"Catch-22" by Joseph Heller

There is a place in a world where irony meets comedy, courts it, marries it and from this marriage reality is born. This world is called “Catch-22” by Joseph Heller. In this land of probabilities a narrative encircles a reality (like a ball encircles roulette’s bowl before landing on a lucky number for some or a cursed one for others) before revealing the final results. And in the process of encircling, the same narrative paints characters out of the white pages with the colors of stories full of absurdities, and in spite of these absurdities these characters represent parallel witnesses of real personalities - the ones in our own reality.

The more I read the book, the more I discovered how Heller's world complements mine, how it reflects it like a mirror as it examines the meaninglessness of war, name, rank, serial number, order, death, economy, capitalism, love, sex, religion (and not necessarily in the same order) and several other highly regarded objects of (im)moral value, and in this reflection it condemns them.

Initially, I thought everyone in this novel was crazy. Then, I thought Heller was crazy. In the end I found out that it’s the (I) reader who is crazy, that the world (I) he lives in is crazy, the job (I) he does is crazy, the aspirations (I) he holds are crazy, the mind (I) he tries to expand is crazy, and yet it feels is good, and sacred, and meaningful, and happy, and cuddly, because (I) he makes it to be so, and because others say it is, and because (I) he is never going to be Youssarian (although secretly (I) he dreams of becoming like him).

For those of you who don’t have time to delve into the story completely I recommend the movie. Otherwise, the book is a must read.

-by Simon Cleveland