22 Ponderings

So, Catch-22...a paradoxical, ironic, sarcastic, hilarious novel that seems superfluous on the outside but really has much substance within it. I've actually really enjoyed it so far. I had first been hooked by the knee-slapping humor in the first few chapters of the novel, but as I began to turn on my AP Lit thinking, I realized I didn't really understand the whole purpose of the chapters so far. Everything just seemed disjointed in a connected way--paradoxical yet funny at the same time. It was only after I had read through the ten chapters we had assigned for reading twice that I realized the (seemingly) random jumps from character to character and from time to time were intentional, to subtly tell the reader something. Sure, I believe the novel will be a great read even if I don't take the time to figure out the author's real meaning behind it all. The novel has a unique way of storytelling that really seems to captivate me. I'm not sure why, because I usually dislike books with only mainly male characters, and on top of that, this is a war novel. I hate war, war novels, war...anything, really. Oh, I can stand gore, and blood, and murder, and other gruesome things. It's just that the subject of war...eh. I've never understood war, why two countries have to fight each other, losing the lives of innocent men in the process. Why killing is deemed "okay" during a war, why soldiers have to suffer so much in patriotism. And I guess, in that sense, I'm kind of like Yossarian. He can't seem to understand the reason for the war, and I love the way that he tries to get out of everything. I found it interesting that Yossarian is the main character of the novel--and then he's not. We are introduced to him first in the novel, and I just assumed he would be the main character, as he is the one with the most action, the most thought processes lined out, the most development...And yet, he's not exactly the main character. We don't really get any of his background, whereas we do for the other characters. Each chapter focuses on a different character--all but Yossarian (at least so far). And thinking back on this, I feel like Heller was trying to tell us something. War is, with no doubt, a joint effort. No one man is significantly more important than the other man, and I feel like Heller was trying to tell the reader that in death, nothing else is really more significant than life. As Yossarian points out in almost every chapter, the men in the war are so close to death. Each of them deals with it in his own way, namely Dunbar, who tries to make time slow down so that he may die later. Though Yossarian seems the cowardly, overly sarcastic and overly worried character in the novel, maybe he has a point in his seeming cowardice. He actually understands that his life is in danger, that his life is precious. In admitting that he wants to save his own life, he is brave, not cowardly; he is a paradox. Life is a paradox in itself.