Catch-22

When reading through the section of World War II Fiction, Joseph Heller's Catch-22 caught my eye. While it is a hilarious read, I hated this book. No, that's not right. It was just a hard book to read and follow, and I felt like I was going into my own personal war everytime I sat down to read it. Once I finished it, I realized I had thoroughly enjoyed it and it had been worth it to struggle through it.
         This book delves into the mind of Yossarian, a soldier during World War II. While the general opinion of the other characters is that Yossarian is crazy, in a way he is the most sane of them all. Nobody believes him when he continues to claim that millions of people are trying to kill him, but is that not the whole concept of war, one country trying to kill the fighting members of the other country. In this way, he is the only one who understands what is going on around him. He takes the war personally and tries to take any chance he can, mainly by faking illnesses, to stop fighting. So while it sounds like a fabulous plot, it was sooo hard to read. The book is based upon circular reasoning. Part of the description of the book is, "Catch-22 is a law defined in various ways throughout the novel. First, Yossarian discovers that it is possible to be discharged from military service because of insanity. Always looking for a way out, Yossarian claims that he is insane, only to find out that by claiming that he is insane he has proved that he is obviously sane—since any sane person would claim that he or she is insane in order to avoid flying bombing missions." The book is full of these paradoxical statements. The characters themselves are hard to follow, and while entertaining (my favorite character was Major Major Major Major-yes I think his parents had a horrible sense of humour), have all had some mental trauma because of the war. In the end, Yossarian runs away from the army to escape from the dehumanizing macherinery of the military and has to flee to neutral Switzerland in order to try to gain control of his life back.
         The message of this book is very strong. What comes across loud and clear is the destructiveness of war on humanity. We all see pictures of the aftermath of the fighting, the wartorn countryside and the scorched marks on the earth. What we dont see is the traumatizing effects on a person's mental well-being after fighting in a war. The doctors have classified this as Post Traumatic Stress Disorder, a term which everybody is familiar with, but nobody can imagine the actual behavior behind the label. This book shows exactly why nobody should be expected to come out of a war all fine and dandy. The situations these men are lucky enough to live through are horrifying and unbelievable. While not as descriptive as Vonnegut's Slaughterhouse Five, Heller manages to depict the slow decay of the soliders mental health. I think this book is an incredible portrayal of the tragedies of war. It would be hard to talk about considering, not everyone has read it, but I'm very surprised literature during the wartime was not even brought up in class. While it is a very difficult and confusing read (I had to take notes to keep the characters straight) I would recommend it to anyone up to the challenge.