Catch-22
by Joseph Heller
Our Price: $14.99
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
Buy Used: from $8.75 (click here)
Category: Book
See more book details and other editions
Book Summary Information
Author: Joseph HellerEdition: Hardcover
Audio: English (Published)
Published: 1961
ISBN: 0006112846
Number of pages: 443
Publisher: Simon & Schuster
Book Reviews of Catch-22
Book Review: Heller presents War as institutionalized insanity
Summary: 4 Stars
The book's title and premise, Catch-22, is a term defined a number of ways by many men in the course of Joseph Heller's seminal book from 1955. Each time, Catch-22 is referred to as an irrational policy for legalized craziness - a way to make sure that no combat pilot can be grounded for being crazy - especially when they are crazy.
A fellow airman, suffering from Post-Traumatic Stress, is described as "babbling incoherently when they fished him out of the dank bottom of the slit trench, babbling of snakes, rats and spiders. The others flashed their searchlights down just to make sure. There was nothing inside but a few inches of stagnant rain water." Following the hallucinations and panic attack, the airman, absurdly named Hungry Joe, is almost immediately re-assigned air combat duty by his superiors.
Heller's own experiences as a B-52 bombadier relate with a painfull, crisp clarity the effects of war on the male psyche.
Heller presents War as institutionalized insanity - a world at war being enough to drive anyone who lives in it completely crazy. Bombadier Yossarian, although high-strung and violent, is the lone sane man in a world gone completely crazy with war. The only place Yossarian feels safe at is a military hospital in western Italy. At this hospital, Yossarian is surrounded by war-jangled men who've come down with sudden cases of sanity in the face of a fiery death. They each argue the meaning of Catch-22 while trying to find a way to survive the war.
Classics Books
Book Subjects
- Arts & Photography
- Biographies & Memoirs
- Business & Investing
- Children's Books
- Comics & Graphic Novels
- Computers & Internet
- Cooking, Food & Wine
- Entertainment
- Gay & Lesbian
- Health, Mind & Body
- History
- Home & Garden
- Horror
- Law
- Literature & Fiction
- Mystery & Thrillers
- Nonfiction
- Outdoors & Nature
- Parenting & Families
- Professional & Technical
- Reference
- Religion & Spirituality
- Romance
- Science
- Science Fiction & Fantasy
- Sports
- Teens
- Travel
Most talked about in Classics Books
Native sonby Richard Wright
Perennial Library; Published: 1987; Paperback; Book
Best price: $1.75
Native Son: And How Bigger Was Bornby Richard Wright
Perennial; Published: 1993-01; Paperback; Book
Best price: $60.00
Raphael and the Noble Taskby Catherine Salton
Harper; Published: 2000-10-24; Hardcover; Book
Best price: $5.49
Price in other shops:
Island (Perennial Classics)by Aldous Huxley
Harper Perennial Modern Classics; Published: 2002-07-30; Paperback; Book
Best price: $8.00
Price in other shops:
A Tree Grows in Brooklynby Betty Smith
Harper; Published: 2001-11-13; Hardcover; Book
Best price: $14.85
Price in other shops:
The Great Divorce CDby C. S. Lewis
HarperAudio; Published: 2003-11-25; Audio CD; Book
Best price: $13.14
Price in other shops:
Great Expectationsby Charles Dickens
Macmillan Pub Co; Published: 1979-06; Paperback; Book
Price in other shops:
This Side of Paradiseby Fitzgerald
Scribner Paper Fiction; Published: 1988-09-30; Paperback; Book
Best price: $1.95
Price in other shops:
Black Coffee (Poirot)by Agatha Christie
Harper Collins Pb; Published: 2002-12-02; Paperback; Book
Best price: $68.32
Slouching Towards Bethlehem (1960s)by Joan Didion
Flamingo; Published: 2001-04-17; Paperback; Book
Best price: $22.25
Similar books summaries and other product reviews
The Sun Also Rises (Scribner Classics)by Ernest Hemingway
Scribner; Published: 1996-06-10; Hardcover; Book
Best price: $15.81
Price in other shops:
Crime and Punishment (Everyman's Library)by Fyodor Dostoyevsky
Everyman's Library; Published: 1993-05-25; Hardcover; Book
Best price: $11.69
Price in other shops:
Ulysses (Modern Library) (Modern Library of the World's Best Books)by James Joyce
Modern Library; Published: 1992-09-05; Hardcover; Book
Best price: $12.29
Price in other shops:
Animal Farm and 1984by George Orwell
Houghton Mifflin Harcourt; Published: 2003-06-01; Hardcover; Book
Best price: $14.68
Price in other shops:
Animal Farmby George Orwell
Houghton Mifflin Harcourt; Published: 1990-11-20; Hardcover; Book
Best price: $9.99
Price in other shops:
Lord of the Flies (50th Anniversary Edition)by William Golding
Perigee Trade; Published: 2003-10-28; Hardcover; Book
Best price: $16.44
Price in other shops:
The Great Gatsby (Scribner Classics)by F. Scott Fitzgerald
Scribner; Published: 1996-06-01; Hardcover; Book
Best price: $13.39
Price in other shops:
Nineteen Eighty-Fourby George Orwell
Everyman's Library; Published: 1992-11-03; Hardcover; Book
Best price: $13.09
Price in other shops:
Slaughterhouse-Five: Or The Children's Crusade, A Duty Dance With Death (25th Anniversary)by Kurt Vonnegut
Delacorte Press; Published: 1994-02-01; Hardcover; Book
Best price: $12.34
Price in other shops:
The Catcher in the Ryeby J. D. Salinger
Back Bay Books; Published: 2001-01-30; Paperback; Book
Best price: $4.59
Price in other shops: