Catch 22

 Joseph Heller wrote Catch 22. Although his satirical novel didn't win any awards the idea of catch 22 caught on and is used to this day. I never read this novel before and I think it is a classic. In this story, set on a fictional island near Italy during World War II, an Army Air Corp. Captain named John Yossario tries to survive life as a bombardier. The year is 1944 and Yossario (nicknamed Yo Yo) is trying to survive so he can go home. The rule was once you flew 35 missions you could go home. When Yo Yo and his buddies complete 34 missions, the number of missions rises to 40 and so on and so on and so on. By the end of the book the number of missions it takes to go home is 80. Yo Yo has witnessed the deaths of nearly all his buddies. He wants to live. He wants to go home. He fakes illness. All the Army Air Corp captains fake illness from time to time. The word is if you are insane you can go home. All the captain had to do to be declared insane was to ask to be declared insane. If he asked to be declared insane he would be determined to be rational and therefore had to fly more missions. All of these crazy "no win," absurd scenarios are discussed repeatedly in the book. The situations are too strange to be fiction. I just knew the author had to be a member of the Army Air Corp. I was right. He was in the Army Air Corp. during World War II and evidently he had a great memory and some resentments he has been nursing for a long time. Heller's interpretation of the military mind set is honest and real and he upset a lot of people for expressing his opinion so eloquently. Another concept he writes about is the dangers of profit-seeking. One of his Captain friends is Mile Mindbender. Milo's missions are more about trading goods and making deals than fighting the enemy.  Milo keeps justifying his deeds by saying his work if for the good of all. When Yo Yo tries to comfort another Army man who is dying in the back of his plane, he opens the first aid kit. Milo has taken all the morphine and left a note that this act is "For the good of all." When a plane crashes into the Mediterranean Sea the men don life jackets. The life jackets don't inflate because Milo has taken the gas canisters out in order to sell frosty treats is the mess tent. Again he leaves a note that this if "For the good of all." In this book Heller skewers the military industrial complex with his writing. This is a good book but long. My reading app on my phone is Libby and Libby tells me I spent 9 hours and 38 minutes reading this book.