of the word. From the start it hooks you into the
story by making you ask questions such as, does Yossarian survive
the war?, How does Milo buy eggs for 7 cents in Malta and sell
them in Italy for 5 cents and still make a profit?, and what did
happen to Orr when he disappeared on a mission in an apparent mid-
air collision with another bomber that was just shot down?.

The book starts with Yossarian pretending to be sick in the

hospital to get out of flying dangerous missions when he is there
he befriends a Chaplin that will affect the rest of the story
which is told partly through him. When he leaves he goes back to
flying missions and manages to survive twenty more missions
through a mixture of dumb luck, skill, and the resolute belief
that survival is the number one priority, he would actually break
formation when the flak from German guns started and fly evasively
leveling for a couple of seconds to drop bombs then fly off as
fast as possible, one of my favorite quotes from the book is after
they were finished bombing a target;

"Bomb bay clear," Sergeant Knight would announce.

"Did we hit the bridge?" McWatt would ask.

"I couldn't see, sir, I kept getting bounced around back here
pretty hard and I couldn't see. Everything's covered with smoke
now and I can't see."

"Hey Aarfy did the bombs hit the target?"

"What target?" Captain Aardvark, Yossarian's plump, pipe smoking

navigator would say from the confusion of maps he had created at
Yossarian's side in the nose of the plane."I don't think we're at
the target yet. Are we?"

"Yossarian did the bombs hit?"

"What bombs?" answered Yossarian, whose only concern had been the
flak.

"Oh well," McWatt would sing, "what the hell."

This shows that the men had a perspective of their own when it
came to mission priorities.

After flying that mission the story switches over to the

leave of Yossarian and the other officers and which consists
mostly of messing around with prostitutes, trying to prove each
other insane, and trying to get out of doing more missions. The
only reason that it is impossible to get out of flying missions is
that each time a majority of pilots flies the required number of
flights the number of required flights goes up, and even if you
manage to get the required amount you must file a formal request
to leave which is stopped by what is called "Catch 22". Which
means that if you want to keep flying missions it proves that your
insane because you don't care for your life so you can leave, but
to leave you must put in a formal request which proves that you
fear for your life, therefore making you sane which in turn means
you are eligible for flight so you cannot leave.
 This book isn't always completely serious but when it brings
humor it usually is poking fun at an entirely serious subject,
There is one guy in Yossarian's squad named Milo Minderbinder who
has a great head for business but cannot let a good deal go, he
makes a huge trade empire using planes he has borrowed or bought
to trade goods between countries as if the war was never happening
each side let his white and purple planes through without question
and he traded between both sides freely. But then the Germans make
him a deal that in tales that he bomb an allied base that when he
does he creates an uproar but he smoothly talks his way out of it
saying that the government shouldn't interfere with the private
sector and in fact that all wars should be run by the private
sector, after that both sides hire him to bother bomb targets and
to defend targets.

As you read you start to realize that this war has really
effected Yossarian on a mental level he starts having nightmares
of the men he knows that have died and when his good friend Lt.
Natley dies you can see he starts to show symptoms of what we now
know as PTSD which include nightmares, intrusive and unsettling
memories, and intense distress when memories are triggered by
certain things such as words/phrases or smells. He actually has a
mental breakdown where he starts crying out that all he wants is
to go home.

I believe that the reason that the author wrote this book is
to show the true face of war. It doesn't come right out and say
that war is a horrible thing but it's contents makes you feel as
if you have left this world and entered a strange world where
people you don't even know, that if you met in real life on
different circumstances might be your friends, are trying to kill
you because some politician has decided that his idea is better
than everyone else's. This book in my opinion truly shows the
insanity of war in the closes equivalent one who has not
experienced it can understand.