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Catching Up With Catch-22

© Emily Woodward

Reading Catch-22 is like riding a roller coaster. Sometimes it's speedy and exhilarating, and sometimes it's so slow and predictable that turning the pages is more interesting. Most of the time, however, the book is just plain confusing, zigzagging breathlessly through the lives of a group of unhappy, unholy, funny men stationed in Pianosa, Italy during World War II.

The beginning of Catch-22 is the hardest part to fathom. Here author Joseph Heller introduces his array of bizarre characters simultanously and in full flourish, making it difficult to remember which character has what eccentricity. It *is* clear the craziest one of all is supposed to be Yossarian, which is a problem because the womanizing, Assyrian bombardier seems like the sanest one in the book.

It also is immediately understood that these men hate their missions -- bombing enemy targets amid dangerous gunfire -- almost as much as they hate their superiors, the obnoxious Colonel Cathcart and Captain Black, who are willing to put their men through any sort of persecution necessary to achieve personal recognition and fame. These persecutions include raising the numer of missions they are required to fly to 60, an unheard-of number.

In the end, however, it appears that the only person benefitting from the war is Milo Minderbinder, a lieutenant turned entrepreneur who will go to the greatest lengths imaginable to make a profit while appearing to lose money. He is a man who holds no loyalties, least of all to his own side. In one scene, when his trans-European operation, M&M Enterprises is in danger of collapsing, he accepts a generous offer from the Germans to bomb his own squadron. After wounding several of his fellow officers, and right before he is made to be punished for treason, Milo reveals the profit he has made, convincing everyone he has really done a great service for private industry. This priceless scene is followed by many forgettable ones that likewise show Milo to be careless with human life and obsessed with money. He is, undoubtedly, the most intriguing character in the book.

Catch-22 is a great book that would be even greater if it were not so long and did not have so many repetitions in story and plot. There are several highly entertaining scenes, reminiscent of M*A*S*H, Dr. Strangelove and other classic films and novels that satirize war. Its humor, like theirs, is coarse and satisfying, making light of what was surely never meant to be funny.

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