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!