Pajiba

Uh-oh. Yossarian is going to be pissed.

Curiously, I liked this book the first time I read it, but had a similar reaction to Carrie when I tried to read it again. All that absurdity just got maddening the second time around and I couldn't finish.

Really? Catch 22 is one of the funniest books I've ever read.
Still, if you don't like it, you don't like it.

I tried to read Howard's End and could not get past the first few chapters no matter how hard I tried. Same thing happened to me - I'd suddenly realise that I had no idea what the last 2 pages were on about.

I've known many people who felt the same way about this book as you. I've never read it, and I keep hearing that it's just boring and uninteresting and heavy-handed, etc. I think I shall pass as well.

I've had the same problem with All the King's Men. I just can't get past the first few chapters, and it actually sounds like it might get interesting, but I just can't do it. It doesn't thrill me.

Sorry, Acadmia, but I'll keep my copy of Drood, thanks.

Haha... Whorish Mouth you sound just like a dragon from Dragon's Den...

And for this reason, I'm out.

Good for you, Carrie. Don't torture yourself. I've been on page 164 of Catch-22 for 5 years. I don't intend to get any further either.

missh

The best way to read E.M Forester is all of his novels in order, since he's only got like, six, and they're all fairly short reads. I took a class where we studied the novels and the movies and discussed the historical time period/author biography.

It was one of the more engaging and interesting classes I ever had. I highly doubt I could go back and read Howard's End now and enjoy it half as much, but in the context of an overview, it was fantastic.

I never got past the first two chapters of Ulysses. And it sits, mocking me, from my bookshelf. Every year or so I'll forget why I found it so maddening and I'll go... "I really should..." and then I read the first two chapters and am fully reminded as to why it's completely and utterly unreadable.

Then again, it took me ages to get past the start of Grapes of Wrath, but once I was in the right mood, whoo boy, I devoured that thing in one sitting. And cried at the ending.

For some people and some books, though, there isn't ever going to be a "right mood."

C22 only gets going by about p. 100, and, is better to read at a high-school age than as an adult, because it's polictcal absurdity and moral business corruption is new when young, and just what's on TV by the time you're old. Still, it is a classic which makes an eternal American/imperial point or two: companies like Ford, GM, IG Farben work both sides of wars, garnering profits from which ever direction wins, and the poor, like the tail-gunner, get ripped off/screwed/tortured for the profit of the elite, who only seek to bind-our-minds, (Minderbinder)so we sell out and "just like them." That's what my now-wealthy high school friends have done, to become The Worst Generation, while Heller/Mailer, etc. chronicled the horror of The Best we could do, at least, the Yossarians among the Yahoos.

This has been one of my favorite books for a long time, and honestly, I'm a little sad about the review. I have no problem with a person not liking a book- as others have pointed out, this one is certainly not for everyone. However, having a review by someone that didn't even finish the book feels disingenuous. I mean, how would people react to a movie review where the reviewer admitted to leaving after 20 min?
I agree with Carrie's points about reading for enjoyment, but I also feel like there is a lot of great book left hanging out in the cold here. Maybe a counterpoint by someone who finished it?

Mish

Skip 'Maurice'. It's Forester's previously unpublished self-insertion fanfic, more or less, and not really up to the quality of his other work.

It's sweet, but very very fairytale.

Yeah, this is bullshit. I get the whole "matter of opinion" thing, but you put this in your Cannonball Read? You didn't read it. And I don't get the whole thing about people not being able to finish it. It's a pretty breezy read, and absolutely hilarious. The characters and distinguishable enough and the madness keeps on building. It's not exactly Ulysses or even Infinite Jest.

twig, i used to LOVE maurice!

but then again, i was eight.

Frankly, I enjoy reading negative reviews or opinions of that which I greatly admire. They provide me an opportunity to analyze and articulate what I enjoyed about a given work.

It has been perhaps twenty years since I first attempted to read Catch-22. I clearly and distinctly recall a similar struggle with the novel at that time. I have a vivid memory of how disappointed I was, with myself, that I did not finish. Never before had I failed to complete a novel.

I truly wanted to understand Ex-PFC Wintergreen, Major Major, Milo Minderbinder, etc. My parents loved them and referred to them regularly and I felt left out. But I simply could not get past the random character introductions and very slim interpretations of each. It was all mind boggling, dull and just didn't interest me.

It was several years before I returned to Catch-22. While I was far more successful in my second attempt, I do recall disliking Heller's style a great deal. I also recall feeling that I would never read it again.

Carrie's review, however, seems a bit of an inspiration to find a truly battered old copy to revisit now.

Disclaimer: I love this book.

Perhaps you should've tag-teamed this with someone who did finish the book*. Maybe a one-paragraph version of this "review" and then an actual review. As it stands we don't know much about the book except that it wasn't your cup of tea. It's basically a review of yourself. It's just unhelpful.

I'm not sure how this works. Did people know you were supposed to review this book? If not, this doesn't make sense to me.

I do like the half picture, though.

* - Oh, how I want to finish that sentence with a '!'. But, I won't do it.

I'm sorry, I wasn't trying to be hostile. I didn't know that the author of the review had no control over whether or not it was posted. I just didn't think this especially counted as a review or even a read. Also, as an English major, I objected to this "I just didn't care" excuse for criticism.

I can see what you're saying. You're totally wrong, but I see what you're saying.

Yossarian, since you put it so nicely, maybe one day I will pick it up and have another go. We shall see. I really did want to like it.

Mediocrity, not unlike the case with Major Major, has obviously been thrust upon this article. If you didnt finish reading it then you cant really give an opinion.

I read this book while doing my Combat Officers Qualified course in the Navy and my young Sub-Lt ass completely understood what it was about, recognizing the same sad individuals around me. Two months later I bought myself out of my contract and turned my back on my chance of sweeping some factory girl off her feet and carrying out of the factory to a slow clap. I am now a fashion photographer. Go figure.

I yearn for you tragically.

In defense of the half-assed book review...

Since when are there such stringent standards for what does/ does not merit posting at Pajiba? Since when is this even a "Review Blog". There's a half-dozen posts a day about industry news speculation, pop culture clutter, who's your favorite Jonas Brother and various other bullshit. What, it's valid to weigh in on movies that haven't been released yet but god forbid someone talk about a book they started and couldn't finish?

Even though she's wrong and a bit too defeatist, she was upfront about not reading it and tried to explain why. Take it for what it's worth (which I thought was the unstated preamble to anything posted here) and add your own thoughts in the comment section.

This is one of those books where, no matter how much I love it, I can see why other people don't. It's my favorite sort of weird and my best friend an I constantly quote it at each other.

"Why, you buck-toothed evil-eyed unaffiliated (?) son of a bitch, did you put ANYTHING in your cheeks?!"

So he said "Oh, well, what the hell" and crashed into a mountain.

I mean, how would people react to a movie review where the reviewer admitted to leaving after 20 min?

Depends. For something like Transformers 2 I would think that the reviewer was heroic for staying that long.

I'm thinking of giving up on the 5th (or is it 6th?) Outlander book. I am hating and hating and hating it.

Preface: this IS my favorite book.

Carrie: I respect that you were honest about not liking the book, but I feel the need to explain why I love this book so much.

Responding to the specific criticisms:
Yes, it is convoluted, yes, there are lots of characters, but oh what characters they are! I have never, and will never, read another work that has so many inventive characters. The time framing device is confusing, but you don't need to understand it to appreciate the book. Unlike most books, it isn't "plot" driven. You experience this book.

What do you experience?
It captures the feeling of helplesness and rage one gets the first time you've waited 4 hours in the DMV to update your address, only to be told you have to come back tomorrow because they are closing. It perfectly distills what it feels like to be adrift in life, unsure of your purpose, unsure even of what would make you happy. It illustrates how thinking everyone is out to kill you can actually be reassuring, and quite rational, when the alternative is accepting that one lives in a universe in which you do not matter--a universe where everything you do is fundamentally irrelevant. In short, it makes you feel "life," and all its accompanying flaws. But, the book does more than that, it forces you to laugh at life, to not take it too seriously, as to do otherwise, leads to insanity.

It has flaws, e.g., the author's obsession with sex (but name me a damn male author who is NOT obsessed with sex), and can be wordy, but it is so worth the investment. You will have to make an investment,I do not deny that, but I promise it is worth it, if only to experience brilliant passages like this:

(Yossarian explaining why it is better to die in a hospital than in the real world)

"They didn't take it on the lam weirdly inside a cloud the way Clevinger had done. They didn't explode into blood and clotted matter. They didn't drown or get struck by lightning, mangled by machinery or crushed in landslides. They didn't get shot to death in hold-ups, strangled to death in rapes, stabbed to death in saloons, bludgeoned to death with axes by parents or children, or die summarily by some other act of God. Nobody choked to death. People bled to death like gentlemen in an operating room or expired without commen in an oxygen tent. There was none of that tricky now-you-see-me-now-you-don't business so much in vogue outside the hospital, none of that now-I-am-and-now-I-ain't. There were no famines or floods. Children didn't suffocate in cradles or iceboxes or fall under trucks. No one was beaten to death. People didn't stick their heads into ovens with the gas on, jump in front of subway trains or come plummeting like dead weights out of hotel windows with a whoosh!, accelerating at the rate of thirty-two feet per second to land with a hideous plop! on the sidewalk and die disgustingly there in public like an alpaca sack full of hairy strawberry ice cream, bleeding, pink toes awry."

I @@#$@ for you %@#*$.

Posted by: Irving Washington at July 10, 2009 12:56 PM

Wading into the fray to address "I just did care about it/the characters" as not being valid criticism.

I'm seeing this a lot recently on blogs that review books. When a reviewer can't or won't finish a book because the book didn't grab them, it does not invalidate the concept of a review.

It's fine if you want to slag on the reviewer for not "giving it the old college try," but the very statement that the book wasn't compelling enough for a reader to keep reading is a completely valid criticism that the writer didn't connect with that reader.

Carrie stated up front she didn't finish the book--not from boredom, or laziness, or ignorance. She could. not. connect. You can disagree vehemently, but a review is not a social contract to read a book the way YOU wish it to be read, peeps. It's a perspective from a reader. You can tell her til the cows come home that if she had just kept going, the rhythm would, indeed, eventually get her (loose tm Chandler Bing), but she isn't obligated to do anything but be honest in her experience.

Again, if you want to disagree with her conclusions for any reason, that's great--if you loved a book that someone else found unreadable, tell us why. But Carrie's experience with this book, finished or unfinished, is every bit as valid as someone who reached the end.

Reviews can be just as much an experience of a piece of art as much as a soup-to-nuts rundown. Both have value if you choose to find the information valuable. If you don't, then you don't-- go read the damn thing yourself and draw your own conclusions.

No it's not like that just watch the movie, it's funny, it's gareat.

And by move I meant movie.

Carrie, I applaud you for trying. This is one of the few big-C "Classic" books I've read, and do you want to know why I read it? Because I was on a motherfreakin' island with no TV, no internet, nothing but a couple million seabirds and a few fellow students for company. Catch-22 happened to be in the small book collection that had accumulated in the researchers' cabin over the years.

So, my first summer there, I plodded through the book. Didn't have much else to distract me, so I made it through the whole book. Like bruce powell said, it takes a while for the story to grab you at all. Like a few people including yourself observed, there are fifty bazillion characters to try to keep track of. But, I persevered, and by the end I realized I had quite enjoyed it.

Flash forward to my next summer there, I figured, "Oh well, what the hell"--there wasn't much to choose from, so I picked it up and started re-reading it. With the benefit of knowing the characters going in to the book, I was captivated from start to finish.

I haven't read it in years, having lent my copy to a friend who moved across the country shortly thereafter, but it stands as my favourite book of all time. I don't go into a used bookstore without looking for a copy to take home and never, never lend out again.

That said, for the love of pete, don't even bother with Heller's book Something Happened. I tried that one three times, and never could finish it. I've read several of his other books, and more or less enjoyed them, but none come close to Catch-22.

I @@#$@ for you %@#*$.

Posted by: Irving Washington at July 10, 2009 12:56 PM

Posted by: * * "I yearn for you tragically. A. T. Tappman, Chaplain, U.S. Army." at July 10, 2009 2:36 PM

*DIES FROM THE AWESOME*

The first time I read this book in high school, I remember feeling underwhelmed and rather perplexed. I gave it another shot 4-5 years later and found it to be hilarious and I now consider it one of my favorite books.

As someone mentioned above, apparently to people who have been in the military the book is brilliant on a whole other level.

It may help to realize that the jumbled narrative, much like "Slaughterhouse-Five", can be interpreted as a symptom of the PTSD Yossarian experiences as a result of Snowdon's death.

I'm in the Navy and this book spoke of the awful, tortuous bull shit that is military life on a level I didn't know existed. Mr. Heller completely fleshed out the retarded, ass-backwards system that the military (and if you get down to it, everything else) runs on.

AWESOME SPOILER One scene in particular makes me scream a string a profanities yet unheard of in this world because of it's truth-i-ness. Yossarian walks into a whore house where Capt. Black (or some fucking body) has just pushed a hooker out the window, killing her.

Yossarian is all like, "Dude, you killed her! You're fucked!"

And the other guy is like, "Nah, she was just a hooker."

And Yossarian gets all serious and tells him, "No man, you've done an awful thing here." And the MP sirens start coming towards them.

The other guy is all like, "No way, she's just a hooker. They wouldn't come at me, not good old Blackie," but his voice is starting to waver, he's not buying it himself.

Anyways, the MPs bang on the door and come in, presumably having had to walk over the dead hooker to get there. They look at Yossarian, "Are you Capt. Yossarian?"

"Yes."

"Come with us, you're AWOL and under arrest."

And fucking Capt. Black gets off scott free. AHHH THE FUCKING MILITARY, NEVER EVER EVER JOIN. FUCK.

It is a difficult book to keep track of though. Yuck.

THANK YOU. I love you for this review. Because the same thing happened to me with this book, the same thing exactly.

I found parts of it brilliant, and parts brilliantly funny, it was just the bullshit in between that got my goat.

Thanks for the review.