B\5 x 5 CONTINUED: BOOKS -

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Continuing 5 facts about 5 books, today . . . 

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CATCH-22

Catch-22 is a satirical war novel by American author Joseph Heller (1923- 1999) first published in 1961. The novel is set during World War II, from 1942 to 1944. It mainly follows the life of antihero Captain John Yossarian, a U.S. Army Air Forces B-25 bombardier. The novel examines the absurdity of war and military life through the experiences of Yossarian and his cohorts, who attempt to maintain their sanity while fulfilling their service requirements so that they may return home.

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Facts:

1.

This was Heller’s debut book. While lying in bed in his apartment on the West Side of Manhattan in the early 1950s, over the course of an hour and a half, he developed the basic plot and collection of characters that he’d ultimately use in his novel. Heller, an advertising copywriter, spent the workday following writing out the entire first chapter of what would become Catch-22 by hand. A full year passed before he completed a second chapter.

Joseph Heller in 1986

2.

The title was changed to Catch-22 after numerous alternatives were rejected:

• Heller’s agent felt that Catch-18 would be confused with a WW2 novel published at that time, Leon Uris’s Mila 18.

• Catch-11 was suggested but it was thought that this might be confused with the 1960 movie Oceans Eleven.

• Catch-17 was rejected as being too similar to the movie Stalag 17.

• Catch-14 was rejected by the publisher as not being a funny number.

• Catch-22 was selected as having the right syllables and because it sounded repetitive, reflecting repetition which occurs in the book.

3.

The novel's Catch-22 is as follows:

• a combat pilot was crazy by definition (he would have to be crazy to fly combat missions);

• since army regulations stipulated that insanity was justification for grounding, a pilot could avoid flight duty by simply asking;

• but if he asked, he was demonstrating his sanity (anyone who wanted to get out of combat must be sane) and had to keep flying.

Catch-22 soon entered the language as the label for any irrational, circular, and impossible situation. For example, needing a key to enter a locked room but the key is in the locked room.

4.

Catch-22 is set in World War II, but its tone is shaped by the events of the 1950s. This was a decade of repression in America, exemplified by U.S. Senator Joseph McCarthy. The loyalty oaths and political paranoia in the novel reflect McCarthyism. Catch-22 grew in popularity during the years of the Vietnam War, when the general population became more attuned to Yossarian's point of view.

5.

Heller served in the US Army Air Corps during World War II and flew 60 combat missions as a B-25 bombardier. and he based a number of Catch-22’s characters on his army buddies. Yossarian’s name came from fellow WWII veteran Francis Yohannan. Additionally, the sociopathic Milo Minderbinder was designed with Heller’s childhood friend, Marvin “Beansy” Winkler of Coney Island, in mind.

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