Blessedly, monstrously, bloatedly, cynically funny, and fantastically unique.

The greatest satirical work in the English language since EREHWON

An apocalyptic masterpiece

At the heart of Joseph Heller's bestselling novel, first published in 1961, is a satirical indicement of military madness and stupidity, and the desire of the ordinary man to survive it. It is a tale of the dangerously sane Captain Yossarian, who spends his time in Italy plotting to survive.

Joseph Heller was born in 1923 in Brooklyn, New York. He served as a bombardier in the Second World War and then attended New York University and Columbia University and then Oxford, the last on a Fullbright scholarship. He then taught for two years at Pennsylvania State University, before returning to New York, where he began a successful career in the advertising departments of Time, Look and McCall's magazines. It was during this time that he had the idea for Catch-22. Working on the novel in spare moments and evenings at home, it took him eight years to complete and was first published in 1961. His second novel, Something Happened was published in 1974, Good As Gold in 1979 and Closing Time in 1994. He is also the author of the play We Bombed in New Haven. Joseph Heller is an honorary fellow of St. Catherine's College, Oxford, which he visits periodically to meet students who are writing fiction. He lives in East Hampton, New York

2008-08-29 Papier-marmite

I will start by saying that I simply can not understand how so many people have got so much out of this book.

Being a fan of the hilarious 'Flashman papers' by George MacDonald Fraser, I thought I would give this a try, it being something completely different and having many rave reviews.

After beginning to read it, there were a couple of genuinely funny moments in the first ten to fifteen chapters, but after that, the humour just bored me and made the book a complete chore to read.

Granted, Heller has some very valid points that he makes in the book about the absurdity of humans going to war and the process of fighting itself. However, upon finishing the book, I just felt that the entire thing had been a muddle and the humour really did not appeal to me at all.

One of the most infuriating points I found was that I absolutely hated every character in the whole book. I just could not feel for any of them. They were all annoying and about a third of the way through the book I was hoping Yossarian would just get shot down and have done with it.

Oh yes, and the ridiculous names of all the characters was another niggle of mine. It may have been funny when this book was first published but it really hasn't aged well.

This book, judging from the reviews on this site, is obviously the closest thing to papier-marmite as you can get. You really will either love it or absolutely hate it.

Begin reading with caution - it's a long book!