Joseph Heller | This page: | index pages:
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Catch-22
Copyright © 1955, 1961 by Joseph Heller | ||
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one. THE TEXAN |
All the officer patients in the ward were forced to censor letters written by all the enlisted-men patients, who were kept in residence in wards of their own. It was a monotonous job, and Yossarian was disappointed to learn that the lives of enlisted men were only slightly more interesting than the lives of officers. After the first day he had no curiosity at all. To break the monotony he invented games. Death to all modifiers, he declared one day, and out of every letter that passed through his hands went every adverb and adjective. The next day he made war on articles. He reached a much higher plane of creativity the following day when he blacked out everything in the letters but a, an and the. That erected more dynamic intralinear tensions, he felt, and in just about every case left a message far more universal. | Topic: |
There was a urologist for his urine, a lymphologist for his lymph, an endocrinologist for his endocrines, a psychologist for his psyche, a dermatologist for his derma; there was a pathologist for his pathos, a cystologist for his cysts, and a bald and pedantic cetologist from the zoology department at Harvard who had been shanghaied ruthlessly into the Medical Corps by a faulty anode in an I.B.M. machine and spent his sessions with the dying colonel trying to discuss Moby Dick with him. | Topic: | |
four. DOC DANEEKA |
Im not old. Youre inches away from death every time you go on a mission. How much older can you be at your age? [...] Well, maybe it is true, Clevinger conceded unwillingly in a subdued tone. Maybe a long life does have to be filled with many unpleasant conditions if its to seem long. But in that event, who wants one? I do, Dunbar told him. Why? Clevinger asked. What else is there? | Topic: |
five. CHIEF WHITE HALFOAT |
I had examined myself pretty thoroughly and discovered that I was unfit for military service. Youd think my word would be good enough, wouldnt you, since I was a doctor in good standing with my county medical society and with my local Better Business Bureau. But no, it wasnt, and they sent this guy around just to make sure I really did have one leg amputated at the hip and was helplessly bedridden with incurable rheumatoid arthritis. Yossarian, we live in an age of distrust and deteriorating spiritual values. Its a terrible thing, Doc Daneeka protested in a voice quavering with strong emotion. Its a terrible thing when even the word of a licensed physician is suspected by the country he loves. | Topic: |
There was only one catch and that was Catch-22, which specified that a concern for ones own safety in the face of dangers that were real and immediate was the process of a rational mind. Orr was crazy and could be grounded. All he had to do was ask; and as soon as he did, he would no longer be crazy and would have to fly more missions. Orr would be crazy to fly more missions and sane if he didnt, but if he was sane he had to fly them. If he flew them he was crazy and didnt have to; but if he didnt want to he was sane and had to. Yossarian was moved very deeply by the absolute simplicity of this clause of Catch-22 and let out a respectful whistle. | Topic: | |
eight. LIEUTENANT SCHEISSKOPF |
That men would die was a matter of necessity; which men would die, though, was a matter of circumstance, and Yossarian was willing to be the victim of anything but circumstance. But that was war. Just about all he could find in its favor was that it paid well and liberated children from the pernicious influence of their parents. | Topic: |
Now, where were we? Read me back the last line. Read me back the last line, read back the corporal, who could take shorthand. Not my last line, stupid! the colonel shouted. Somebody elses. Read me back the last line, read back the corporal. Thats my last line again! shrieked the colonel, turning purple with anger. Oh, no, sir, corrected the corporal. Thats my last line. I read it to you just a moment ago. | ||
There were many strange things taking place, but the strangest of all, to Clevinger, was the hatred, the brutal, uncloaked, inexorable hatred of the members of the Action Board, glazing their unforgiving expressions with a hard, vindictive surface, flowing in their narrowed eyes malignantly like inextinguishable coals. Clevinger was stunned to discover it. They would have lynched him if they could. They were three grown men and he was a boy, and they hated him and wished him dead. They had hated him before he came, hated him while he was there, hated him after he left, carried their hatred for him away malignantly like some pampered treasure after they separated from each other and went to their solitude. | Topic: | |
nine. MAJOR MAJOR MAJOR MAJOR |
He was a long-limbed farmer, a God-fearing, freedom-loving, law-abiding rugged individualist who held that federal aid to anyone but farmers was creeping socialism. He advocated thrift and hard work and disapproved of loose women who turned him down. His specialty was alfalfa, and he made a good thing out of not growing any. The government paid him well for every bushel of alfalfa he did not grow. The more alfalfa he did not grow, the more money the government gave him, and he spent every penny he didnt earn on new land to increase the amount of alfalfa he did not produce. [...] Neighbors sought him out for advice on all subjects, for he had made much money and was therefore wise. As ye sow, so shall ye reap, he counseled one and all, and everybody said, Amen. | Topic: |
ten. WINTERGREEN |
Each time he went AWOL, he was caught and sentenced to dig and fill up holes six feet deep, wide and long for a specified length of time. Each time he finished his sentence, he went AWOL again. Its not a bad life, he would observe philosophically, And I guess somebody has to do it. He had wisdom enough to understand that digging holes in Colorado was not such a bad assignment in wartime. Since the holes were in no great demand, he could dig them and fill them up at a leisurely pace, and he was seldom overworked. | Topic: |
twelve. BOLOGNA |
You are talking about the relationship of the Air Corps to the infantry, and I am talking about the relationship of me to Colonel Cathcart. You are talking about winning the war, and I am talking about winning the war and keeping alive. Exactly, Clevinger snapped smugly. And which do you think is more important? To whom? Yossarian shot back. Open your eyes, Clevinger. It doesnt make a damned bit of difference who wins the war to someone whos dead. Clevinger sat for a moment as though hed been slapped. Congratulations! he exclaimed bitterly, the thinnest milk-white line enclosing his lips tightly in a bloodless, squeezing ring. I cant think of another attitude that could be depended upon to give greater comfort to the enemy. The enemy, retorted Yossarian with weighted precision, is anybody whos going to get you killed, no matter which side hes on, and that includes Colonel Cathcart. | |
seventeen. THE SOLDIER IN WHITE |
There was a much lower death rate inside the hospital than outside the hospital, and a much healthier death rate. Few people died unnecessarily. People knew a lot more about dying inside the hospital and made a much neater, more orderly job of it. They couldnt dominate Death inside the hospital, but they certainly made her behave. [...] There was none of that crude, ugly ostentation about dying that was so common outside the hospital. They did not blow up in mid-air like Kraft or the dead man in Yossarians tent, or freeze to death in the blazing summertime the way Snowden had frozen to death after spilling his secret to Yossarian in the back of the plane. | Topic: |
eighteen. THE SOLDIER WHO SAW EVERYTHING TWICE |
And dont tell me God works in mysterious ways, Yossarian continued, hurtling on over her objections. Theres nothing so mysterious about it. Hes not working at all. Hes playing. Or else Hes forgotten all abut us. Thats the kind of God you people talk abouta country bumpkin, a clumsy, bungling, brainless, conceited, uncouth hayseed. Good God, how much reverence can you have for a Supreme Being who finds it necessary to include such phenomena as phlegm and tooth decay in His divine system of creation? [...] Why in the world did He ever create pain? Pain? Lieutenant Sheisskopfs wife pounced upon the word victoriously. Pain is a useful symptom. Pain is a warning to us of bodily dangers. And who created the dangers? Yossarian demanded. | Topic: |
I thought you didnt believe in God. I dont, she sobbed, bursting violently into tears. But the God I dont believe in is a good God, a just God, a merciful God. Hes not the mean and stupid God you make Him out to be. | Topic: | |
nineteen. COLONEL CATHCART |
Havent you got anything humorous that stays away from waters and valleys and God? Id like to keep away from the subject of religion altogether if we can. The chaplain was apologetic. Im sorry, sir, but just about all the prayers I know are rather somber in tone and make at least some passing reference to God. Then lets get some new ones. The men are already doing enough bitching about the missions I send them on without our rubbing it in with any sermons about God or death or Paradise. Why cant we take a more positive approach? Why cant we all pray for something good, like a tighter bomb pattern, for example? Couldnt we pray for a tighter bomb pattern? Well, yes, sir, I suppose so, the chaplain answered hesitantly. You wouldnt even need me if thats all you wanted to do. You could do that yourself. I know I could, the colonel responded tartly. But what do you think youre here for? | Topic: |
twenty. CORPORAL WHITCOMB |
One good reason for making the chaplain live outside the Group Headquarters building was Colonel Korns theory that dwelling in a tent as most of his parishioners did would bring him into closer communication with them. Another good reason was the fact that having the chaplain around Headquarters all the time made the other officers uncomfortable. It was one thing to maintain liaison with the Lord, and they were all in favor of that; it was something else, though, to have Him hanging around twenty-four hours a day. | Topic: |
twenty-one. GENERAL DREEDLE |
Colonel Korn was the lawyer, and if Colonel Korn assured him that fraud, extortion, currency manipulation, embezzlement, income tax evasion and black-market speculations were legal, Colonel Cathcart was in no position to disagree with him. | Topic: |
twenty-three. NATELYS OLD MAN |
There is nothing so absurd about risking your life for your country! he declared. Isnt there? asked the old man. What is a country? A country is a piece of land surrounded on all sides by boundaries, usually unnatural. Englishmen are dying for England, Americans are dying for America, Germans are dying for Germany, Russians are dying for Russia. There are now fifty or sixty countries fighting in this war. Surely so many countries cant all be worth dying for. Anything worth living for, said Nately, is worth dying for. And anything worth dying for, answered the sacrilegious old man, is certainly worth living for. | Topic: |
twenty-four. MILO |
This time Milo had gone too far. Bombing his own men and planes was more than even the most phlegmatic observer could stomach, and it looked like the end for him. High-ranking government officials poured in to investigate. Newspapers inveighed against Milo with glaring headlines, and Congressmen denounced the atrocity in stentorian wrath and clamored for punishment. Mothers with children in the service organized into militant groups and demanded revenge. Not one voice was raised in his defense. Decent people everywhere were affronted, and Milo was all washed up until he opened his books to the public and disclosed the tremendous profit he had made. He could reimburse the government for all the people and property he had destroyed and still have enough money left over to continue buying Egyptian cotton. Everybody, of course, owned a share. And the sweetest part of the whole deal was that there really was no need to reimburse the government. In a democracy, the government is the people, Milo explained. Were people, arent we? So we might just as well keep the money and eliminate the middleman. Frankly, Id like to see the government get out of war altogether and leave the whole field to private industry. If we pay the government everything we owe it, well only be encouraging government control and discouraging other individuals from bombing their own men and planes. | |
Bribery is against the law, and you know it. But its not against the law to make a profit, is it? So it cant be against the law for me to bribe someone in order to make a fair profit, can it? | ||
twenty-five. THE CHAPLAIN |
[...] and the chaplain was ready now to capitulate to despair entirely but was restrained by the memory of his wife, whom he loved and missed so pathetically with such sensual and exalted ardor, and by the lifelong trust he had placed in the wisdom and justice of an immortal, omnipotent, omniscient, humane, universal, anthropomorphic, English-speaking, Anglo-Saxon, pro-American God, which had begun to waver. | |
thirty-four. THANKSGIVING |
The chaplain had mastered, in a moment of divine intuition, the handy technique of protective rationalization, and he was exhilarated by his discovery. It was miraculous. It was almost no trick at all, he saw, to turn vice into virtue and slander into truth, impotence into abstinence, arrogance into humility, plunder into philanthropy, thievery into honor, blasphemy into wisdom, brutality into patriotism, and sadism into justice. Anybody could do it; it required no brains at all. It merely required no character. | Topic: |
thirty-five. MILO THE MILITANT |
With a devotion to purpose above and beyond the line of duty, he had then raised the price of food in his mess halls so high that all officers and enlisted men had to turn over all their pay to him in order to eat. Their alternativethere was an alternative, of course, since Milo detested coercion and was a vocal champion of freedom of choicewas to starve. When he encountered a wave of enemy resistance to this attack, he stuck to his position without regard for his safety or reputation and gallantly invoked the law of supply and demand. And when someone somewhere said no, Milo gave ground grudgingly, valiantly defending, even in retreat, the historic right of free men to pay as much as they had to for the things they needed in order to survive. Milo had been caught red-handed in the act of plundering his countrymen, and, as a result, his stock had never been higher. | |
thirty-six. THE CELLAR |
But of course its my handwriting. No it isnt, Chaplain. Youre lying again. But I just wrote it! the chaplain cried in exasperation. You saw me write it. Thats just it, the major answered bitterly. I saw you write it. You cant deny that you did write it. A person wholl lie about his own handwriting will lie about anything. | Topic: |
thirty-nine. THE ETERNAL CITY |
Morale was deteriorating and it was all Yossarians fault. The country was in peril; he was jeopardizing his traditional rights of freedom and independence by daring to exercise them. | Topic: |
Every victim was a culprit, every culprit a victim, and somebody had to stand up sometime to try to break the lousy chain of inherited habit that was imperiling them all. In parts of Africa little boys were still stolen away by adult slave traders and sold for money to men who disemboweled them and ate them. Yossarian marveled that children could suffer such barbaric sacrifice without evincing the slightest hint of fear or pain. He took it for granted that they did submit so stoically. If not, he reasoned, the custom would certainly have died, for no craving for wealth or immortality could be so great, he felt, as to subsist on the sorrow of children. | ||
Didnt they show it to you? Yossarian demanded, stamping about in anger and distress. Didnt you even make them read it? They dont have to show us Catch-22, the old woman answered. The law says they dont have to. What law says they dont have to? Catch-22. | Topic: | |
Catch-22 did not exist, he was positive of that, but it made no difference. What did matter was that everyone thought it existed, and that was much worse, for there was no object or text to ridicule or refute, to accuse, criticize, attack, amend, hate, revile, spit at, rip to shreds, trample upon or burn up. | ||
forty-two. YOSSARIAN |
Your country doesnt need your help any more, Yossarian reasoned without antagonism. So all youre doing is helping them. I try not to think of that, Major Danby admitted frankly. I try to concentrate on only the big result and to forget that they are succeeding, too. I try to pretend that they are not significant. Thats my trouble, you know, Yossarian mused sympathetically, folding his arms. Between me and every ideal I always find Scheisskopfs, Peckems, Korns and Cathcarts. And that sort of changes the ideal. You must try not to think of them, Major Danby advised affirmatively. And you must never let them change your values. Ideals are good, but people are sometimes not so good. You must try to look up at the big picture. Yossarian rejected the advice with a skeptical shake of his head. When I look up, I see people cashing in. I dont see heaven or saints or angels. I see people cashing in on every decent impulse and every human tragedy. But you must try not to think of that, Major Danby insisted. And you must try not to let it upset you. Oh, it doesnt really upset me. What does upset me, though, is that they think Im a sucker. They think that theyre smart, and that the rest of us are dumb. And, you know, Danby, the thought occurs to me right now, for the first time, that maybe theyre right. But you must try not to think of that too, argued Major Danby. You must think only of the welfare of your country and the dignity of man. | Topic: |
Its a way to save yourself. Its a way to lose myself, Danby. You ought to know that. You could have lots of things you want. I dont want lots of things I want, Yossarian replied [...] | ||
text checked (see note) Feb 2009 |