Week 4 - Summary of the plot

Hello blog(it sounds cooler in Norwegian). Today is a sad day, because today is the last post on this blog, NOOOOOOOOOO (enter Darth Vader voice here)

Let's not be sad, however, let us instead rejoice of how much joy this book journey has brought us, even thought it's been a pretty depressing book... Anyways, let the post begiiiin.

(And we shall indeed hit it) 

As I started reading this book I was immediately introduced to the main protagonist, Yossarian, as he is at the hospital for his weekly sick leave. The book opens on a humorous note with Yossarian fooling the doctors that he has to stay and cracking jokes while he is censoring a bunch of letters purely for the fun of it. It will later turn out, however, that the main plot of the book is not that not at all that humorous, and when it is humorous it does not last for long. The real reason for why Yossarian is in the hospital so often is not because he likes the food there, he is there because he simply does not want to die in any air combat missions. Throughout the book Yossarian is faced with people who are rooting both for and against him. Amongst those who is rooting against him is Colonel Cathcart, who is constantly raising the missions by 5 at a time, and when a member of Yossarian's squadron is morbidly cut in half by a plane propellor he amps it up and raises the number right from 70 to 80. The Chaplain is on Yossarian's side though as he is trying to help him with finding a way back to his home, and that will prove to be a lot more difficult than said. With the constant nagging of characters like Milo, Hungry Joe and Lieutenant/General Scheiskoppf who are incredibly persistent on his marching routines. 

I have decided not to include any spoilers in this post so my post may be a bit short, but that is only because I am gonna urge you to read this book. I will, however, leave this post on a cliffhanger though, you are warned. Following the last 100 pages or so in the book I sat back and read what I believe to be is one of the most eye opening chapters of any book I've read. The chapter I am talking about is The eternal city, where Yossarian is walking through a city in Italy and witnessing tragedy after tragedy. It ranges from animal cruelty, to female abuse and even to child abuse. This chapter wasn't meant to just serve as a literary purpose, but to a social purpose, an eye opening purpose. The chapter shows us how bad times really were, and how life for the Italians would be seen as a grotesque way of life if it happened in the United States. After the killing of multiple characters in the book Yossarian has ended up in this morbid city that has fallen to its knees and is dying. Yossarian's journey is not done after this chapter though, and there is a lot more you should know about why he is there, but to know that you will have to read the book ;). I will issue a warning though as the book may be confusing at some times because of the complex words Heller uses and the almost endless supply of new characters. The book is a little perplex if seen from the outside, but if you really read it until the end it will prove to be a great book. 

Well that's all folks, I have enjoyed our journey together and maybe one day we will see each other again on a similar journey. 

(Oh yes, it is a confusing book, but in a good way, if that makes sense ;)) 

Character focus day

So today I will go into a deeper explanation and description of the characters in my book. I will choose only three that will get an in depth description because of just how many characters there are(yeah, there are a lot). Let us begiiiin. 

Yossarian. 

Oh yes you guessed it, first up is Yossarian. Yossarian is, as you have probably guessed by now, the main protagonist in the story. He is a part of the 256th squadron Army Air Forcers and he is stationed on the small island of Pianosa in Italy during world war 2. I believe that the character is based on the experiences of Joseph Heller himself as he also served as a bombardier on a small island off the coast off Italy. Yossarian is, well, he is a little strange if we can put it like that. He gets himself hospitalized because he does not want to fly any more missions, although that may not be strange there is everything around that that makes him a little bit strange. He tells the doctors that his liver is hurting but really it isn't, he complains to his officers that there is man in his tent while in reality that man has died, and he blames everyone for trying to kill him. He either says that they are trying to kill him directly, or they are doing it indirectly by making him fly more missions. This might be a weird statement to make, and it might even be wrong, but I believe that Yossarian is one of the few people in the camp that are actually sane. He complains so often about wanting to go home because he has finished his missions, but surprisingly none of the other soldiers fight it off as much as Yossarian, because Yossarian knows that the war is over soon and he knows that there is no need for more combat missions. The way you can really tell that he's sane though is because of his reaction to Catch 22, he is one of the only ones that react to it and thinks that it is utter nonsense. Yossarian knows that he can not go home though, so he tries to make time fly(internal joke as he wants the war to be over so he doesn't have to fly anymore) by filling his days with booze, sex and weekly visits to the hospital. 

(How I look when I watch Vikings, complete focus)

Milo Minderbinder

Yes good old Milo. Well he might not be that old though, and yes he certainly is not good. This character will be hard to explain, so please bare with me. Milo Minderbinder is probably the most interesting character I have ever in my whole life read about, his thought process is unlike any others and his way of creating business and influencing people is, well let's just say insane. First off let me start off on a good note(joke) by saying that he arranged an attack on his base. Yes you heard correctly(read correctly if you want to be politically correct). Milo is in charge of M&M enterprises, where the Ms are his initials, and he travels to a multitude of nations to trade supplies, make profits and create business partners. One of his business partners, you guessed it, the German Army. He begins contracting missions for them and in one of these missions he orders the attack of his own base. To make things even more interesting, he orders it from the control tower of his own base in Pianosa, yeah he really is batsh*t crazy(sorry for the profanity but it needed to be said). He is court martialed for treason, but because of his highly profitable enterprise he hires an expensive lawyer and convinces the jury that America was built on capitalism and he is the set free. Milo is the exact definition of the belief that money can buy you anything. I really don't know what else to say about him, except that I believe he should not keep making Egyptian cotton chocolate balls, that are really cotton candy, but are really actually cotton(yeah this happens in the book, read it). 

(He really does look like a guy that can sell you anything, and when you think about it that egg does look good... I wonder how much it costs) 

Chaplain 

The last character up is Chaplain, and allow me to just say bravo to Joseph Heller for his writing on this character. I have never in my life gained a more clear picture of a character than Chaplain. The Chaplain is after my belief trapped, he is not trapped only physically but also mentally. In the book he is talked about as kind of a loner, as the soldiers in the squadron can't really relate to him since he is not a soldier himself and most soldiers there do not have a relationship with God. He has no true friends there for God, and when his relationship with God is questioned he truly suffers. In the way he is described you can really feel pity for him and you almost feel how alone he himself feels along all these men who are the exact opposite of him. While they are all out drinking, he is praying that the war might be over soon. While they are all out fighting, he is either by himself or he's seeing Yossarian in the hospital. And most importantly while the others are out enjoying the Italian women, he is hoping that he will come home to a wife that is still alive. As gruesome as it sounds he is constantly having nightmares about his wife and kids dying and that he will never get to see them again, he is not afraid of only his own life but the lives of his loved ones. This is not the only issue that he faces, however, as he is later accused of signing letters with a fake name, even though it is stated earlier in the book that it is Major Major Major Major who has done this(yes, it is a real name in the book). He is taken by a few officers and lead down into a cellar where they try to make him admit to the forgery, but he constantly refuses and pleads them to let him go. Towards the end of his book there is no mention of his wife and family are doing, but it is certain that finally he is not alone mentally as his relationship with God, and therefore his morale, strengthens. 

(Mhm I know what you're thinking, Norman Bates really cleaned himself up)

Well that's it for this post guys. I hope you enjoyed and I look forward for you to join me again tomorrow night for my last book blog. 

(Sorry for the long post, here's a funny pun) 

Week 4 - Oh boy are you guys in for a treat on this one
I have just finished the book and let me just say "oh my gosh, that‘s insane, and what the heck did I just read?" Personally I think this book is a masterpiece, both in the way it is written, the plot twists and how everything in the book is tied together. I will talk more about this on sunday though, as the plan for today is to show you all how the events of this book relates to real life socio economic issues.

And oh what a show Catch 22 is. As you all know by now, the story of Catch 22 is set in Italy during World War 2. It was a time of great national pride, strong military forces and unfortunately mass murder that swept through multiple nations. It is a well known fact that the nazis were bad people, nobody liked Germany or Hitler, countries fought each other during great battles and in the third reich collapsed and Hitler committed suicide(or did he move to Argentina and lived there until his death? Look it up, theres an interesting article about the possibility). I am not here to dwell upon whether or not Hitler survived the war, I am here to tell you all about the social issues that this book talks about. Joseph Heller, the author of Catch 22, participated during World War 2 himself so he obviously knows what he is talking about when writing his book. One thing that I think makes it such an important book compared to the social issues, is of how he talks about them. He doesn't talk about the great battles like Normandy, and the battle of Somme, instead he talks about the more "hidden" issues. When I say "hidden" I am talking about all the atrocities that took place that aren't as popular in the story books, I am talking about incidents such as the murder of innocent civilians committed by soldiers, the prostitution and the rape. The book talks about how Allied soldiers would fly into Italy to fight Germans and while they would stay there they would be with several women and some women would even be raped and killed. Well according to Wikipedia.org stuff like this actually took place during the war, and no it was not the Germans who did it, it was soldiers belonging to the proud United States Army. During what is known as the Canicatti Massacre, Lieutenant Colonel McCaffrey  had ordered the killing of Italian civilians. The number of people killed are estimated to be around seven people. In another incident, known as the Biscay Massacre, there were two instances of mass murders as US troops of the 45th Infantry Division killed roughly 75 prisoners of war, where most of them were Italians. A big theme of this book is about the war crimes that took place, and in it there are a lot of instances about rape. The very disturbing thing is that this took place regularly during the war. According to Wikipedia.org American GIs committed 400 sexual offenses in Europe, including 126 rapes in England, between 1942 and 1945. There is even an estimation that over 14,000 civilian women in England, Germany and France were raped by American soldiers during world war 2. 

(Waffen SS troops executed by American soldiers) 

The last thing I will talk about in this book blog now is of the American economy and family during world war 2 and their losses. The book talks about how the families of killed soldiers would receive money from the state so they could take care of themselves. The American economy suffered great losses and according to ushistory.com the war cost them 350 billion dollars, and not only that but over 292,000 soldiers were killed in action. Families lost fathers, and during the war some 20 million people were on the verge of starvation in the US. In the book there is talk about the Chaplain and his wife and how he is petrified that his family would die while he was gone and how afraid he was if he would never get to see them again. In the book the Chaplain does end up surviving the war and I expect he then gets to see his family again. Not everyone was as lucky as the Chaplain though, as according to ushistory.com there were 5 million war widows after the war. 5 million families who lost their husband and perhaps father. The losses from world war 2 were great and it is shown heavily in this book. This is it though for this week‘s book blog, join me again in a few hours when I will tell you specifically about all the characters in the book. 

(This post has been pretty depressing so here is a picture of a cute corgi) 

Week 3 - Yossarian keeps protesting, and the combat missions gets raised again

As we left off last week‘s blog post we had met a distressed combat airman named Yossarian. Yossarian had just left the hospital with a liver injury he did not really have, and was ready to go home after flying one more mission to reach the required number of 45, but it had now been changed to 50 missions and he has begun refusing the flying yet again. As we enter this week of reading though, the required number has been raised yet again to 60 combat missions (Fun fact incoming, Joseph Heller actually flew 60 air combat missions himself).

(Not Joseph Heller in that plane, but it‘s a cool picture and is relevant to the story) 

I am a little over halfways now in the book, and let me just say that I am still very intrigued in wanting to discover the story of this book, but I am even more confused though. A factor that plays into my perplexed view on this book is the way that it is written. The story is seen from a third person view with a switch of characters going faster than the Millennium Falcon, and while this may be confusing it also grants the reader an extremely wide view of the story. The reader gets to see every moment from every character‘s point of view. Every character except from the patient in white, because you know, he is kinda dead. The patient in white is not the only dead one though, as we have also discovered that Yossarian is sharing his tent with a dead man, a soldier who had reported for duty and only 4 hours later had died in a combat air mission. Yossarian keeps complaining to his superiors that he will not share his tent with a dead man, even though there really is no one there. My main focus this week won‘t be about the dead non existing man who is there but is still not there though, it is on the meaning of the famous catch 22. In this week‘s reading Yossarian goes to complain to his superiors on the subject of the 60 air combat missions needed, but as it turns out there is only 40 missions required per the official Army requirements. Yossarian says to his superior that he is then free to leave since he now has 50 plus missions flown, but there is a catch, precisely catch 22. According to the official requirements Yossarian is free to leave, but it is his squadron‘s boss that has ordered them to fly the 60 missions, and if Yossarian would leave after the 40 missions he would be refusing to comply with the orders from his boss which would be regarded as not acceptable. How will Yossarian cope with these requirements that aren‘t really official requirements but still are? Follow me again next week in my review of this weird, intriguing, confusing and amazing book. 

Yossarian in the movie Catch 22

Showing his reaction to the required number of missions. 

Joseph Heller, American famous author and an Anti-War Activist

Joseph Heller was born May 1st, 1923 in Brooklyn, New York. According to Biography.com "he flew 60 combat missions, before finishing up his studies at Columbia and Oxford and working as an advertising copywriter". The book Catch 22 is written by Joseph Heller and it is a satirical novel in which the story is built off of his own wartime experiences. His book was seen as one of the most significant work of postwar protest literature and it was a huge critical success. Heller originally did not plan for his book to be no longer than a novelette, but after he had been able to add enough substance to it he was beginning to envision that this could be his first novel. According to Wikipedia.com Heller was not very attached to his current work, and said himself that he would not even care to finish the novel if no one would publish it. After a while the work was bought by Simon & Schusters,  in which Heller received US $750 and would receive another US $750 after the work was complete. The deadline for the completion was, however, missed by Heller by around four to five years, but after eight full years Heller finally delivered his work to his publisher. The book went on to sell 10 million copies in the United States, and it created a well known term known as a Catch-22. According to google a catch 22 is known as "a dilemma or difficult circumstance from which there is no escape because of mutually conflicting or dependent conditions."

Heller went on to write several more novels and they were also published, but they never reached the same fame as their predecessor Catch 22. An interesting fact about Joseph Heller‘s method of writing, is that he never started on a story before envisioning both the first and last sentence, that way he would not have to create an ending, but simply create a story between the beginning and end. To me there is a certain brilliance to that method, it says to me that you should not focus on starting to do something and where you will end up, but rather focus on what you do on the journey towards that end. The goal is not the end of the journey, but it is rather the journey that is the goal.

Both intrigued, and confused

I have now started reading the book Catch 22 and as Yossarian says; "It was love at first sight". As we enter the story of what is Catch 22, we are introduced to our main character Yossarian, a member of the 256th squadron flying combat missions in Italy during world war 2. As the story begins Yossarian is laying in his hospital bed, as he has "liver pains". In reality Yossarian is doing just fine but he no longer wants to participate in the war, so he instead will stay in the hospital bed, censoring letters and getting to know the new Chaplain who is visiting Yossarian‘s part of the hospital. Yossarian proves to be quite fond of the Chaplain and encourages him to visit more often.

The visit from the Chaplain proves to be the most "normal" part of what I have read so far. In Yossarian‘s sick hall there are a number of characters, but the one who gets my utmost attention is "Patient White". The patient is a wounded soldier who is covered in white bandages all over his body and is completely immobilized. As it turns out though, the patient has been dead for a while and it is only discovered once the nurse is checking everyone‘s temperature.

As my reading of this week is coming to a close, our hero Yossarian is becoming more and more frustrated and wanting to go home. He tells his Officer that he desires to go home, but the officer tells him that he will need 50 combat missions, but Yossarian only has 44. And so ends the chapter and this week‘s reading, I am excited to tell you of more next week.

Hello, and welcome to my book reading blog.

My name is Jonas and on this very page I will share with you my very own review of the famous novel, Catch 22. Catch 22 was written by American author Joseph Heller, who was born in 1923 in Brooklyn, New York. His love for writing started when he was a young child studying at Abraham Lincoln High School. He wrote a story about the Russian invasion of Finland. After he graduated High School he enrolled in the army where he flew a total of 60 combat missions. After the war was over he enrolled at the University of Southern California and NYU to study English, and in 1949 he received his M.A. in English at Columbia University. Before Heller wrote his most famous novel Catch 22, wrote several short stories at home, in which one of them was featured in the American magazine The Atlantic.

Over the course of the next few weeks I will share with you my own review of Catch 22 cover for cover and chapter for chapter. I am excited to share my experience with you as we will both delve into this masterpiece of a book. It tells the story of the airmen of the 256th squadron as they are partaking in combat missions in Italy. They are, however, instead of flying these combat missions looking for ways to avoid them. Throughout the book I will, together with you, find out how this all will play out. And now we start our book journey together.