Catch-22

Hi all, spoilers ahead!

Last year we were all assigned to write an essay on a banned book. Well, I chose a book called Catch-22.

Catch-22 is a book written by Joseph Heller. Joseph served in World War Two so he had first-hand experience with the rules and sadness of war.

Joseph Heller's book brings up the absurdities of war such as the name of the book Catch 22. This rule states that a soldier may be relieved from serving in the war as long as they are mentally insane or unfit. The catch that the book is built around is the fact that the same rule states that if someone requests a mental evaluation they are sane enough to serve so there is no real way out and it is just an infinite paradox.

The main character of the novel is a man named Yossarian. Yossarian gets introduced to this paradox when he spends his time trying to get relieved from the army. He tries to stop his friends him from flying a mission by actually asking to fly the mission since anyone who wants to fly such dangerous missions must be insane and is therefore forced to be grounded from flying. But since he asks to be relieved from duty he is seen as sane and thus is not. It's confusing since it's supposed to be confusing.

One of Yossarians friends Milo Minderbender who is a mess officer is more than what he seems on the surface. Instead of just doing his job he also is trying to make income by running a black market trade for food and other services and he sells to both sides of the war. Taking his black market scheme even further he rats out his own base to the enemy getting them hit with an airstrike all to just create a need for his products that he is selling to make him even more money.

Catch-22 is seen as a classic must-read novel about the absurd and realistic points of war. Joseph makes no move to glorify war as he does the opposite. Finally, last year when I wrote my essay on this I realized why this book has been challenged many times. There is pretty intense language and some gruesome descriptions of war and violence.

I would recommend this book to most mature readers as there is some merit in the reasons that the book was challenged. Further, the character development and plot development along with the more funny aspects of this book are what caused me to love reading this book.




-Jameson