Given its cultural importance, leaving this book off your reading list would just be… insane. This book has won countless accolades for its ability to drive that point home. If this sounds a bit hard to follow, it's because, well, war is the ultimate destruction of logic. Of course, if they refuse these orders, they are deemed 'crazy'-which, really, is the sanest position to take. In the story, Yossarian and his fellow pilots are forced to follow insane orders to demonstrate their sanity. That's a term we use to describe a situation in which there is no way out, and-what do you know?-it came from this very novel. These boys, as the title suggests, are in a classic catch-22.

And that phrase-hopelessly stuck-pretty much sums up the whole novel. It's famous for its satirical tone, fractured narrative, and linguistic flourishes-all of which reflect the nonsensical nature of the military enterprise that has Yossarian feeling hopelessly stuck. The book condemns both war itself and the powers that carry out this systematic carnage. While lots of people might think of him as a hero for his brave service, Yossarian sees past all the pomp and patriotism and understands war as something else entirely: sheer madness. involvement in Vietnam began to ramp up.Ĭatch-22 tells the story of one Captain John Yossarian, an Air Force bomber pilot in WWII. The novel looks back at World War II, but in many ways it anticipates the anti-war movement as U.S. The book-Heller's most famous by far-was published in 1961, at a time when America was between two of its messiest wars. Well, if you're Joseph Heller, you write Catch-22, one of the most influential books of all time and a powerful indictment of humanity's most insane practice: war.

So here's the real question: what do you do about that feeling? Let's face it: there's a lot about this wild merry-go-round that we call life that can give us the feeling that we have taken a few too many crazy pills. Have you ever had a time in your life when you really thought you'd lost it? When everything seemed upside down? Want more deets? We've also got a complete Online Course about Catch-22, with three weeks worth of readings and activities to make sure you know your stuff.

Catch 22 book