Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #241 in Books
• Published on: 1994-10-06
• Original language: English
• Binding: Paperback
• 576 pages

Financial Times
Blessedly, monstrously, bloatedly, cynically funny, and fantastically unique.

Observer
The greatest satirical work in the English language since EREHWON

Chicago Times
An apocalyptic masterpiece

Customer Reviews

Papier-marmite
I will start by saying that I simply can not understand how so many people have got so much out of this book.

Being a fan of the hilarious 'Flashman papers' by George MacDonald Fraser, I thought I would give this a try, it being something completely different and having many rave reviews.

After beginning to read it, there were a couple of genuinely funny moments in the first ten to fifteen chapters, but after that, the humour just bored me and made the book a complete chore to read.

Granted, Heller has some very valid points that he makes in the book about the absurdity of humans going to war and the process of fighting itself. However, upon finishing the book, I just felt that the entire thing had been a muddle and the humour really did not appeal to me at all.

One of the most infuriating points I found was that I absolutely hated every character in the whole book. I just could not feel for any of them. They were all annoying and about a third of the way through the book I was hoping Yossarian would just get shot down and have done with it.

Oh yes, and the ridiculous names of all the characters was another niggle of mine. It may have been funny when this book was first published but it really hasn't aged well.

This book, judging from the reviews on this site, is obviously the closest thing to papier-marmite as you can get. You really will either love it or absolutely hate it.

Begin reading with caution - it's a long book!

Buying this for the second time...
...because I have just worn out my first copy. Although this book is superficially about the end of the second world war, the central theme of losing control of one's destiny is surely more relevant today than it has ever been. For anyone struggling to find context for this book I would suggest reading the author's memoirs, Now and Then: From Coney Island to Here.

One of three
Believe it or not, my parents recommended this book to me. All I can say is, for once they were right. I've only read two other books that so blew me away in their conception and execution and those were "Clockwork Orange" and "Katzenjammer" by McCrae. But even those can't compare to "Catch 22. What a wild ride this well crafted book is. To say it's thought-provoking is a cliche, but there it is. Sort of like "1984" probably was before 1984. Some have likened this to MASH and the Korean war, and I can see those similarities, but the book is really meant to be read on a much broader level; a level of humanity in general and not one specific event or time period. The book is funny and challenging, but that seems to me to be what one would be looking for in a great novel. There's reason this book has been around for eons--it's simply a great novel that holds up to the test of time.