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Catch-22

• Message 1.Β 

  Posted by RedGuzzi750 (U7604797) on Sunday, 25th January 2009

  Well I have tried reading the book 3 times; failed. I tried watching the film 20 years ago - failed.
  
  However, tonight I watched the DVD I bought for a fiver a few months ago, and you know what? It is a truly extraordinary film, maybe the one of the finest anti-war films I have ever seen. And the blackest of comedy. A masterpiece of cinema.

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• Message 2

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  Posted by GeneralDreedle (U1705272) on Wednesday, 28th January 2009

  Give the book another go. The film is ok but the book is in a different league.

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• Message 3

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  Posted by White Camry (U2321601) on Wednesday, 28th January 2009

  Both book and movie are superb but, like GD says, give the book another go. There is a linear plot (of sorts) but don't look for it -- it'll come to you when you've finished.
  
  Btw, it's required reading at the USAF Academy.
  
  My first intro to it was the MAD magazine spoof, 'Catch-All-22' wherein 'Shmoessarian' wants to get out of the movie but he has to be crazy to get out of it. And anyone who wants to get out of the movie obviously isn't crazy.

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• Message 4

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  Posted by clankylad (U1778100) on Wednesday, 28th January 2009

  The film's nothing special (although it's worth it to see some good B-25 scenes) but the book has dated terribly. Some really heavy-handed attempts at humour by an author who isn't naturally funny.

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• Message 5

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  Posted by an ex-nordmann - it has ceased to exist (U3472955) on Wednesday, 28th January 2009

  A lot of people think that the term "Catch 22" was an actual one used by the US military bureaucracy. In fact not only was it completely fictitious, but it wasn't even Heller's first choice of title as he explained himself in a Playboy interview (I only buy it for the interviews, you know). In fact the book took nearly as long to name as it did to write.
  
  The rejected book titles in sequence were:
  
  Catch 18 (too like Mila 18, then a recent Leon Uris bestseller - rejected by agent)
  
  Catch 11 (too like Ocean's Eleven - rejected by publisher)
  
  Catch 33 (too "Jesussy" and too high a number anyway - rejected by Heller)
  
  Catch 17 (too like Stalag 17 - rejected by agent)
  
  Catch 14 (not funny enough - rejected by agent)
  
  Catch 21 (too many bad personal connotations - rejected by Heller)
  
  At this point Heller was on the point of suggesting "Catch 54" in honour of the US sit-com "Car 54 Where Are You?" when his agent, during a meeting at the publishers, realised that the novel hinged on twenty two events which repeat themselves. He, his agent and the publisher all waited a few minutes in silence for someone to think of an objection. None came. Eventually the publisher pulled a bottle of bourbon out from his desk and cried "Thank God!". They toasted their success in at last christening the book when all three noticed the bourbon bottle before them - Old Charter 22.

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• Message 6

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  Posted by U3280211 (U3280211) on Wednesday, 28th January 2009

  I thought that the true horror in the film came, not so much from watching his friends inards spill out across the floor of the B25, a scene played over and over again; but was found more in the casual insanity of:-
  1) the cute but mindless nurses thoughtlessly swapping the saline drip and the urine colection bag of the badly burned airman encased head to toe in plaster.
  or
  2)MM and the other officers explaining to Yoss that for complex political and economic reasons the USAF would have to bomb their own base tonight.

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• Message 7

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  Posted by stalteriisok (U3212540) on Saturday, 31st January 2009

  i was told to read the book on the defunct bbc bookboards
  
  i did so and really didnt get it
  
  st

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• Message 8

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  Posted by Caro (U1691443) on Wednesday, 11th February 2009

  It's only a couple of years since I read Catch-22 (did see the movies many years ago) and it didn't seem to have dated at all.
  
  Fantastic book, though I don't why so many people call it hilarious; I thought it was deeply deeply tragic. And full of great anger.
  
  Could possibly be one of those books you think more of in retrospect than while actually reading it, but even so there were several times when it brought me to tears.
  
  Cheers, Caro.

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• Message 9

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  Posted by hank plankton (U4792100) on Wednesday, 11th February 2009

  Never been onto these boards before, so, hello.
  
  It's only a couple of years since I read Catch-22 (did see the movies many years ago) and it didn't seem to have dated at all.
  
  Fantastic book, though I don't why so many people call it hilarious; I thought it was deeply deeply tragic. And full of great anger.
  
  Could possibly be one of those books you think more of in retrospect than while actually reading it, but even so there were several times when it brought me to tears.
  
  Cheers, Caro.Β 
  
  I read 'Catch 22' in my 20's and couldn't put it down, feeling similar emotions to Caro. However, I attempted to read it again in my late 30's and couldn't get into it at all. Maybe I was empathising with the characters when I was a similar age to them, maybe my tastes changed, I don't know. Fantastic book though, and an okay film.
  Incidently, after three attempts I have finally read the whole of 'Stalingrad' by Anthony Beevor. I will never moan about the cold and the snow again.
  
  Hank.

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• Message 10

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  Posted by Caro (U1691443) on Wednesday, 11th February 2009

  I am reading Polar Castaways about the men who were on the supporting ship for Shackleton's Antarctic expedition in 1915, and feel the same. They make the trenches look like a reasonable alternative. Frostbite, scurvy,9 dead dogs, no food, sleeping on snow after first un-icing the bag, putting on iced up boots that didn't fit in the first place, ears falling on, etc. And I haven't got to the worst part yet.
  
  Cheers, Caro.
  
  PS I was about 55 and not male and not keen on war, but still loved Catch-22. I don't think you have to be their age to feel for them. (But I have been amazed to remember the ages of some of the men (boys) on this Antarctic trip, mostly in their early 20s. I thik I just pop an extra twenty years in my mind onto most people that I read about.)

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• Message 11

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  Posted by stalteriisok (U3212540) on Monday, 16th February 2009

  hi hank
  
  welcome
  
  i know just what you mean about beevors stalingrad - i read it alongside a pool in majorca - i had to keep covering myself with a towel to keep warm in 90F - awesome !!
  
  my friendly spanish waiter kept asking me if i had finished as he wanted to read it lol - not sure if he knew what snow was - i left it with him
  
  caro
  get your point and appreciate it - but how about sleeping in the open in minus 20 - having to light a fire to thaw the oil sump on a tank - eating one of the dogs - dodging russian snipers - and staying calm when the whole countryside exploded in brown coated russian infantry screaming "oorie poubedia" or similar - then the next day it happens again
  
  how could anyone - let alone elite artctic explorers put up with that - day after day after day
  
  st
  
  

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• Message 12

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  Posted by Caro (U1691443) on Monday, 16th February 2009

  Your description sounded so remarkably similar to what I have been reading that for a second I thought you were describing the Antarctic expedition! The Russian sniper is not around the Antarctic.
  Your point about the elite is interesting because when I have been reading this book - and some of them are about to die of scurvy no doubt exacerbated by the cold conditions and virtual starvation - I have thought that some of these men would have been Oxford University people, and yet they have had the guts and stamina to spend hours a day dragging heavy sledges across the ice, living on seals they have to kill (with their 'big brown eyes looking beseechingly at you') and ghastly-sounding dried concoctions, in cramped conditions, often with frozen bedding with ill-fitting footwear and iced-up socks, and some of them (when too injured to pull the sledge) spending time at huts in the frozen continent absolutely on their own for up to 6 weeks at a time.
  
  I have been reading off and on for a while a book on a later episode in the second world war ("With The Jocks") which is pretty awful at times too, having to dig into frozen soil for protection and going many hours without food or sleep, but this Antarctic stuff is more gruelling reading, I think, even though the narrative is quite an objective account and we don't really get inside the heads of the men much, except through short quoted diary accounts. It's not sentimentalised at all.
  
  Cheers, Caro.

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• Message 13

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  Posted by RedGuzzi750 (U7604797) on Tuesday, 17th February 2009

  Caro try "The Βι¶ΉΤΌΕΔ Of The Blizzard" by Douglas Mawson, not easy going but a good read. He killed his freind by feeding him dog livers....vitamin A poisoning..

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• Message 14

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  Posted by stalteriisok (U3212540) on Tuesday, 17th February 2009

  hi caro
  dont forget shackleton didnt get mortared lol
  
  you say they could have been oxford people - very true
  
  but dont forget they would also have been public school educated - not much difference to an arctic expedition
  
  much as i despise public schools - you only have to look at history to see that the empire was created by people who were public school educated - all the explorers, empire builders, soldiers, were all public school leavers - and in lots of cases oxbridge educated
  
  their courage and determination - esp the military has never been doubted - the stiff upper lip and sheer bloody minded determination is an example to us all -
  
  common sense may be limited - but who else would wander into the atctic wastes and battle through
  
  the occasional brown eyed seal may have had to be eaten - but when it came to it they would have eaten eaten their tenants te-he
  st
  

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• Message 15

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  Posted by Caro (U1691443) on Tuesday, 17th February 2009

  I seem to be surrounded by the Antarctic these days - other people have been advising me to read of Shackleton's voyage itself - this book I am reading is about his support crew laying depots at the south for later and getting stuck there. And now Mawson. And today's book review on my radio is about a novel based on Scott's expedition by Robert Ryan. Death on the Ice I think it is.
  
  I am not sure I can take all these. I am finding the one I am reading distressing enough. I am rather putting off reading it at the moment since I know I am getting to the bit where the men I rather like are going to die.
  
  Next I am going to find something very fluffy to read (though from experience I know these don't appeal straight after reading something important and real like this Polar Castaways).
  
  Cheers, Caro.

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• Message 16

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  Posted by Caro (U1691443) on Tuesday, 17th February 2009

  The dogs on this trip certainly didn't get eaten. The original idea was to take enough dogs that they could be killed for food for the other dogs, but so many of them died from starvation (they underestimated how much food the dogs would need in such conditions) that keeping them alive was a real test. The ones finally rescued from the ice just had a couple left. On the very first trip on the ice to look for depot all nine of the dogs died.
  
  It's all rather harrowing - and does give you a lot of respect for upper-class public school men. (Though lots of them were not that of course, there were Australians and navy men and cooks etc who didn't come from that background.)
  
  The reviewer this morning wondered who would do this these days - they all expect to have huge back-up crews and rescues from other countries when the going gets tough.
  
  Cheers, Caro.
  

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• Message 17

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  Posted by stalteriisok (U3212540) on Tuesday, 17th February 2009

  they should have taken with them inhabitants of Barrow AK (google it)
  
  saw the stephen fry series when he went there - its the most northerly town in the usa
  
  swings from 24 hr darkness to 24 hours sun
  
  they still eat whales -
  
  they could have done the trip standing on their heads lol - who needs eton
  
  st

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