An ironic take on a lose-lose situation
First published in 1961, Heller’s withering satire continues to hit its target today. The novel marshals and exposes farcical bureaucracy, logistical confusion and a freak show of officers as dangerous as they are absurd: Major Major, the reclusive squadron commander who is bullied by his own men; the sadistic Colonel Cathcart, who keeps raising the number of missions required to complete a tour of duty; and the shameless capitalist Milo Minderbinder, who isn’t averse to bombing his own base in the name of profit. Watching in bewilderment as, one by one, his friends are killed in action, is Yossarian, the ultimate anti-hero, who resorts to ever more desperate measures to save himself from the same fate.
‘That’s some catch, that Catch-22,’ he observed.
‘It’s the best there is,’ Doc Daneeka agreed.
Fighting just a generation after ‘the war to end all wars’, the bitter irony isn’t lost on the American squaddies at the air base on the island of Pianosa. Heller’s carefully drawn characters (the novel took eight years to complete) ponder the absurdity of their situation while continuing to play their roles in a daily game of chance.