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Catch 22

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Catch 22

By: Joseph Heller
Narrated by: Trevor White
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Nominated for the Audiobook Download of the Year, 2008.

At the heart of Joseph Heller's best-selling novel, first published in 1961, is a satirical indictment of military madness and stupidity, and the desire of the ordinary man to survive it.

This is the tale of the dangerously sane Captain Yossarian, who spends his time in Italy plotting to survive. Yossarian is a bombardier in the 256th Squadron of the US Army Air Forces during World War II, stationed on Pianosa, a fictionalised island in the Mediterranean between mainland Italy and Corsica. The squadron's assignment is to bomb enemy positions in Italy and eastern France. Yossarian's mission is simply to stay alive.

©1961 Joseph Heller (P)2008 Hachette Audio Classics Genre Fiction Historical Fiction War & Military

Critic reviews

"The greatest satirical work in the English language since Erewhon. ( Observer)
"Wildly original, and brutally gruesome, a dazzling performance that will outrage as many readers as it delights. Vulgarly, bitterly, savagely funny, it will not be forgotten by those who can take it." ( The New York Times)
"An apocalyptic masterpiece." ( Chicago Times)

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This book is the reason I read today. At 12 is diagnosed with a reading disorder and a librarian told me I should read something different and this was it. I’ve looked for a book as memorable and never really found it. This is my number 1.

Inspiring literature

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I’ve read the book, and a classic it is, but the narrator breathes new life into this already exquisite story. Enjoy!

Wonderful

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I returned to this modern classic not really expecting it to live up to my memory of its bite, cleverness and the inventive use of the absurd. I was pleasantly disappointed (a contradiction that might have pleased Heller). The bite is as sharp as it was in the early 80's, when I first read the book. The years, the wars and the cynicism of the last 20 years have not dulled the edge of the humour or the social criticism of the war, victors and who really gets the spoils. In fact, it is probably more pogninant today when more and more young people side with Yossarian to opt out of military service. As he reminds us, we would be crazy not to do the same!

I listened and re-listend to numerous passages (just as I would re-read a book with a clever passage) to dwell in the comic wit and cleverness. I had forgotten Milo Mindbender's explanation for the Syndicate buying at 7c and selling at 5c for a profit. It is Abbott and Costello genius of a "Who's on First" level. I have "marked" passages for the future, too.

As for the narrator, I have to say I oscillated from huge fan to disappointed. His Col. Cathcart and General Dreedle are outstanding, as is his pidgeon Italian. But Yossarian just didn't hit it for me until the 2nd part (by which time I had become accustomed to it). Unfortunately, (or fortunately), I still hear Alan Arkin. Maybe the general narration was too close to Yossarian - I'm not sure. Another reader might not suffer from this limitation, so perhaps my view is a bit unkind. Still, I liked the performance enough to keep going (like Nately's whore). I suspect you will too.

Satire Still Sings and Zings

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Clever, hysterical, funny, well written, perfect. Most of the book made no sense...like parts of war! Perfect

Hysterical...best book I have ever red!!

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I have rarely been more conflicted about an audiobook. To deal first with the narration, Trevor White is top drawer, keeping an even conversational tone and subtly differentiating the characters. As for the production, it is fine, although some of the silences between chapters are unnecessarily drawn out. The text itself has moments of genuine comedy and pathos but overall I found it dishonestly and opportunistically conceived and executed. Heller's war was, by his own admission, a "good" one - he flew many missions with patriotic comrades who believed in what they were fighting for, and competent senior officers with their mens' best interests at heart. Why then did he feel the need to lampoon the US WWII effort, and in particular the air war over Italy, so brutally? Saying he was disillusioned by Korea doesn't cut it... it rather smacks of a cynical attempt to cash in on a rising generation with no direct memory of the threat the US and the world faced, one that was ready to believe the worst about their parents and belittle their naivety in being willing to sacrifice their lives for an abstract cause. In that he was undoubtedly successful, so much so that few of the millions of teens who read this in the mid-sixties can have retained any desire to serve their country in Vietnam or anywhere else. It's a pity, because the theme of sanity / humanity in the extraordinary times of war is a rich one, but so often it just rehashes the hackneyed trope "The purported lunatic is the only sane person in an insane world". Overall I think it's a book one should read to understand the 1960s a little better, but don't at all costs take it to heart.

Don't take it to heart

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