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Set in Italy during World War II, this is the story of a bombardier named Yossarian, a hero who is furious because thousands of people he has never met are trying to kill him. Joseph Heller's unforgettable novel is a hilarious and tragic satire on military madness, and the tale of one man's efforts to survive it.
This fiftieth-anniversary edition celebrates Heller's masterpiece with an introduction by Howard Jacobson, rare images from Heller's personal archive and essays by the likes of Norman Mailer, Anthony Burgess and Christopher Hitchens.
Reading Catch-22 is nothing less than a rite of passage. Here, at last, is the definitive edition of a classic of world literature.
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Catch 22 is a novel that's so similar in terms of structure, plot, dialogue, and characters to the theatre of the absurd. Being a story about war, such similarities between genres stand explained. Heller was attempting to convey, among other things, the absurdity of the armed struggle, and what's a better technique to do that than a literal demonstration of absurdity by introducing contradictions, nonsensical exchange between characters, and an endless maze of illogical thoughts and actions. In his novel, Heller exposes the military disorganization and the injustice of officers who sought career advancement rather than the safety of their men. The latter faction had to fight the war, and were depicted as truly heroic, in spite of their occasional comicality, on account of their relentless efforts to save one another. In addition to the absurdity of war, the plot is also thematically implicated with the frustrations and dilemmas of Modern life, and how it, too, borders on sheer absurdity.
