Catch 22

"Catch 22" is a book by Joseph Keller about war for those who could never see themselves reading a book about war. Although the story takes place entirely in the barracks and on the battlefield, the themes it touches on are not confined to war but concern life in general. The humour of the book - and it is very funny - derives from its acute sensitivity to the absurdity of the situations people find themselves in. The style of writing conveys perfectly the mentality of the protagonists who just cannot make sense of what the hell is going on.

How about a few excerpts? The protagonist here is Yossarian, a pilot of fighter planes in a war whose identity and location is never revealed to us. He is busy avoiding flak - those little bits of metal thrown through the air at great speed by exploding bombs (also known as shrapnel). We begin, though, with a man called Havermeyer who, unlike Yossarian, is just what a heroic fighter pilot ought to be.

Havermeyer was the lead bomber who never missed and never took evasive action. He kept all the planes in rigid formation, flying straight and level all the way to the target and beyond until he saw the falling bombs strike and explode with a flash of orange hidden quickly beneath a rising cloud of dust and debris. He gave the enemy gunners below all the time they needed to take aim and pull their triggers or flick their switches or do whatever the hell they did when they wanted to kill people they didn't know.

Yossarian used to be the lead bomber, but now he wasn't because he no longer gave a damn whether he missed or not. He had decided to live forever or die in the attempt, and his only mission each time he went up was to come down alive.

The men loved flying behind Yossarian. He came in over the target climbing and diving, twisting and turning, levelling out only for the two or three seconds it took for the bombs to drop before zooming off again in another direction with the engines howling, weaving his way through the bullets and flak. Only when they were well clear of enemy territory did Yossarian tip his helmet back wearily on his sweating head and stop barking directions to McWatt, who had nothing better to think about than where the bombs had fallen.
"Did we hit the bridge?" McWatt would ask.
"I couldn't see, sir," said Clevinger in the bomb bay. "I kept getting bounced around back here and I couldn't see a thing."
"Hey, Aarfy, did the bombs hit the target?"
"What target?" Captain Aardvark, the navigator, would say. "I don't think we're at the target yet. Are we?"
"Yossarian, did the bombs hit the target?"
"What bombs?" answered Yossarian, whose only concern had been the flak.
"Oh, well," McWatt would sing, "what the hell."
Yossarian did not give a damn whether he hit the target or not, just as long as Havermeyer or one of the other lead bombers did and they never had to go back.

Later, while recovering in hospital and feeling paranoid about people wanting to kill him he remembers Snowden, who had been his gunner in the gun turret in the rear of his plane.

He thought of Snowden, who had never been his pal but who was a vaguely familiar kid who was badly wounded in the turret. Yossarian crawled into the rear section of the plane leaving Dobbs in charge. His stomach turned when he saw the gunner spread out uncomfortably on his back with his parachute on and a hole in his thigh as large and deep as a football. It was impossible to tell where the shreds of blood-soaked cloth ended and the ragged flesh began.

There was no morphine in the first-aid kit, no protection for Snowden against the pain but the numbing shock of the injury itself. Yossarian was frightened and took the scissors to begin cutting away the cloth in a straight line around the thigh. Snowden rolled his head, opened his eyes, a dim light glowed and then sank and he fainted again. The edges of Snowden's mouth were turning blue. Yossarian was petrified, but he got a grip on himself sufficiently to carefully sprinkle all of the wound with the fine, white sulfanilamide crystals until nothing red could be seen. He drew a deep breath and then took hold of the shreds of flesh and tucked them into the wound. Quickly he covered the whole wound with a large cotton compress and jerked his hand away. With the ordeal over, he smiled nervously. The actual contact with the torn flesh had not been as repulsive as he had anticipated.

Wrapping the bandage round the thigh he noticed the small hole on the other side through which the piece of flak had entered - a neat, round wound with blue edges. He sprinkled that with sulphanilamide too and continued wrapping the bandage until the compress was secure. It was a good bandage, he knew, and he sat back on his heels with pride, wiping the sweat from his brow, looking at Snowden and smiling with spontaneous friendliness.
"I'm cold," Snowden moaned. "I'm cold."
"You're going to be all right kid," Yossarian assured him, patting his arm comfortingly. "Everything's under control."
"I'm cold," he repeated, with eyes as dull as stone.
"There, there. In a little while we'll be back on the ground and Doc Daneeka will take care of you."

Snowden then managed, with the barest movement of his chin, to point towards his armpit. Yossarian bent forward to peer and saw a strangely colored stain seeping through Snowden's flak suit. Yossarian felt his heart stop, then pound so violently he found it difficult to breathe. Snowden was wounded inside his flak suit. Yossarian ripped open the straps of the suit and heard himself scream wildly as Snowden's insides slithered down onto the floor in a pile and just kept dripping out. A chunk of flak three inches big had shot into his chest and blasted all the way through him. Yossarian screamed a second time as he squeezed both hands over his eyes.

He forced himself to look again. Here was God's plenty, he thought bitterly as he stared - liver, lungs, kidneys, ribs, stomach and bits of the fried tomatoes Snowden had eaten for lunch. Yossarian hated tomatoes and turned away and began to vomit. The tail gunner came round while Yossarian was vomiting, then passed out again. Weak and in despair Yossarian turned back to Snowden and wondered how in the world to begin to save him.
"I'm cold," whimpered Snowden softly.
"There, there," Yossarian mumbled mechanically. He was cold too now and shivering uncontrollably as he gazed down at the grim secret Snowden had spilled all over the messy floor. It was easy to read the message. Man was matter, that was Snowden's secret. Drop him out a window and he'll fall. Set fire to him and he'll burn. Bury him and he'll rot, like other kinds of garbage. The spirit gone, man is garbage. That was Snowden's secret.
"I'm cold," Snowden whispered for the last time.
"There, there," said Yossarian as he pulled the rip cord of Snowden's parachute and covered his body with the white nylon sheets.

On another occasion Yossarian is being irritated by Orr, the guy he shares his tent with. (Crab apples are small wild apples about the size of chesnuts.)

Orr was not easy to live with.
"When I was a kid," Orr confessed with a smile, "I used to walk around all day with crab apples in my cheeks. One in each cheek."
"Why?" Yossarian found himself forced to ask.
Orr sniggered. "Because they're better than chesnuts. When I couldn't get crab apples I used chesnuts. Chesnuts are about the same size as crab apples and actually have a better shape, although the shape doesn't matter a bit."
"Why did you walk around with crab apples in your cheeks?" Yossarian repeated. "That's what I asked."
"Because they've got a better shape than chesnuts. I just told you that."
"Why," swore Yossarian, "you evil-eyed son of a bitch, did you walk around with anything in your cheeks?"
"I didn't walk around with anything in my cheeks. I walked around with crab apples in my cheeks. When I couldn't get crab apples I walked artound with chesnuts in my cheeks."
Orr giggled. Yossarian made up his mind to keep his mouth shut. Orr waited. Yossarian waited longer.
"One in each cheek," Orr said.
"Why?"
Orr pounced. "Why what?"
"Jesus Christ! Why did you want - "
"- apple cheeks."
"apple cheeks?" Yossarian demanded.
"I wanted apple cheeks," Orr repeated. "Even when I was a kid I wanted apple cheeks someday, and I decided to work at it until I got them, and by God, I did work at it until I got them, and that's how I did it, with crab apples in my cheeks all day long." He giggled again. "One in each cheek."
"Why did you want apple cheeks?"
"I didn't want apple cheeks. I wanted big cheeks. I didn't care about the color so much, but I wanted them big. I worked at it just like one of those crazy guys who go around squeezing rubber balls all day long just to strengthen their hands. In fact, I was one of those crazy guys. I used to walk around all day with rubber balls in my hands, too."
"Why?"
"Why what?"
"Why did you walk around all day with rubber balls in your hands?"
Orr sniggered again. "I did it to protect my good reputation in case anyone ever caught me walking around with crab apples in my cheeks. With rubber balls in my hands I could deny there were crab apples in my cheeks. Every time someone asked me why I was walking around with crab apples in my cheeks, I'd just open my hands and show them it was rubber balls I was walking around with, not crab apples, and that they were in my hands, not my cheeks. It was a pretty good story. But I never knew if it got across or not, since it's pretty tough to make people understand you when you're talking to them with two crab apples in your cheeks."
Yossarian found it pretty tough to understand him either and he wondered once again if Orr wasn't talking to him with the tip of his tongue in one of his apple cheeks.
Yossarian decided not to utter another word. It would be futile. He knew Orr, and he knew there was not a chance in hell of finding out from him why he had wanted big cheeks.