Hi, my name's Tom. Welcome back to my channel and to another episode of How to
Read It, my series in which I aim to provide some accessible introductions to
some "classic" bits of literature. This second entry in the
series was going to see us take a look at Pride and Prejudice but. with a new
television adaptation of Catch-22 currently streaming on Hulu and on
terrestrial TV (at least here in the UK), I thought there was likely at least one or
two people out there who might be thinking about giving the book a go. So,
today, we're gonna take a quick overview of the background behind Catch-22, its
plot and its style to set you off on the right foot in potentially reading it.
Before we get going, if you have any questions or thoughts as we go along
then please do feel free to comment those down below in the comments. And, if
you're new around here and this seems like your kind of thing, then please do
consider subscribing and, importantly, hitting that notifications bell. With
that out of the way however, let's take a look at Catch-22 and How to Read It.
Catch-22 is one of those rare novels which, though being less than 60 years
old, has struck such a chord with readers that it's very title has passed into
common parlance. The phrase "catch-22" has come to be widely used in the Anglophone
world to express the very specific kind of frustration that one often feels when
faced with the pedancy of authority and the often circular logic of
bureaucracy; it's an expression of the exasperation that comes with being at
the whim of an overextended higher power which, though seemingly presenting you
with choices, damns you if you do and damns you if you don't. The novel itself
follows an ensemble cast of officers in the United States Air Force in the final
year of the Second World War. Here, the titular "catch" refers to a
contradictory rule which states that, if any airman feels themselves to be "insane"
and thus in need of being sent home, they need only ask the squadron doctor who
is duty-bound to fulfill their request. The "catch" being that any airmen who does
make the case that they ought to be sent home has, in doing so, proven their very
"sanity" by being rightly scared of combat. Having proven themselves
"sane", such an airman must therefore stay and continue to fly more perilous
missions. This kind of frustrating, illogical logic and circular reasoning
finds numerous outlet during Catch-22. General Sherman might once have
suggested during the American Civil War that 'war is hell' but, viewed through the
eyes of Yossarian, Catch-22's protagonist, we might come instead to the
conclusion that war is weird, war is nonsensical and war is often downright
confusing. The process of reading the book can, in its attempts to convince us
of this fact, often be equally frustrating but hopefully, by the end of
this video, you'll be armed with just enough context and framing to embrace it
as one of the 20th century's most compelling pieces of literary satire.
Catch-22 takes a great deal of influence from its author, Joseph Heller's, own
experiences as a bombardier in the US Air Force during the final year of the
Second World War. Much like the novel's central
character, Yossarian, from May to December 1944, Heller found himself stationed in
the Mediterranean flying tactical support missions over Italy, where the
Allied forces were gradually pushing the Axis powers up the Italian peninsula.
Many of the endearing and eccentric characters which populate Catch-22 were
certainly based heavily on Heller's own comrades. Nevertheless, it wasn't until
eight years after the war that Heller began work writing the novel and it
wasn't until 1961 that it was finally published. And those intervening years
had a significant effect on the overall tone of the book. See, the Second World
War had something of a moral clarity to it. It was—and largely still is—viewed as
America's "good war" in which a wide range of countries came together to consign
fascism to the history books—for a while at least. In the year's following, however, America
found itself engaged in a number of conflicts which lacked such an image in
the popular consciousness. First the Korean War and then America
intervention in Vietnam were mired in controversy. As Edward A. Suchman et al.
wrote during the former conflict, 'the wholehearted support of public opinion
which characterized the last war is conspicuous by its absence in the Korean
War. Instead of consensus we have
partisanship—in place of conviction and faith, we have divided opinion and doubt'.
Even those who were drafted weren't entirely sure what they were fighting
for or whether the cause for which they might lay down their lives was
honorable. This context—two unpopular wars fought
by doubt-ridden conscripted men—is perhaps even more important to bear in
mind whilst reading Catch-22 than that of the Second World War. Indeed, in a 1975
interview with Playboy, Heller himself stated that 'Catch-22 wasn't really about
World War Two. It was about American society during the Cold War, during the
Korean War, and about the possibility of a Vietnam'. We might therefore follow
Christina Jarvis in approaching Catch-22 as 'a "Vietnamization" of World War Two'. In
place of the moral conviction and organizational lucidity that we tend to
see in representations of the Second World War such as Band of Brothers, say,
we see a paranoia, confusion and uncertainty more akin to Forrest Gump's
portrayal of Vietnam. Now, I'm always keen to ensure that these videos avoid any
great spoilers but, even so, to try and summarize Catch-22 by its plot would
probably be a bit of a misfire. Of course, things happen within the book but, for
the most part, it is not driven by the same kind of narrative progression that we
find in most mainstream cultural texts. The plot of the novel is, instead, highly
fragmented, jumping backwards and forwards throughout time and often
diverging into lengthy tangents. Its chapters are, for the most part, named
after various characters that exist within this strange world and, although
the novel does lead to a fairly satisfying conclusion, this is emblematic
of Hellers preference for building out a world through disconnected
anecdotes and character sketches over telling a "story" in the "beginning-middle-
end" sense. At the heart of the novel is Yossarian. A captain and bombardier,
Yossarian and is keen to do everything in his power to make it to
the end of the war alive. In truth, he and many of his comrade should probably
already be on their way home having long since completed the 25 missions airmen
are required to fly on a single tour of duty.
The ruthlessly ambitious Colonel Cathcart, however, is desperate to become
a general and is thus keen to impress his superiors. As such, he continually
raises the number of missions he expects those under his command to fly. By the
beginning of the novel, 25 has become 50 and, by the end, it's a staggering 80. The
central action of Catch-22, then, is Yossarian's attempts to either get sent
home or, at the very least, avoid flying any further missions. He becomes an
expert at feigning a liver condition just serious enough to warrant his being
prescribed to bed-rest but not severe enough to warrant any potentially
dangerous treatment. Elsewhere, he destroys his own radio headset to ensure
that his plane has to return back to base before reaching enemy
territory. Alongside this sit a number of key subplots. Colonel Cathcart's
attempts to secure promotion, the squadron mess officer, Milo Minderbinder's,
launching of a black market syndicate and Yossarian's comrades' various
dalliances with women whilst on leave in mainland Italy all begin as mere
anecdotes but grow to be significant elements of the book containing their own
commentary on post-war American society. It's worth noting, however, that, although
much of what makes Catch-22 notable is its focus on the absurdity rather than
horror of war, terror, loss and violence are not entirely absent. And, as the book
progresses we are increasingly given insight into exactly why Yossarian is so
fearful of partaking in bombing runs and into the devastating consequences of
his superiors' brazen ambition. Seemingly pointless sacrifice lingers at the edges
of this novel and the humor of it all increasingly comes to look like a cover
for something far more troubling. When it was first released, the New Yorker
criticized Catch-22 for 'not even seem[ing] to have been written; instead [...] giv[ing] the
impression of having been shouted onto paper'.
Although meant as a severe criticism, this actually seems a fair summation of
the linguistic style of the novel. I've mentioned above Catch-22's many
derivations into disconnected anecdotes and the narration often seems to be
locked in a kind of stream of consciousness, unable to resist expanding
on tiny details of a certain character's backstory. This can be somewhat
discombobulating on reading the novel, yet it works well in imitating the
rambling, mess-hall storytelling that one imagines serves for entertainment on a
military base. More than this, however, it also echoes the frustrating fixation on
often pointless detail which pervades the military bureaucracy in which
Yossarian and his comrades find themselves trapped. I suggested earlier
that the world of Catch-22 often feels absurd and, in terms of genre, we could do
worse than to describe the novel as a work of absurdism. Numerous commentators
have pointed to the presence of a Kafkaesque element to Catch-22. Brian Way, for
instance, notes similarities to Kafka's The Trial in which the protagonist,
Joseph K., finds himself accused of an unspecified crime by a faceless and
seemingly unaccountable authority. Certainly, Yossarian's attempts to find
meaning for his presence in the Mediterranean and his attempts to
navigate the pedantic rules of the military often mirror Joseph K.'s
attempts to find a reason for his arrest and secure his own release. The absurdist
influence present in Catch-22 can often make the novel a frustrating read,
particularly as it manifests itself in the novels linguistic form.
Conversations between the novel's characters often seem to go round and
round in circles indefinitely. Yet I would argue that this frustration is a
key element of the novel's success as it allows the frustration that Yossarian
in the world around him to bleed into the very language of the book.
So, to conclude, Catch-22 may be a novel about the Second World War but it is
actually more accurately read as a response to the Korean and Vietnam
conflicts which followed it. In many ways it thus likely speaks well to present
military interventions which often lack moral certainty or even clear goals.
Beyond its astute commentary on war, however, the novel captures more broadly
the frustration that one often feels when faced with overreaching and
illogical authority. Despite—and often because of—the infusion of this
frustration into its very language, it is a warm and often laugh-out-loud funny novel
and remains a must read novel. Thank you very much for watching this video. I hope
you found it interesting particularly if you're planning on
reading Catch-22. And, if you weren't already, then maybe it's inspired you to
do so. Thanks as always to Ash for signing up to the top tier on my Patreon
page. If you'd like to support what I do hear creating educational videos here on
YouTube then please do consider popping over to my Patreon page, linked down below,
and checking that out. Finally, liking this video is always really really
helpful, also sharing it with a friend. But, with that all out of the way,
thank you very much for watching once again and have a great week!