Catch-22

Catch-22 is confusing to me so far. The first page and the first sentence smacked me straight is the face. For what I know is this book is set in World War II and there is a plane crash. From scanning the book, the chapters seem to people about the people Yossarian, the main character, comes in contact with. Even after I read the first part, I was still confused. But I still am going to describe it. So here goes:

Yossarian is in the hospital with jaundice. He is faking a pain in his liver to avoid fighting. The nurses and doctors seem annoyed with him because he has stayed so long. The line that threw me off was “It was love at first sight.” At first, I thought it was with a woman. But now, I think it’s either another or a plane. But then, they said it was a chaplain. So, I am assuming that Yossarian is gay or going to be. Yossarian has an alter ego named Washington Irving. Then, a Texan comes in. He seems to annoy the other patients to the point that everyone, including, Yossarian, runs away.

Then, Yossarian remembers Clevinger. They seem to fight constantly over the values of war. Then, Clevinger went missing. We do get to meet some colorful characters in the first ten chapters: Yossarian, Clevinger, Orr, Milo, Doc Daneeka, Colonel Cathcart, Hungry Joe, Huple, Peckem, General Dreedle, Havermeyer, Dunbar, Captain Black, Lieutenant Colonel Korn, Chief White Halfoat, Appleby, McWatt, Dobbs, Snowden, Colonel Moodus, Lieutenant Scheisskopf, Major Major Major Major, Major —— de Coverley and Mudd. The names are strange to me.

At one point, Major Major signs under the name Washington Irving on official documents and starts acting like him.

Catch-22 Pt. 2

As I have discovered, this book is full of wit and humor. Heller has looked to Chaucer for the comedy. The characters are like the pilgrims in Canterbury Tales. I don’t have a favorite yet.

As far as we’re lead, Clevinger is dead. We can’t really tell because this is all ready unpredictable. Yossarian doesn’t believe he’s dead. Then he recalls Mudd. What happened with Mudd is that arrived at the camp and ended up pushing the daisies before he saw combat. Strangely, (Or rather not), no one else remembers him. Well, that’s not surprising considering the guy only lived a short time anyway. So the tent reeks with death.

The men are going to bomb Bologna. Captain Black hates our fine strange man and is clearly proud of their mission. Ironically, Major Major is picked over him and Captain Black falls into depression. He tries to get revenge by making everyone sign an oath to eat. Then, Captain Black won’t let Major Major sign and hopes to make him disloyal. It all seems dandy until Major —— de Coverley goes off to eat without signing the oath.

Due to rain, the bombing of Bologna is delayed. The men hope the rain never stops. When is does, Yossarian quickly makes it look like they took Bologna and he gets all of the men sick by food poisoning so they won’t have to fly. (Smart thinking, eh?) Then, it rains again to their luck.

    More craziness follows when Wintergreen and Milo compete with selling products to the soldiers. Yossarian, Nately, Dunbar, and Chief White Halfoat go out for a drunken drive. Hungry Joe gets into a fight with a cat and it backs down.

Chapter thirteen just talks about Major —— de Coverley and his personality. And we also learn that Yossarian was given a medal.

Catch-22 Pt. 3

The novel is getting sillier and sillier. Heller must have been having too much fun with this. I know Chaucer would be proud! I bet he is even laughing in his grave as I type this.

The squadron is ready to bomb now. Yossarian still doesn’t want to bomb anything now. He slyly pretends the radio was broken and orders Kid Sampson, the pilot, to turn around. When they land, Yossarian takes a nap. When he wakes up, the American had bombed the city. But he thinks that a cloud didn’t let them.

We next meet Captain Piltchard and Captain Wren. There is not much in this chapter. They are still bombing and Yossarian goes away for an emergency rest. Most of the men in the squadron die in the bombing.

Yossarian meets an Italian woman named Luciana in a bar in Rome. Luciana is a wild flirt. He buys her dinner and sleeps with her. Before she sleeps with him, Luciana cleans his room. After the passion, Yossarian proposes to her. Luciana turns him down and calls him crazy. Yossarian tells her about a scar on his body. Hungry Joe comes in and starts taking pictures. The couple gets dressed and go outside. Luciana gives Yossarian her number and when she leaves, Yossarian tears it up as she says to do. When the number of missions goes up to forty, he tries to go to the hospital.

Catch-22 Pt. 4

Let’s check back on the crazy crew of Catch-22, shall we?

Yossarian has returned to the good old hospital. He remembers the death of Snowden while he is there. Dunbar is also in the hospital too. They run into a soldier completely in bandages. The other men talk about morality. Clevinger talked about the same thing before but Yossarian didn’t listen. Good old Hungry Joe and Yossarian start making a list of deadly diseases that say they have. But Doc Daneeka won’t ground them because of it. (Now, is it just me or does everyone not want to fly in this book? Just a question.) He says that Yossarian will have to fly fifty-five missions before he thinks about helping him.

The first time Yossarian goes to the hospital, he is a private who has an abdominal pain. When the doctors find that they can cure it, Yossarian pretends to have a mysterious illness that makes him see things twice. (He’s desperate to not fly, isn’t he?) So he stays in the hospital for Thanksgiving. Then soon, he has to pretend to be a dying soldier because another soldier has died and his father doesn’t know it. (Anything to stay grounded!) So he agrees to do it.

The next chapter talks about Colonel Cathcart. I don’t have much to say about him.

    The next chapter talks about Corporal Whitcomb. Colonel Korn is his sidekick. The chaplain runs into Colonel Korn. Korn mocks Whitcomb. And again, we run into Washington Irving’s name. (We just can’t get away from that guy, can we?) The chaplain feels helpless now.

Catch-22 Pt. 5

Time to visit Yossarian and company again.

We next meet General Dreedle. But first, Colonel Cathcart is concerned with Yossarian’s behavior. Why? Because he has complained about the mission and he has showed up naked to his medal ceremony. (It never fears with the craziness!) Good old Yossarian won’t wear clothes because of Snowden. Our guy has started a moaning epidemic. He claims because of the missions, he won’t be able to sleep with another woman again. (Ironically, he slept with Luciana!) Colonel Cathcart wishes he could help Yossarian. Then, General Dreedle comes in. All he cares about is the men coming back alive in one piece. He travels with a nurse. By the end, Colonel Korn falls sick.

Catch-22 Pt. 6

Time for another visit.

Nately finds his whore again. She is sick of him. This chapter talks about Nately and his dad. Hungry Joe, Yossarian, and Aarfy make a cameo in here. (By playing the typical perverts with the ladies to be blunt.) But Aarfy doesn’t want to pay for sex. (Good man!)

Next, we move on to Milo. (Again.) He is now king of the black market and controls parts of the military. He even suggests to Yossarian about chocolate-covered cotton and convincing him that it would really taste like candy. (Milo sounds like me in a way!)

Next is the chaplain. He is Yossarian’s “love”. (No, not in that way.) He is losing his faith in the story. He has visions of Yossarian naked at Snowden’s funeral, his wife, and children dying in misery in his absent. And to top it off, no one seems to help the chaplain.

Now, we go into Aarfy and Nately. It starts with the night Nately falls in love with his whore. It was love at first but it went sour. She didn’t even want Nately’s money. Aarfy calls her a slut and Nately gets offended. (Love will do that to you.) Yossarian and Dunbar end up in the hospital yet again. (They must love that hospital!) While they are there, they switch names with some other soldiers.

Next up is Nurse Duckett. (What a shame name!) Dunbar and Yossarian acted perverted to her by going up her skirt and grabbing her chest. A doctor comes to her rescue and Yossarian pleads insanity with dreams about a fish. He would have almost gotten away to home with it if he had switched names earlier. (Opps!) So now, Yossarian is still stuck in the war. (Sorry Charlie, this just isn’t your day!)

Then, we meet Dobbs. Yossarian asks him to kill Colonel Cathcart. Dobbs refuses because he has no reason to and he is waiting to go home after sixty missions. Orr is in a plane crash in the ocean. To due to king Milo taking away the carbon dioxide from the life jackets to make ice cream soda, Orr is now pushing up the daisies. I didn’t get this chapter. Next one.

Now, we are at Dunbar. Snowden pops up again. (We can’t get away from him!) Anyway, Yossarian begins seeing Nurse Duckett and sleeps with her on the beach. (After all of the pervert passes. WOW!) Then Kid Sampson goes bye-bye too by McWatt’s mistake. Then McWatt crashes his plane into a mountain and kills himself. The crew now has sixty-five missions. (More doom and gloom!)

Catch-22 Pt. 7

Now for part seven. (Note: Chapter thirty-two is on the last note card.)

Four new roommates take Orr’s place and Kid Sampson’s legs are still on the beach. (Eww!!!!) Snowden is once again thought of. The guys joke around. They call Yossarian “Yo-Yo” and he wants to kill him. (Can’t blame him.) He tries to move but they won’t let him. Chief White Halfoat tries to die of pneumonia in the hospital. The men go crazy and burn things in the tent. Out of fear, Yossarian runs away with good old Hungry Joe to Rome.

Next is Nately’s whore. Yossarian misses Nurse Duckett in Rome. He tries to find Luciana but fails. Nately tries to save his whore from the soldiers in her room. In the morning, she falls in love with him. (At long last.) Nately dreams about taking his whore and her sister away to America to start a family. A downslide follows with an argument and they fight. But Nately still misses and loves her. Yossarian breaks Nately’s nose in respond.

It’s Thanksgiving now. Milo got all of the men drunk on Thanksgiving and a ruckus breaks out with machine guns as a prank. (If that’s Thanksgiving, I’d hate to see Christmas). Nately gets his nose broken twice by Yossarian. (Poor guy.) Nately goes to the hospital. (Got to love the hospital!!!) Guilty, Yossarian visits him. They run into Yossarian’s chaplain. He lied in order to be admitted with shingles. (This is contagious!) The soldier in white appears again. (Another person we can’t escape from!) Dunbar goes crazy and screams. Nurse Duckett warns Yossarian to save Dunbar before he disappears. He acts on it but it’s too late.

Catch-22 Pt. 8

Another trip for to crazy land!

The chaplain is crushed by Nately’s death. Then he gets arrested for forgery and a colonel interrogates him. As it turns out, it was Yossarian’s fault. Then the chaplain is accused of stealing a plum tomato and being Washington Irving. (I pity the guy. This chaplain reminds me of Jim Casy from The Grapes of Wrath by John Steinbeck.) He gets the guilty verdict. The chaplain tries to complain about the number of missions but that backfires on him.

Chapter thirty-seven is the shortest chapter in the whole book. The chapter’s just two pages. It just talks about General Peckem’s lousy job on the first day.

News about Nately’s death spreads to his whore and her kid sister. They are both livid at the news and nearly kill Yossarian. Yossarian goes to the hospital (again!) When he gets out, Nately’s whore tries to kill him again. (Why are you trying to kill him? He’s just the messenger!) She goes psycho and stalks him everywhere until her throws her out of a plane. (Nice one!) But later, he worries for her and her sister because they ended up flushed out of their apartment by the MP.

Catch-22 End

Here we are, at the end at long last. Here are the last three chapters. Now, we can now put the headaches to rest.

Yossarian will get his wish to go home. But, as the book said:

“There was, of course, a catch.”

That catch would be Catch-22. Here it is: Colonel Cathcart and Colonel Korn will ground Yossarian and send him home if he agrees to like them. They even offer to make him a major if he supports them. This is betrayal but Yossarian does it anyway. (Desperate not to fly!) He is happy but as he leaves, Nately’s whore, in disguise, stabs him and he black out. (Geez! Can’t she just give him a break?) But lucky for him, he was saved by the colonels when they chased her away. (That’s good.)

We finally meet the famous Snowden. We finally learn about we happens to Snowden. So here goes. Yossarian is in the hospital (yet again! I love that place, don’t you?) Apparently, Yossarian wasn’t the only one given an offer he can’t refuse. Aarfy was given the same thing. Hungry Joe is dead too. (They are dropping like flies!) Then, in comes the flashback about Snowden. His last words were, “I’m cold.” We learn as the book said:

“Man was matter, that was Snowden’s secret. Drop him out a window and he’ll fall. Ser fire to him and he’ll burn. Bury him and he’ll rot, like other kinds of garbage. The spirit gone, man is garbage. That was Snowden’s secret. Ripeness was all.”

Interesting.

Here is the last chapter. Yossarian backs out of the deal. (Wise man!) All seems hopeless until the chaplain bursts in saying they have found Orr body in the water. He was trying to escape all along. And with that, Yossarian gets his clothes and runs away with the chaplain to Sweden until the war ends. Nately’s whore yet again tries to stab him but she misses this time. (Does this chick EVER give up?)