Catch-22, would you recommend it?

kewl

That means I'll have to read it again to decide..

I saw the "Catch 22" the movie before I read the book, and I thought the movie was a masterpiece and still do. After reading the book, it would seem that writing a screenplay for it would be nearly impossible, and though the movie may not faithfully follow the book—if that's possible—the movie is still successful in its own right. "Mash", the movie came out about the same time as "Catch 22", and I didn't care for it, though I loved the series.

I can't help but compare the plight of the flight crews and their sortie quota being constantly raised before rotation with the plight of the soldiers in Iraq who can't get out even though their enlistment time is up.

Catch 22 was a new idea to me when I read it; I read it right around the same time I read Dickens for the first time, and Battle Cry, The Young Lions, and books by Leon Uris - heh, you may think this odd for a young woman, but I was quite isolated in the fifties/early sixties, living with my parents in my aunt's house, and then in my parents' quiet house, with the only thing to read being reader's digest, zane grey, and Dickens. I moved into my dad's westerns and then paid attention to books like Battle Cry, since I read about them in Newsweek...

Somewhere along the line I also read Little Women, Jane Austen's books, and a few other bits that acknowledged to me women's points of views, best then being, for me, The Group, by Mary McCarthy. I don't know about best, but it was the book that pulled me in.

All these books were over a few years and they awakened me to a larger world, however small that was. Catch 22 was an awakener for me in many ways... even just to the level of sardonic humor, which I think I'd had no clue of before that. I probably read it when I was eighteen, which would have been around 1960.

I remember The Group well. Mary McCarthy was one of the first lionesses and the book was fascinating.

Yes, the book The Group was certainly fascinating to me. I didn't so much personally live through stuff for a while - in contrast to today's teens - as to learn about life from literature at whatever remove (though I did live life shortly thereafter) So, what happened in The Group did in a way happen to me. Plus, I've had my own long time group(s) of female friends, so I relate in many ways. The movie wasn't bad either, but the book meant a lot to me.

Catch 22 is a one-of-a-kind classic. Joseph Heller will be remembered for that one book alone. Nothing he ever wrote before or after comes even close to the sardonic insights of Catch 22. If you don't appreciate black humor, you won't like it. I've read it twice cover-to-cover and dip into it from time to time.

One thing that I have never forgotten about "Catch 22" is where a military officer defines "justice" as "a knee in the gut from the floor at night." Even now, I chuckle when I remember that.

no i mean cummon the first line was it was love at first sight, no, i reccomend the curious incident of the dog in the night time

seconded.

Yeah, that's a great opening sentence isn't it? Followed by the visit from the chaplain, it sort of foreshadows the exquisite irony that's to come. Dog in the Nighttime is also a very fine book. Just read it last week, in fact. No comparing apples and oranges, however.

Oh - you have read The Curious Incident, Merry - what did you think?

I tried, unsuccessfully, to read it twice.

I have mixed feelings about it, dlowan. On the one hand, I enjoyed reading it. Trying to identify with the precocious narrator wasn't all that difficult, actually. But Haddon has some irritating literary habits. While I could well believe the young narrator quite capable of dispassionately writing his narrative (I have known some autistic children), I couldn't for a moment take seriously the clever graphics sprinkled throughout the book. Methinks the author is trying overly hard to be "post-modern." But it's a good story.

I liked it for the shift in perspective - I know diddly squat about autism, even though I've worked with autistic people, and I thought it aided my understanding.