Catch-22

Heller joined the US Army Air Force in 1942 and flew sixty combat missions. In 1961 he published this masterpiece of satirical fiction about the murderous insanity of war. Yossarian, a B-25 bombardier in the Second World War, can be sent home if he is crazy and if he asks to go, but asking to go home proves he is sane; the binding logic of military and bureaucratic paradox—expressed as ‘Catch-22’—has now entered the public lexicon to mean a ‘no-win situation’ or absurdity in choice. This novel is funny and touching, outrageous in its cynicism and honest with its portrayal of men at arms trapped in a system where the big questions are unimportant and the trivial is crucial.