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Home > Books > Fiction > Modern Fiction Books > C Modern Fiction Books > Catch-22 - Joseph Heller

User Reviews

for Catch-22 - Joseph Heller

Rating Summary based on 25 reviews

  • 5 Stars
    		22
  • 4 Stars
    		3
  • 3 Stars
    		0
  • 2 Stars
    		0
  • 1 Star
    		0

Detailed rating

  • Characters
  • How does it compare to other works by the same author?
  • How does it compare to similar books?
  • Readability
  • Story
  		• 4.8
  		• 3.0
  		• 3.5
  		• 4.6
  		• 4.7
Previous page Next page Page 1 of 3 | 1 to 10 out of 25 Review(s)
  • 32 of 32 Ciao users found the following review helpful
    Picture of tagheur

    tagheur

    5 Stars Rye Catch 05/10/2002
    User recommends the product

    Advantages Advantages wha?

    Disadvantages Disadvantages wha?

    Jill wanted me to recommend a book for you to read at bedtime. One of my all time favourites has to be the finest anti-war novel ever written, Catch-22 by Joseph Heller. It concerns itself with the antics of a group American servicemen and woman stationed on an Airbase in Italy during the latter part of World War II. When I first read the book, more years ago than I care to remember, I initially had a great deal of difficulty with the author’s sequencing technique. Like Jerome K Jerome’s “Three men in a boat”, the book is composed of a series of digressions with scant regard being paid to any ... more
  • 16 of 16 Ciao users found the following review helpful
    Picture of Telute

    Telute

    5 Stars Catches the imagination 20/03/2001
    User recommends the product

    Advantages Advantages Funny, moving, engrossing (plus its got a sequal)

    Disadvantages Disadvantages Complex and not a light read

    Catch-22 is a phrase that has passed into popular culture. Heller coined it to refer to the system whereby pilots would only be grounded if they were insane and they asked. Although flying was a sign of insanity, asking to be grounded proved you sane and so there was no escape, it was a catch-22 situation. This situation provides the core of the books message, that once in a war you can't get out. The plot revolves around the lifes of a group of american pilots in ww2 stationed in the Meditteranian. The central character is Yossarian, who we first met in hospital. The book details events form ... more
  • 10 of 10 Ciao users found the following review helpful
    Picture of robbroome

    robbroome

    5 Stars A literary classic 23/08/2001
    User recommends the product

    Advantages Advantages Suoerb Humour, hard to put down

    Disadvantages Disadvantages Only 560 pages (I could have read 1,000's)

    If asked what the most influential book in modern literature is, I would have to answer Catch-22. It has had a huge impact on both the popular culture and literary circles. It introduced the post war world to the concept of ‘Black Humour’ and taught generations about the sheer absurdity of war. This book also gives us the first true ‘anti-hero.’ Yossarian is stuck in a world he cannot control, not wanting to die but unable to escape the war he is constantly looking out for himself and his own survival. He doesn’t care about the consequences and is a self-certified ... more
  • 15 of 15 Ciao users found the following review helpful
    Picture of Fady

    Fady

    5 Stars It's the greatest catch there is... 14/12/2002
    User recommends the product

    Advantages Advantages Heller shows the pain of war set against a back drop of joyful insanity

    Disadvantages Disadvantages I put it down, and then I started to read it again

    Last Christmas, I decided I needed to appear more intellectual. So I started watching Newsnight. I started watching Review on BBC2 (and in the process developed an intrinsic hatred of Germaine Greer). I started to eat better food. And I went out and bought a load of books, most of which have never been read, and that weren't by Terry Pratchett. I'd repeatedly been told what a great book 'Catch 22' was. Not as vivid in its imagery as 'All Quiet on the Western Front', it was a tale of war from a western perspective. I can't say how one of my friends described it, but let's just say I wasn't ... more
  • 46 of 46 Ciao users found the following review helpful
    Picture of hiker

    Level 7 hiker

    Member since 28/03/2003

    Reviews written: 519

    5 Stars Theatre of war? Theatre of the Absurd 29/08/2005
    User recommends the product

    Advantages Advantages Possibly the best anti-war novel ever written

    Disadvantages Disadvantages You can get lost in the plot

    Yossarian is in the hospital with a liver complaint. It isn't developing into jaundice, so the doctors can't treat him…but it isn't getting better so they can't discharge him. This is no real surprise because what Yossarian is in the hospital with, really, is 'yellow' of a completely different kind: a much healthier kind. The uncharitable would call it cowardice. Yossarian would not disagree…though he might argue that cowardice is a sound survival strategy. It is the closing stages of World War II, and the USAAF are stationed on Pianosa, an island in the Tuscan archipelago, which in the real ... more
  • 9 of 9 Ciao users found the following review helpful
    Picture of jbeck101

    jbeck101

    5 Stars Catch 22 by Joseph Heller - a great work, no catch.... 12/04/2010
    User recommends the product

    Advantages Advantages Funny and brilliantly conceived

    Disadvantages Disadvantages Too long, and it has one dodgy chapter

    '[He] would be crazy to fly more missions and sane if he didn't, but if he was sane he had to fly them. If he flew them he was crazy and didn't have to; if he didn't want to he was sane and had to.' ...what a concept. Sublime. Catch 22 is set in the latter stages of World War II (around 1943), and chiefly follows Yossarian, a U.S. Air Force B-25 bombardier, and the mixed bag of nuts that are his comrades. The story is set mainly on the island of Pianosa, in the Mediterranean Sea, west of Italy. Yossarian is terrified of dying - as any sane person would be - and he has already flown many ... more
  • 2 of 2 Ciao users found the following review helpful
    Picture of JRW

    JRW

    5 Stars Is There A Catch? 19/08/2000
    User recommends the product

    Advantages Advantages Funny, satirical

    Disadvantages Disadvantages Unsatisfying ending

    Joseph Heller is probably most famous for his “Catch-22” novel, a satirical spoof about war. It features a vast array of characters of whom Yossarian is the main man. This is an extremely cleverly-constructed book which works equally-well on two different levels. Firstly, the book is very humorous and comical. I must admit that at certain points in the book I actually began to chuckle to myself because of the laughable situation portrayed by Heller. There are many situations and characters that you can relate to and this helps to make the novel more accessible to the reader than many others in ... more
  • 57 of 57 Ciao users found the following review helpful
    Picture of mouette

    mouette

    5 Stars Hellerfa good book 17/12/2003
    User recommends the product

    Advantages Advantages Very well written

    Disadvantages Disadvantages None

    “Major Major had been born too late and too mediocre. Some men are born mediocre, some men achieve mediocrity, and some men have mediocrity thrust upon them. With Major Major it had been all three”. War, so often glorified as the path to greatness for men, is in Joseph Hellers book filled with commanding officers with as much competence as Major Major, an officer who avoided contact with his men. Indeed incompetence is one of the themes running through the book. Set in Italy, mostly on the Island of Pianosa and occasionally in Rome, the book opens with the main character, Captain John ... more
  • 27 of 27 Ciao users found the following review helpful
    Picture of scdaniels

    scdaniels

    5 Stars Catch 22 24/06/2002
    User recommends the product

    Advantages Advantages Great book very witty, humour with a serious undertone

    Disadvantages Disadvantages Probably best to read it more than once to get it properly, long

    Heller has first hand experience with war which gives his book added potency, even with such an unusual plot and unorthodox writing style. He uses a discontinuous chronology to show the disorder of war. He has a main character who is refered to as crazy by other caharacters yet he himself does not believe he is crazy, which shows the madness in war. He uses a lot of humour in this novel to show the un-reality in war and maybe to distance you from the horrificness of it all. such as the mess officer Milo Minderbender bombing his own squadron for profit (Which also shows how people manipulated ... more
  • 26 of 26 Ciao users found the following review helpful
    Picture of Filthyneon

    Filthyneon

    5 Stars “That’s some catch, that Catch-22,” 05/04/2005
    User recommends the product

    Advantages Advantages Epic piece of modern literature.

    Disadvantages Disadvantages Disappointing ending.

    Nowadays people are more than happy to give their opinion on wars, whether past, present or future everyone has something to say about the conflicts around the world. Few of us have any actual experience of conflict whatsoever in our sheltered suburban lives, and possibly believe that is often the right and noble thing to do. This book is an education on war. Joseph Heller draws deeply from his time in the air force during WW2 to make this novel as honest as it is shocking. There is no doubt that Catch-22 is one beast of a novel, when properly packaged it should come with a health warning to ... more
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