Saturday, December 22, 2012

War is funny, but hell

My current reading project is Catch-22 by Joseph Heller.  I'm pretty sure I remember seeing a copy at home, although I never read it then.  A friend of mine has been raving about it not too long ago, and I guess it moved into my to-read pile then.

It's a bleakly funny book.  Bleak mainly in that it's largely the most evil or venal characters who seem to prosper.  Good men are either weak and easily dominated (Major Major, the chaplain) or fatally naive (Nately, Clevinger).  Yossarian is stronger, but he seems locked into an inescapable pattern.  Like the one that gives the novel its name.

From a contemporary viewpoint, it is striking that there aren't really any female characters.  Woman appear, but they're described almost entirely in terms of tits and ass.  Fondly remembered tits and ass, but still.  If this is forgiveable, it's because that does seem to characterize the experiences of the World War II generation.  It's a side-effect of being abducted from the everyday and thrust into an all-male environment.

2 comments:

semiconscious said...

read this a third time about a year ago. one of a handful of books that severely/permanently altered my sense of reality way back when. & here we are, close to 50 years later, still being fed a seemingly endless amount of chocolate-covered cotton by the milo minderbinders of the world :) ...

as disturbing, touching, hilarious, & weirdly prophetic a book as i've ever read...

Ben said...

It all goes to the Syndicate. Everybody gets a share. What's good for M&M Enterprises is good for the country. Yes, I thought these things sounded familiar. 50 years later as you say.

Of course I can be slow to catch up.