There's always a Catch

There's a war, the second one. The story takes place on an island called Pianosa, south of Italy. There's an airbase on the island and there's also Yossarian, our guy. He doesn't want to fly any more bombing missions but he has to in order to ever get home. 

Joseph Heller's Catch-22 opens up as a weird comedy. Nothing is taken seriously and the characters are silly caricatures. It's juvenile fun, bunch of guys hoping to survive the next mission and spending their leave in Rome tickling whores. It's perfectly clear that they don't want to get killed for their country, for glory or for any other reason for that matter. It takes some pages to get the engines running so don't ditch the book before it does. 

See, there's layers. The war is only a setting, a sandbox for the social commentary and philosophical thoughts, as Heller suddenly gives a brief glimpse that it's not all fun and games. Catch-22 is anti-war and makes fun of it from all angles. Operations are secondary when the whole staff is after personal glory and recognition, and the higher the rank, the smaller the brain. It's competition first, war second. Pianosa is a miniature society with rules that can be bent and broken if you're smart enough. Or if the man in charge is stupid enough. 

The grunts do everything to avoid flying missions but even laying in hospital gets boring and eventually they have to. Don't you want to die for your country? the higher-ups ask, and no, not really, the men answer. Everyone is dispensable though. Everything is numbers and war is a business, as Heller slaps capitalism with a limp palm. When the profit is right even their own base gets bombed, by themselves. Anything goes as long as someone is paid enough.

Catch-22 is a bit tad too long as there's no solid story to carry it. We follow the men, Yossarian and his pals, their struggles and gags and weird behavior and all of it, somehow, come together at the end. The ending itself isn't the most satisfying thing ever but it's not a belly-flop either. We begin with the comedy and follow the story getting darker and darker, while never forgetting to be funny. Characters that first seem like one-note personalities somehow grow on you, and their stupid sayings or behavior that was almost irritating earlier, is suddenly endearing. 

It's a smart book filled with nuggets of wisdom. There's symbolism and commentary, a lot to digest if you can or want to take the book seriously. I would argue that it's a great little teaser for anyone who is interested in philosophy, why we behave like we do, why we think like we do and so on. Yossarian doesn't want to die and you wouldn't either. Unless you're crazy. Then you'd have to fly more missions. Because there's always a catch.