Catch-22

Catch-22 / Joseph Heller; performed by Jay O. Sanders. -- New York : HarperAudio : Caedmon, p2007.
16 sound discs (19 hr., 30 min.) : digital ; 4 3/4 in.
Compact discs
Unabridged
"Bonus: a rare, archival recording of Joseph Heller reading his personal selections from Catch-22"--Container.
Originally published in 1961
ISBN: 0060890096

1. Black humor. 2. Satire. 3. War stories. 4. World War, 1939-1945--Aerial operations, American -- Fiction. 5. World War, 1939-1945--Italy—Fiction.

813.54

Catch-22 is wonderfully witty word-play, a ball of tangled narrative time, dialog, fears, and desires. Set on an Army Air Corps base on the imaginary island of Pianosa off the coast of Italy during the closing months of the Second World War, the book begins in the base hospital and introduces protagonist Captain John Yossarian and his like-minded friend Dunbar. Yossarian is bombardier who is malingering, faking a liver ailment to avoid combat duty. He’s confronted by a positive thinking fellow officer from Texas, who unsuccessfully tries to cheer him up.

“But Yossarian couldn’t be happy, even though the Texan didn’t want him to be, because outside the hospital there was still nothing funny going on. The only thing going on was a war, and no one seemed to notice but Yossarian and Dunbar. And when Yossarian tried to remind people, they drew away from him and thought he was crazy. Even Clevinger, who should have known better but didn’t, had told him he was crazy the last time they had seen each other, which was just before Yossarian had fled into the hospital.

Clevinger had stared at him in apoplectic rage and indignation and clawing the table with both hands, had shouted, ‘You’re crazy!’

‘Clevinger, what do you want from people?’ Dunbar had replied wearily above the noises of the officers’ club.

‘I’m not joking,’ Clevinger persisted.

‘They’re trying to kill me,’ Yossarian told him calmly.

‘No one’s trying to kill you,’ Clevinger cried.

‘Then why are they shooting at me?’ Yossarian asked.

‘They’re shooting at everyone,’ Clevinger answered. They’re trying to kill everyone.’

‘And what difference does that make?’”
--Page 25

Repeatedly others call Yossarian crazy, but as the book goes on and instances of bureaucratic reasoning stray farther and farther from reality and instances of injustice and gory death are heaped one upon another, the reader begins to feel he may be one of a few sane people in the African, Mediterranean and Middle East Theater of Operations.

Heller’s command of vocabulary and rhythm is astounding, as are his critiques of human institutions and motives. The book is a precisely crafted Gordian knot of circular logic that weaves themes of human self-delusion and hope as it progresses, and Sanders does a superb reading of this twentieth century classic.