30 Day Book Challenge: Day 30 – your favourite book

I think it’s fair to say, I’ve cheated my way through the last 29 days of this challenge, giving two or three books for each category (sometimes more), rather than the required one. This confirms some things I already suspected about myself: I’m not very good at making decisions, and I don’t have much respect for rules.

However, for the last day, I’m going to stick to protocol and just talk about one book.

Impressive, eh?

(I’m also learning that I like praise)

Actually, it’s not that difficult a rule to keep, because whenever I’m asked my favourite book (and I offer my top five in return), Catch-22 is always the first one I say.

Now, I talked a little bit about Joseph Heller’s famous novel a while ago, because it’s got some brilliant lines in it, but I’m pretty sure there is a lot more that can be said.

For anyone who doesn’t know, Catch-22 is a novel set on an American military airbase on the island of Pianosa during World War II. It follows numerous members of the 256th Squadron, but particularly Captain Yossarian, a bombardier whose attempts to ‘live forever, or die in the attempt’ form the underlying plot to the novel’s non-chronological structure.

Yossarian is crazy. Or at least, that’s what Clevinger thinks:

‘Gasping furiously for air, Clevinger enumerated Yossarian’s symptoms: an unreasonable belief that everybody around him was crazy, a homicidal impulse to machine-gun strangers, retrospective falsification, an unfounded suspicion that people hated him and were conspiring to kill him.’

Some of the generals and captains think it to. But Yossarian’s mental state is really just a response to the world around him; a world caught up in war, where millions of good young men are being killed, and rampant bureaucracy defies logic at every turn. A crazy world, really. His cumulative experiences in the American air force lead Yossarian to question this world (‘where are the Snowdens of yesteryear?’) and when he does, he discovers a catch:

‘There was only one catch and that was Catch-22, which specified that a concern for one’s own safety in the face of dangers that were real and immediate was the process of a rational mind. Orr was crazy and could be grounded. All he had to do was ask; and as soon as he did, he would no longer be crazy and would have to fly more missions. Orr would be crazy to fly more missions and sane if he didn’t, but if he was sane, he had to fly them. If he flew them, he was crazy and didn’t have to; but if he didn’t want to, he was sane and had to. Yossarian was moved very deeply by the absolute simplicity of this clause of Catch-22 and let out a respectful whistle.

“That’s some catch, that Catch-22,” he observed.

“It’s the best there is,” Doc Daneeka agreed.’

The absurdity of catch-22 is endemic throughout the novel. Not only does it rear its head whenever Yossarian tries to be grounded from flying more missions, but at other times, when common sense and personal freedoms get in the way of the bureaucratic machine:

‘Catch-22 states that agents enforcing Catch-22 need not prove that Catch-22 actually contains whatever provision the accused violator is accused of violating.’

It’s not just catch-22 that is illogical. Most of the characters are too: Milo Minderbinder makes a syndicate out of war, selling eggs for less than he bought them for and yet somehow managing to make a profit; Major Major Major Major will only see people in his office when he’s not in his office; and Orr used to walk about with crab apples in his cheeks because they were better than horse chestnuts.

At times, the ridiculousness in Catch-22 makes your head spin, which is, it’s clear, exactly how Yossarian feels. It also conveys Joseph Heller’s central message: that war is ludicrous, and bureaucracy is absurd.

However, although there is much humour in the craziness Heller depicts, there is also a more sombre undercurrent. The character of Snowden, whose death troubles Yossarian throughout the novel (but is not fully revealed until the end) is an example. In spilling his guts all over the floor, Snowden revealed a secret to Yossarian – that ‘man is matter’ and ‘ripeness is all’. A simple idea, yet one that affects Yossarian profoundly and is the catalyst for his continuing efforts to avoid flying more missions, and to escape the war alive.

Equally sobering, is the fact that a lot of the characters die during the novel. Only, because of Heller’s clever, non-chronological structure (and the enduring hilarity of his prose), you don’t quite realise it at the time. Instead, you are left afterwards with a realisation that things were a lot worse than they seemed. And it’s haunting.

Catch-22 has, in my opinion, all of the ingredients for a perfect book: it’s funny, it’s clever, it’s thought-provoking, and it’s stylishly constructed. On top of that, the multitude characters, although ridiculous, are somehow incredibly real. They represent the four corners of society, and everyone in between: the mediocre, the weak, the loyal, the patriotic, the stupid, the morbid, the capitalist, the opportunist, the sneaky, the dangerous, and the subversive.

And then there’s Yossarian, who spends an entire novel trying to avoid danger and death, thinking selfishly, and unconsciously fanning the flames of dissent. He is the ultimate anti-hero. And Catch-22 is the ultimate book.

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