Catch - 22 by Joseph Heller

I am way behind on my book posts so you are getting 2 whole blog posts today!!  Exciting right?!?! 

I finished Catch-22 while on vacation in Mexico.  While this book was a slower read than I thought it would be, I really did enjoy it.  We had it on the list for book club, but so far, other than me and my sister, no one has finished it.  I don't think they will.  My sister didn't like the book but powered through anyways, and two of the other girls stopped after about 50 pgs and 120 pgs.  Since its a ~500 pg book, they didn't make it very far.

Sooo unless me and my sister have a 2 person book club meeting over this book, I think Catch-22 is off the list.  Which is unfortunate because I thought it was really interesting and would make for good discussion.  But I also kinda get that its a very specific type of humour in the book, and if you don't get it, then maybe its just not for you.

Here are some things that I really noticed:

That EVERYONE is crazy.  This seemed to be a big point of the book.  That everyone really is their own brand of crazy and that there is no such thing as normal.  Even Yossarian, who I think was supposed to be the 'normal' standard in the book, was completely insane.  But he at least didn't want to fly missions anymore.  Smart guy.

That I LOVE Yossarian.  I really do.  I think he might be one of my literary crushes.  He is just so passionate when it comes to women.  I know that he will sleep with anything that moves or looks at him even once, and that he cops a feel on every girl that passes him by and he is probably riddled with STI's (except its the 60's so not actually).  But when he is with a girl he really truly LOVES her.  With his whole soul.  He lives in the moment and gives it all he's got and he just doesn't want to die.

While this is technically a comedy, and can be quite funny at times, there were some very sobering moments.  There were a lot of characters that got killed just as I was starting to like them.

The humour in this book was strange, and interesting, and dry.  I liked it, and it vaguely reminded me of British comedy, but in print.

I could never quite understand when things happened, and what order they happened in.  Did the guy in the full white cast and the thermometer in his mouth die once or twice?  I have no idea because this book jumped around so much it almost gave me whiplash while I was laying on the beach suntanning.