Search - Catch-22

I've noticed a lot of the reviews of this book mention that the person never finished the book - the usual petering-out point is about page 100.

And I can see why - there's a smug humor in the book that is just annoying by about that time. Well, really annoying by that time. For whatever reason (thanks be to God), Heller changes tack somewhere around there, and although it's still a lot of nonsense and surreal humor, and characters that are more caricature than human, at least it seems like the reader is no longer the butt of the joke.

I was ready to say this was the most cynical book ever, but then I finished it, and it's not. Also, while it's enjoyable and a must-read and blah-blah-blah, it does feel like different books at different points. Sometimes I felt like I was reading a Monty Python script, sometimes it was like "Rosenkrantz and Guildenstern," sometimes it was like a Dali dream sequence, and every once in a while it was just, you know, Hemingway or something.

I think I could really have used a study group or a college class to help me with this one. But I'm glad I read it anyway.

The classic illustration "darned if you, and darned if you don't."

I enjoyed this book but found it hard to read. It is about a man named Yossarian who is just trying to stay alive during World War II. Each chapter is named after a different person and in the chapter they explain their side of the story. A couple of times you will read the same storyline from a different point of view. AT times the dialog is hard to follow, but after a few chapters you get used to it. It took me a long time to read, but I can see why it is on the list of the 100 great books of the 20th century. I am so glad that the U. S. Military does not really operate like they do in this book, or we may have not won World War II.

You'll want to read it twice.