The True Definition of Posession

Because of his liver problems, Yossarian receives as much fruit and juice as he wants from the kitchen. However, Yossarian never eats his fruits as he does not want his liver to get better. You see, if his liver were to be healthy, he wouldn't be obtaining such interesting benefits. So instead of eating the fruit, he gives it away to the other men.

This chapter made me question the definition of possession. When the doctor wrote the letter that allowed Yossarian all the free fruit he wanted, I'm sure the doctor's intentions were that Yossarian would eat the fruit and eventually heal his liver disease. What would the doctor say if he knew Yossarian wasn't really eating the fruit? Yossarian argues that once the fruit is his, he can do whatever he wants with it.

This story seems ridiculous. If I were to do this in my everyday life, I'm sure that a) someone would discover what I had been doing and force me to eat the fruit, and b) take away my free fruit privileges. Why isn't this happening to Yossarian? He's very open about the fact that he's not actually eating his fruit. He leaves the box outside on his front steps for anyone to come over and help themselves. What's more obvious than that? I suppose it all comes back to the central idea of this book: that everyone and everything about the war is crazy. The rules are crazy, the logic is crazy, the people are all crazy. I think I can count at least fifteen times in each chapter where they use the word "crazy".

However, I continue to thoroughly enjoy the book.

2 Citations

Sirs. 2008. ProQuest LLC. 7 Dec. 2008 <http://sks.sirs.com/cgi-bin/hst-portal-display?id=SMN0307H-0-1118>

This site lists the proponents and opponents of the issue, as well as backs up their information with primary sources. These primary sources include books or articles of first-person accounts, studies and surveys, and other items that reflect the view. The site remains unbiased and equally explains each side of the issue. The intended audience is students.

The First Amendment First-Aid Kit. Chip Gibson. 2007. Random House Children’s Books. 7 Dec. 2008

This is the site for the program First Amendment First Aid-Kit which is run by Random House Children’s Books. The site quotes well-known authors and politicians to help support its cause of stopping censorship in schools and libraries.

Observations on Characters

One of the most fascinating things about this book are the many eccentric characters. They are so important, in fact, that the title of each chapter is the name of the character described in the chapter. Here are a few of my favorites:

Orr: Orr is Yossarian's roommate. He is the type of man who will do his own thing for absolutely no reason and ignore everyone around him despite their clearly not knowing what he's talking about. For example, he tries to explain to Yossarian why he used to walk around with crab apples in his mouth. His reasoning? "Because they're better than horse chestnuts."

Doc Daneeka: This character is meant to represent one of the more intelligent of the group. However, his reasonings are almost always off. He's the one who first explains to Yossarian the concept of Catch-22. He avoids work at all cost and instead complains about what it was like being a doctor. During one particular interesting monologue, he describes an incident with some patients of his; the "virgin newlyweds."

Dunbar: Dunbar is an old man who's sole purpose in life is to make his life drag out as long as it can. He spends his time with people he hates, doing things he hates, because it makes the time pass so much more slowly, thus increasing his life span. He describes the happiest times of our life as passing much more quickly. Life is the most important thing we have, and we must extend our time on earth as long as we can.

These are just a few of the strange characters we encounter in Catch-22, and I have a feeling they won't be the last.

Craziness and its relation to Catch-22

There was only one catch and that was Catch-22.

I have to be honest. One of the only reasons I decided to read this book was to find out what that expression means. I've never understood it before, and oddly enough, I never thought to ask. I'm happy to state that it finally makes sense to me now.

Yossarian is being told constantly that he's crazy. He's finally decided to put that fact to good use by using it as his excuse to be grounded and therefore not fly. There is a rule, after all, that says Doc Daneeka has to ground anyone who's crazy. Here's the catch: you have to ask to be grounded to be grounded, and anyone sane enough to want to be grounded is clearly not crazy. It's a no-win situation! I understand now!

Unfortunately, I am now extremely troubled by something else entirely. Just a few days ago my status on Facebook was, "Do crazy people know they're crazy?" According to Catch-22 they don't, but that is beside the point. Is it just coincidence that one of my random daily musings was actually answered in a book I happened to be reading? A very strange book to answer a very strange question. I must go now. My head hurts.

A Reflection on Satire

I have read as far as chapter six of this strange book.

The story begins in a hospital ward for American soldiers during World War II. Slowly, we begin to learn that every single soldier in the hospital is only staying there to avoid the war. Though the story is clearly meant to be satirical (which it most definitely is) I can’t decide if this concept is actually sad. Are they saying the war is so horrible these men go as far as to fake an illness just to escape it? I started to think again about the things I had learned about satire this summer. Then I remembered the most important aspect of satire: the writer takes on a very serious tone when writing, therefore saving the humor only for a very smart, mature audience. I like to think of myself as a mature audience, which means I am under obligation to read this book from a satirical point of view.

After coming to this conclusion (and feeling very happy with the outcome of it) I came across something very interesting. The winter play this year is a very serious drama about women who went to work as nurses in Vietnam during the war and their experiences. The men, for their auditions, have to choose a piece of literary work that speaks to them about the difficulties of war and perform it. One book title on the list of suggestions caught my eye. It was, of course, Joseph Heller’s Catch-22!

Wait a minute. Slow down. Didn’t I just come to the conclusion that any mature audience would realize this book was meant to be funny, not dramatic? Could these directors really not realize it? Have they fallen into that dangerous trap of satire by interpreting this work as serious instead of humorous? I find it very hard to believe the directors are an immature audience. Of course, this would mean they were correctly interpreting the book when they said it was a serious description of war. Which would mean I was back to where I started.

Oh well, at least I’m enjoying the book.

Quarter 2 Outside Reading Selection

This quarter I've decided to read Catch-22 by Joseph Heller.

I first became interested in this book in an Introduction to Satire class I signed up for on a whim this summer. The class was very peculiar... it was designed for ages 15-16 but taught by an over-enthusiastic Kindergarten teacher who laughed at anything anyone wrote (even if it wasn't very funny) and found the need to censor everything she gave us to read (including articles from The Onion and even a few passages of Jonathan Swift's "A Modest Proposal.") On the second to the last day of class she passed out photocopies of the first few pages of Catch-22. We looked at the stapled packet in front of us in shock. What is this? we thought, An actual, well-known piece of adult literature that HASN'T been edited for immoral content?

And just as Yossarian fell madly in love with the chaplain at first sight, I had fallen in love with the writer's ridiculous sense of humor after just the first few pages. A man in the war, faking a failing kidney disease just to stay safely within the comfortable hospital walls. Forced to censor letters every morning, (ah! So there is censorship involved here somewhere!) he makes a game out of it. One day is Death to all Modifiers, in which every adjective and adverb was crossed out. Another day is The War on Articles. And the serious tone laced with ridiculous concepts that defines this genre we call satire is promised to continue for the entire novel.

I can't wait to officially start this book. I hope you enjoy my weekly thoughts and musings along the way as much as I'm sure to enjoy the book itself.

Seventh Outside Reading

Once again, I've read an O. Henry story for my outside reading. This one's titled "After Twenty Years," and tells the story of a man waiting in the doorway of a hardware store for a friend he hasn't seen in twenty years. A police officer sees him waiting and talks to him for a bit, then leaves. After a while, another police officer comes and arrests him. At the end of the story, we learn that the first police officer was his old friend who had recognised him as a man wanted in Chicago, and had sent the other police officer out to arrest him because he just couldn't do it himself.

After reading so many O. Henry stories, you start to pick up on the surprise endings. As I began reading, I instantly knew the police officer must be his old friend. It's only obvious. I really like O. Henry, but I'm starting to worry that I won't like them as much after they become too predictable. But then I think--yes, his stories are predictable, but they're predicable in different ways. Maybe instead of not liking the stories, I'll just find myself liking them in different ways. I'm hoping so, because this book of short stories is really all I have to read right now.

Sixth Outside Reading

This week I read another O. Henry story titled "The Ransom of Red Chief". This is a story I've been meaning to read for a while, since it's one of his more well known story (other than "The Gift of the Magi" of course, which is another favorite story of mine.) "The Ransom of Red Chief" is the story of two criminals who decide to kidnap the son of a wealthy man and ask for a ransom for his return. At first, keeping the boy hidden is easier than you'd think: he can't wait to sleep overnight in a cave, not go to school, and play games in the forest all day. The kidnappers are quickly mistaken when they discover his games involve violently realistic scalpings, threats, and constant annoyences. When the men finally send out the letter for the ransom, they're horrified to recieve instead of money, a letter back saying that for the boy's return, his father is asking for two hundred and fifty dollars. The men are shocked, but cannot stand the boy any longer and return him for his father's demanded price.

Of course this story's very funny and entertaining, but the ending really struck me as interesting. The father didn't seem the least bit worried about his son's wherabouts. Does he really know the boy well enough to know he'd be safe among two strange kidnappers? Does anyone know their children that well? The only way any father would ever agree to this is if he knew exactly where his son was and was able to keep an eye on him during this endeavor. Perhaps he did? The kidnappers didn't seem especially skilled at their trade.

Now I'm curious as to how the story would have been different if the reader was told that the father knew where his son was being kept, but the kidnappers did not. But maybe that's a different story for a different time.

Fifth Outside Reading

As promised, I have finished Water for Elephants. I liked the ending; Jacob is able to marry his love and together they're able to raise a family (complete with an elephant as a family pet.) One thing that bothered me though is when Marlena's first baby is born and because of his red hair, Jacob knows it isn't his. He doesn't mind, he says, he would love the baby no matter what. This upset me because as a reader, I want to see Jacob happy, finally living a normal life and this fact puts a dent in that perfect vision. Jacob also mentions having to bail his children out of jail a few times, but that these were some of the best years of his life. Another dent in the perfect family image! But perhaps this is one of the main themes of the book: there's beauty in even the most grotesque situations. The most obvious example of this being, of course, the circus, where some of the most disturbing people live but is still seen as a romantic concept despite this.

Reading the authors' notes in the back of the book, Sara Gruen mentions that most of the small details in the book were stolen from real events she found entertaining during her research. For example, almost all of the elephant's strange quirks are stolen from the quirks of true circus elephants. At first I found this upsetting, (why couldn't the author think of her own quirks?) but later decided this was okay. It's fine for her to include these details so we can be just as entertained as she was when she heard of them.

I won't mention what the quirks are... that's up to you to discover when you read Sara Gruen's Water for Elephants!

Fourth Outside Reading

I'm now on chapter fourteen in Water for Elephants and I can't believe only one week has past since I started reading. So much has happened in the story. Jacob Jankowski is now nearly settled into circus life and has been made the circus vet. At first he protested, saying he never technically finished his schooling at Cornell, but as his mentor August said, "The whole thing's illusion, Jacob, and there's nothing wrong with that. It's what people want from us. It's what they expect."

This story, set during the Depression, depicts circuses in two ways: the romantic, striking, and fascinating light they were created for, and the hard working, slightly crazy world they really are. The hard part is finding the fine line that divides these ways. Is there a way for a world to both be completely insane and strikingly amazing at the same time? Jacob's world is constantly switching between the two. One instant he's cleaning out manuer and the next he's dancing across a spinning dance floor. I'm wondering if I'd enjoy a life like this. The hard work wouldn't be so bad if it was rewarded with exciting adventures like Jacob's is. Other than the obvious cruelty to animals and the fact that Jacob doesn't actually sleep on a real bed, I think I could get used to a life like this. I'd enjoy the thrilling performing atmosphere, and a bit of mindless work might even be soothing once and a while, as long as it's not too painfully difficult.

Regarding the writing style of this book, I think it contains many more good qualities than bad. The descriptions and moods are amazing, and the use of adjectives is flawless. The characterization is also very well done. The writer has done an impressive job of showing many different sides of a character while still staying true to their core personalities. One example of this is Walter, who when he first meets Jacob is rude and unaccepting. We find out this is because he is the only performer bunking with a worker, and are therefore given a look into his personality as well as an important detail regarding the circus hierarchy. As the story goes on, Walter becomes kinder and kinder to Jacob, realizing that he really has no reason to hate his bunkmate. However, he never looses the original coldness and sarcasm that is originally introduced with his character.

This book is enjoyable, easy to read, and will easily be finished by next week; so stay tuned for my full review in post #5.

Third Outside Reading

Last week I finally started a book I've been meaning to read for a while. It's called Water for Elephants by Sara Gruen, and so far it's very interesting. This book is easy to read without being poorly written, and I like the unique setup of the book. For example, it starts with a somewhat confusing (but in a good way) prologue, about a typical circus performance that is instantly interrupted when the animals escape. This is, of course, the clichéd idea of a circus disaster, but is made interesting by the protagonist witnessing a murder among all the commotion. I am almost certain it was the murderer let the animals loose for the sole purpose of committing this act under ultimate chaos--hense, a distraction so she is not seen. Strangely enough, the protagonist states that he has kept her secret all these years and will never turn her in.

The first chapter takes place in a nursing home, and the witty, sarcastic character who's first person dialogue this is coming from is instantly lovable. I run into some confusion soon enough though, when this character runs into another man who claims to have been the one who "carried water for the elephants" in a circus when he was younger. So who was the prologue about? The man telling his first-person account, or the man who claims to have worked in the circus? Would the author really have two characters who have both worked in circuses randomly meet at the same nursing home? This seems like a way too obvious way to get a story going, and if that's the case, I am very unimpressed.

The second chaper has now switched to the point of view of a 23-year-old, who may or may not be the same eighty-year-old protagonist in the last chapter. I don't think it matters at this point anyway; and I expect to find this out soon enough. Nevertheless, I'm enjoying the book greatly, it's easy to read and don't think it'll take any time at all to finish it.

Second Outside Reading

This week I read an article from a book entitled "Chuck Klosterman IV". Chuck Klosterman is a journalist living in New York City, and his articles are very funny. The section I read this week was called "Three Stories Involving Pants" and was a collection of three separate articles. If this title isn't intreguing enough, the author has also included a hypothetical question before the articles even start. This question is:

You work in an office, performing a job you find satisfying (and which compensates you adequately). The company that employs you is suddenly purchased by an eccentric millionaire who plans to immediately raise each person's salary by 5% and extend an extra week of vacation to all full-time employees. However, this new owner intends to enforce a somewhat radical dress code: every day, men will have to wear tuxedos, tails, and top hats (during the summer months, male employees will be allowed to wear gray three-piece suits on "casual Fridays"). Women must exclusively work in formal wear, preferably ball gowns or prom dresses. Each employee will be given an annual $500 stipend to purchase necessary garments, but that money can only be spent on work-related clothing. The new regime starts in three months. Do you seek employment elsewhere?

And my answer is, of course not! I find the job satisfying, and in three months I'll be receiving 5% more pay. The fact that we'd have to wear ball gowns or prom dresses is a definite plus; who doesn't want to wear fancy dresses to work every day? I find this question rediculous because, if given the option, I would choose to dress up each day for work (or even school in my case). This hypothetical question somewhat dissapoints me because the "formal wear" theory is meant to be considered a reason to quit your job.

I realise that this question isn't actually part of the articles I claimed to have read for this week, so I will comment on an article that was. The one I enjoyed the most was titled "Mannequin Appropriation Project". In it, Chuck Klosterman describes how he went to a local Gap and bought the exact outfit desplayed on a mannequin in the storefront window. The outfit consisted of a blue sweater, a collared dress shirt worn untucked under the sweater, and jeans. As he walkes into work, he is greeted in many ways: "This is a stunning development!" "Are you in love?" Klosterman counters these arguments by saying he has now "become a mannequin," or, "I've turned into a new person by turning into a nonperson," as he puts it. The article ends with the author spilling gravy on his new sweater at lunch because, unlike the mannequin, he is a human being.

Perhaps this article is meant to be some deep insight on materialism, but it's not. In fact, after reading other pieces by this author, I don't think that was his intention either. It does prove an interesting point though. Nobody really dresses like the models in catalogues and in storefront windows. In reality, if anyone did dress like them, we'd look rediculous (no offence Chuck Klosterman). Models are supposed to look like someone spent hours deciding what they should wear. Human beings are not. That is why I thought this article proved a point everyone already knew: humans can't be mannequins and mannequins can't be humans.

As pointless as this article was, I still found it incredibly entertaining and would definately reccomend this book to anyone with a sense of humor.

First Outside Reading

This week I read a short story from the September/October issue of Cicada magazine, one of my favorite literary magazines for teens. The story I read was called The Champion of the Weather by O. Henry. In this story, a group of men are on a hunting/camping trip. Their guide, a man named Bud Kingsbury, has a talent for guessing someone's entire life and backround from just a simple conversation with them. When one of the men say to him, "Nice night," he knows instantly that the man is from New York. Bud then tells the group a story of how no one in New York is decent enough to have an intire conversation with him; they'll just say things like, "nice day" or "nice night" and won't elaborate. In Bud's story, he mentions that he even cornered the owner of a café for doing this and almost threatened him with a gun because the owner would't talk to him past those two words. After hearing this story, the man on the camping trip says to Bud, "As I say, Mr. Kingsbury, there is something really beautiful about this night. The delightful breeze and the bright stars and the clear air unite in making it wonderfully attractive..." and Bud answeres him, "Yes, it's a nice night."

I found this story particularily interesting because I'm not sure what to think of the ending. It's very O. Henry to end the story in a way you wouldn't expect, but this ending really just seems to make Bud's character confusing. Why is he saying this? It might be because he wants to show the camping trip man that he respects him more than he respected the man in the café. It could also be because Bud knows he's sort of a smart alec and is showing it off. I think O. Henry's point though is just that Bud is a very interesting, unpredictable character. Still, this ending seemed sort of cliché and not O. Henry's best. Despite the ending, however, the story was very well written and I definately enjoyed it.