ISBN: 0099477319
(9780099477310)
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Description:
At the heart of Joseph Heller's bestselling novel, first published in 1961, is a satirical indicement of military madness and stupidity, and the desire of the ordinary man to survive it. Set during the second half of World War II, a soldier named Yossarian is stationed with his Air Force squadron on the island of Pianosa, near the Italian coast in the Mediterranean Sea. Yossarian and his friends endure a nightmarish, absurd existence defined by bureaucracy and violence: they are inhuman resources in the eyes of their blindly ambitious superior officers. The squadron is thrown thoughtlessly into brutal combat situations and bombing runs in which it is more important for the squadron members to capture good aerial photographs of explosions than to destroy their targets. Their colonels continually raise the number of missions that they are required to fly before being sent home, so that no one is ever sent home. Still, no one but Yossarian seems to realize that there is a war going on; everyone thinks he is crazy when he insists that millions of people are trying to kill him. He therefore spends much of his time concocting evermore inventive ways of escaping his missions - faking various medical conditions, oscillating between sanity and insanity and trapped in the logic of his catch-22 situation.
Review:
Catch-22 has been canonized since its first modest print run of 30,000 copies. It spoke to the Vietnam generation in 1961 with its savage, masculine humour and heartfelt indictment of the grotesque lunacy of warfare. The eponymous Catch-22 states that a man can be exempted from bombing missions if he is mad, but that the desire to be exempted is proof that he is sane. (It would have crept into the English language as Catch-18 but for Leon Uris's novel Mila 18 - Heller wanted to avoid possible mix-ups.) The cavortings of Captain Yossarian with officers, men and Roman prostitutes on the island of Pianosa drive the plot as he desperately tries to reason his way out of imminent death. (Kirkus UK)
What the papers say:
"* 'Blessedly, monstrously, bloatedly, cynically funny, and fantastically unique. No one has ever written a book like this' - Financial Times * 'An apocalyptic masterpiece' - Chicago Times * 'Not only the best novel to come out of the war but the best novel to come out of anywhere in years' - The Nation"
In stock: 23 copies
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