Catch 22 – was published in June of 1961 according to several sites on the internet. I just can’t let the month slip by without noting the 50th anniversary of this great book. Joseph Heller’s masterpiece IS one of the Great American Novels usually ranking near the top of most of the ‘best novel’ lists.
And if you’ve never read the book or heard what Catch 22 actually is I offer this from the 1970 movie:
If you are an older kosack like me, this is one of the books that changed you, shaped your youth, opened you to new ideas, etc. For some reason, it was never on my catholic high school reading list, so I came to it in college in the early 70s. At that time for me it became part of a seamless cultural fit into the zeitgeist of those times. In fact, published at the dawn of the 60s Catch 22 was a zeitgeist compass for that decade and the early years of the 70s.
Through Capt. Yossarian the novel questions the authority of the system in which he is trapped. This questioning of authority became one of the enduring activities of the 60s. The novel’s black humor on the insanity of war resonated for a generation that was marching off to or resisting the insanity of the Vietnam War.
Lt. Milo Minderbinder war profiteering for ‘the syndicate’ is a brilliant sketch of the modern, amoral, multinational corporate man.
Many years ago I did a diary comparing George W. Bush to the unworthy and incompetent Major Major. This Heller passage describing Major Major seemed to me to fit Dubya to a T.
Major Major had been born too late and too mediocre. Some men are born mediocre, some men achieve mediocrity, and some men have mediocrity thrust upon them. With Major Major it had been all three. Even among men lacking all distinction he inevitably stood out as a man lacking more distinction than all the rest, and people who met him were always impressed by how unimpressive he was.
Well at least Kosacks were always impressed how unimpressive Bush was.
So here’s to one of the great novels published a half century ago, but a book that remains ageless. Your thoughts, comments?