So Says The Mouse In My Hair

Catch of the Day

Just finished Catch 22 by Joseph Heller. Bad pun, I know, but it reminded me of cheesy newspaper headlines, you know like "Red Sox Sweep Away the Curse With World Series Win." Cheesy but endearing just the same. Such is why it’s hanging on my bedroom wall.
But I digress. Catch 22. Marvelous. I’ve tried to read it before and didn’t get terribly far. If I remember correctly that was due to the fact that the plot never really progressed. And it doesn’t. Of course reading it today it’s attached to a whole new relevance. The central question that the book likes to ask is: don’t you have to be crazy to fight in a war?
And that’s the catch. Since everyone in the book is crazy, theoretically they would have to be grounded and not allowed to fly any more combat missions. Only they have to ask in order to get grounded. Catch 22 says that asking to be grounded shows that you are still sane because you care enough about your safety to want to continue to live. Therefore if you ask to be grounded, you are sane and won’t get grounded. And if you don’t ask you’re crazy and should be grounded, but you can’t ask to be grounded because they’ll turn you down.
And so it goes. (Wrong book, but Heller reminds me ever so much of Vonnegut with his dry but still insane humor.)
But he really does write like that. In circles, I mean. And such is how I think and often how I soliloquize as well so rather than making me dizzy, I found the style adorable and refreshing, even if I couldn’t follow the timeline. But as this the name of the book implies, it’s all bout circles and going nowhere and how do you escape from a catch 22? So it’s only logical that he would write in circles and go nowhere while we attempt to escape from his catch 22. Fantastic.
Even better though, Mr. Heller conveniently remembers that there’s a war going on. It’s messy and bloody and serious and very affecting. When Heller decides to change the tone from humorous to grave, he succeeds, and I can feel it in my heart. Props for that, and excellently executed.
The philisophical questions this book brings up are so much fun. Can you be sane while fighting a war? Is sanitiy objective or relative? What looks crazy may have a very sane reason, or is it sane to want to preserve your life? What would happen in a war if everyone protected their own best interests? Who does a soldier fight a war for? And what is the most noble way to release yourself from a catch 22 if you are trying not to die?
And last but not least, this book asks the best biblical question I’ve ever heard. Was an almighty God really worried that people were going to succeed in building a tower to Heaven?

posted by Sarah Eliza @ 6:33 AM