Source of book: Borrowed from the library.
This was my selection for Banned Books Week. At 415 pages,
it took longer than a week, but I did
start it during Banned Books Week.
Just as a reminder, I use the week to read books which have
been banned, which means that a government has outlawed sale, publication, or
possession of the book. I do not count challenged books - those which citizens
or parents have sought to keep out of school curricula or libraries. This isn’t
because I think challenges are interesting, but because I wanted to focus my
once a year project on those where the power of the state was employed in
censorship. I believe that is a different level from a challenge. After all,
any library has limited space and budget, and decisions must be made.
(Personally, I would have preferred an extra - and local - copy of The Rest is Noise rather than one of the
20ish copies of Eat, Pray, Love.)
Likewise, students can only study so many books, and the choice of which to
study is a judgment call.
Here are my past selections, plus the introduction to Banned
Books Week.
***
This is another book which was - believe it or not - banned
by a Western democracy during my lifetime. Several states banned it during the
1970s, as did Dallas, TX
(1977) and Snoqualmie, WA (1979.) Ostensibly, the book was banned
for referring to women as “whores.” This seems a bit specious, since the women
in question were, strictly speaking, prostitutes. While there is sexual content,
it isn’t particularly graphic, and it certainly isn’t gratuitous. For the 1970s
(seriously, watch a movie from that era…), it is pretty tame. I suspect that
two facets of the novel were what really drove the bans: it is somewhat
anti-war - and it raises uncomfortable theological questions. With the 1970s as
kind of ground zero for the fundamentalist
Religious Right, I suspect that a novelist who raised the still-unsolved
and debated Problem of Evil was unwelcome.
What Catch-22 is,
without question, is one of the most important and influential novels of the
20th Century. I am kind of surprised that I didn’t end up reading any of it in
high school, honestly, because at least one chapter seems like a perfect
selection. I guess they can’t have you read everything. I can see the influence
of the book on our perception of military life. Written in 1961, it is ostensibly
set in World War II, but was intended by the author as a commentary not on that
war, but on the Cold War - and even more so on the McCarthy hearings. To that
end, there are multiple references to loyalty oaths and specific incidents from
the hearings.
Catch-22’s vision
of military life permeates so much of what was written or filmed thereafter. As
a kid, I loved the Beetle Bailey
comic strips - which draw a lot from the book, although the comic is more
lighthearted. My dad’s favorite TV show, M*A*S*H,
reuses a number of tropes - and the idea of using a satire of one war to
critique another. As others have pointed out, The Office is to a certain degree Catch-22 without the blood. I suspect that having read this book, I
will see even more references in popular culture.
The book isn’t a linear narrative. Rather, the first part of
the book essentially tells a portion of the story (which is really the middle
of the plot) from the point of view of various characters, filling in the
missing pieces. As the story then progresses, more and more is told, but again,
not in chronological order. It is rather like building a jigsaw puzzle from the
center out, except you can’t figure out what stuff is until near the end.
The setting is the liberation (or invasion...take your pick)
of Italy
during the height of World War II. At that point, D-Day was in the future, and
the outcome of the war was still in doubt, even though the tide had turned. The
characters are part of an airborne bomber group flying B-25s. Unline the better
known B-17 (one of the best looking bombers of the era, in my view) and the
B-24 (much larger, and with a longer range, this was used in the Western Europe
and Pacific theaters), the B-25 was a smaller two-engined bomber. The B-25 had
a good reputation as one of the most durable aircraft of the war, reliable, and
versatile. Because of its roles, however, it ended up being used for lower
level bombing runs, which made it vulnerable to anti-aircraft flak, even if (as
was the case in the book), there was no opposition from enemy fighters.
B-25 operated by the Commemorative Air Force, at the Miramar USMC Station, 2018
One of the great things about this book was the realism in
the airborne scenes. This is because Heller, like his anti-hero Yossarian, was
a bombardier/navigator on a B-25 in Italy. In that sense, the book
draws heavily from Heller’s own experiences. I’m a bit of an aviation buff - my
dad was was an amateur pilot in his younger days, and was an air traffic
controller before his retirement - and I grew up around aircraft. I still love
flying (although airport security not so much), and my wife snickers at the way
my head swivels whenever I hear or see an airplane.
However, Heller was quick to point out that while his
experience in war helped him write the technical aspects of this book, he most
certainly did not base his characters
on his experiences. Heller said that his fellow soldiers and commanding
officers were, by and large, exemplary men, and, while he suffered trauma as
the result of war, he had nothing but positive feelings for those he served
with. The book was therefore, not primarily a working out of his own baggage
from the war, but a veiled commentary on the 1950s - specifically the McCarthy
era, as noted above.
Catch-22 doesn’t
have a hero in the traditional sense. There are a few more or less admirable
minor characters, but for the most part, everyone is badly flawed or outright
malevolent. And the central character, Yossarian, is a classic anti-hero. He is
a coward, a lazy bastard, an insubordinate son-of-a-bitch, and more. (His
commanding officers are certainly right to call him these things.) But, there
is some mitigation. At the outset of the story, all personnel are supposed to
be furloughed after a certain number of missions. That is the official policy.
But Colonel Cathcart, who commands the unit, is determined to get his name into
a magazine back home with a glowing story. And so he keeps raising the number
of missions. So Yossarian and the others never get to go home. Here is the
classic scene which explains the...well… “catch-22.”
“Daneeka was telling the truth,”
ex-P.F.C. Wintergreen admitted.” Forty missions is all you have to fly as far
as Twenty-seventh Air Force Headquarters is concerned.”
Yossarian was jubilant. “Then I can go
home, right? I’ve got forty-eight.”
“No, you can’t go home,” ex-P.F.C.
Wintergreen corrected him. “Are you crazy or something??”
“Why not.”
“Catch-22.”
“Catch-22?” Yossarian was stunned.
“What the hell has Catch-22 got to do with it?”
“Catch-22,” Doc Daneeka answered
patiently, when Hungry Joe had flown Yossarian back to Pianosa, “says you’ve
always got to do what your commanding officer tells you to.”
"But Twenty-seventh Air Force says
I can go home with forty missions."
"But they don't say you have to go
home. And regulations do say you have to obey every order. That's the catch.
Even if the colonel were disobeying a Twenty-seventh Air Force order by making
you fly more missions, you'd still have to fly them, or you'd be guilty of
disobeying an order of his. And then Twenty-seventh Air Force Headquarters
would really jump on you."
Yossarian slumped with disappointment.
“Then I really do have to fly the fifty missions, don’t I?” he grieved.
“The fifty-five,” Doc Daneeka corrected
him.
“Catch-22” is never actually stated, but its effects are explained. Here is another mention of
it:
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.
Every absurdity in the book comes back to “catch-22.”
Yossarian eventually decides that it doesn’t actually exist - it is just the
justification for the impossible situations that abound. The source of the term
is fascinating. When Heller first started writing the book, he released a draft
of the first chapter as “Catch-18.” His agent, however, requested that it be
changed so the book wouldn’t be confused with Leon Uris’ new book, Mila 18. “Catch 11” was suggested - the
repetition fit the repeated, circular conversations which abound in the book.
Except that Ocean’s Eleven had just
been released. (The original, Rat Pack version, not the Brad Pitt and George
Clooney remake.) “Catch-17” was too close to Stalag 17, a mostly forgotten WWII movie. Finally, someone realized
the obvious: “Catch-22” was the perfect number. Repetitive like 11, but even
more fun to say.
And now, nobody can imagine it being anything else.
For those of us who came of age at the end of the 20th
Century, it is impossible to imagine life without this idiom. But without
Heller’s book, it wouldn’t even exist.
I hesitate to actually try to summarize the book beyond
saying that Yossarian is determined to stop flying missions, particularly after
one of his crewmates is disemboweled and dies in his arms. He finds excuses,
from a vague medical issue to strategic insanity. But even though he is utterly
without scruple, there is one thing he won’t do to get discharged. (I won’t
spoil it.)
Pretty much all of the characters are major. (And that
includes Major Major - see below.) Everyone is important in some way, and each
story is developed. The characters are memorable, and you care about them -
even as they are systematically killed off. At least the ones you like. The
loathsome commanding officers survive, of course - they don’t have to fly missions.
The book is pretty dang dark - particularly in the last
fifth. But, at the same time, it is one of the funniest books I have read.
There are many lines that are indeed laugh out loud hilarious...and then you
feel guilty for laughing. It is that sort of a book. On the one level, it is a
mockery of politics and power. The greed of capitalistic sorts - exemplified by
Milo Minderbinder’s smuggling racket (another hilarious chapter) - and the lust
for power and prestige of the various commanding officers is on full and amusing
display. We all know people like this.
But there is something deeper than this. Yossarian
eloquently takes on the fates - God himself - for the absurdity of human
suffering. This exchange occurs between Yossarian and the wife of Lt.
Scheisskopf (one of several not-particularly-subtle names in this book.)
“I bet I can name two things to be
miserable about for every one you can name to be thankful for.”
“Be thankful you’re healthy.”
“Be bitter you’re not going to stay
that way.”
“Be glad you’re even alive.”
“Be furious
you’re going to die.”
...
“And don’t tell me God works in
mysterious ways,” Yossarian continued, hurtling over her objections. “There’s
nothing so mysterious about it. He’s not working at all. He’s playing or else
He’s forgotten all about us. That’s the kind of God you people talk about—a
country bumpkin, a clumsy, bungling, brainless, conceited, uncouth hayseed.
Good God, how much reverence can you have for a Supreme Being who finds it
necessary to include such phenomena as phlegm and tooth decay in His divine
system of creation? What in the world was running through that warped, evil,
scatological mind of His when He robbed old people of the power to control
their bowel movements? Why in the world did he ever create pain? … Oh, He was really
being charitable to us when He gave us pain! Why couldn’t He have used a
doorbell instead to notify us, or one of His celestial choirs? Or a system of
blue-and-red neon tubes right in the middle of each person’s forehead. Any
jukebox manufacturer worth his salt could have done that. Why couldn’t He? …
What a colossal, immortal blunderer! When you consider the opportunity and
power He had to really do a job, and then look at the stupid, ugly little mess
He made of it instead, His sheer incompetence is almost staggering. …”
This was a particularly sobering passage. I’ll admit this
has been on my mind a lot lately. In particular, why God remains silent when a
majority of those who claim his name continue to express hate and cruelty
toward other human beings. But, really, this has been a major theme of our
scripture: why the wicked prosper and are allowed to harm others, and why
justice is delayed. And why God delays purging the filth from what claims to be
his church.
On a somewhat related note, I was stunned to see a
particularly cogent analysis of Right Wing views - and Calvinism - in this
book. I mean, this is 67 years later, but it is exactly what I see going on right now.
Major Major is an, um, major
character in the book. In a really hilarious way. He manages to avoid actually
seeing anyone or doing anything. But his back story is also funny. His father
names him, literally, “Major Major Major” when the mother is recovering from a
difficult childbirth. And then, he is promoted to the rank of Major, so….Major
Major Major Major. Yeah, it’s terrible. But an amusing terrible. But it isn’t
this farce which is the most interesting part. Major Major’s father was a
recognizable sort. Here are some excerpts of the description:
He was a long-limbed farmer, a
God-fearing freedom-loving, law abiding rugged individualist who held that
federal aid to anyone but farmers was creeping socialism. He advocated thrift
and hard work and disapproved of loose women who turned him down.
As it turns out, he is part of the racket whereby he is paid
by the federal government to not grow alfalfa. I won’t quote the whole section,
but it is both accurate and freaking hilarious. And also a great description of
how the Right LOVES socialism...for certain
white people. Oh, and it gets better:
Major Major’s father had a Calvinist’s
faith in predestination and could perceive distinctly how everyone’s
misfortunes but his own were expressions of God’s will.
Can I use “amen” here? Because this is so amazingly true in
our own time. The resurgence of Calvinism parallels the embrace of Social
Darwinism by the Religious Right. And the two are absolutely connected - as
Heller notes here. (This could be an entire blog post.) Basically, the
misfortunes of, say, the working poor, or brown skinned people, or those born
outside of the United States - all these are God’s will - and judgment on
“those” people for being wicked. But the misfortunes of Calvinist whites, well,
those are due to the depredations of those dirty poor people, or the dirty
brown-skinned people. Heller was right on. Socialism for certain middle or
upper class white people is fine.
It’s just when you extend that to the less privileged that it becomes
“socialism.”
I’m going to end with a lighter note. Yossarian is hardly an
admirable character. But he is such a force of chaos and divergent thinking
that you can’t really hate him - unless you lack a sense of humor. There is
this delightful exchange between him and Major Sanderson:
“Hasn’t it ever occurred to you that in
your promiscuous pursuit of women you are merely trying to assuage your
subconscious fears of sexual impotence?”
“Yes, sir, it has.”
“Then why do you do it?”
“To assuage my fears of sexual
impotence.”
I literally am laughing out loud just typing that one again.
This is classic Yossarian: refusing to play the game, turning the rhetoric back
on its user, and cutting to the heart of the issue. This is why he is a
wonderful anti-hero. You really should
hate him...but you can’t, because he is all too right. He sees through the
rules of social behavior, the lies of honor and duty, and says what we think,
but can’t bring ourselves to articulate. Yossarian (and Heller) tear away the mask,
and show that protocol has replaced principle, “alternative facts” have
replaced truth, and reason is now just a rigamarole to justify presupposition.
It is largely how I feel about the sophistry that has been unmasked within my
own religious tradition. Truth and human decency and the needs of real human
beings are subordinated to power, culture wars, and self aggrandizement.
I probably wouldn’t have appreciated this book as a teen,
and definitely appreciate it more in my 40s, with the sort of experience to
make one a cynic, despite my generally sanguine tendencies. I can say for
certain that this book is more humorous than I expected, even if dark and
philosophical. It was definitely worth reading, and I think it earns its place
as one of the best novels of the last century.
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