"An unreasonable belief that everybody around him was crazy, a homicidal impulse to machine-gun strangers" Imagine you're fighting in a dangerous supporting role of a large conflict; you're seeing friends disappear and one can only suspect they've been KIA. Imagine desperately wanting to escape this conflict for the preservation of one's own life; the catch being that you can't. In order for one to escape, one has to be proven insane, but in order to prove you're insane, you have to set up a meeting with an evaluator who decides that since you're sane enough to realise you're insane, you are in-fact sane. Throughout the book, a lot of people start realising the fact that they may never be able leave, and this plays on the minds of everyone there. You slowly start to see that everyone is becoming a paranoid mess due to extreme stress, and them coming to terms with the realisation that the only way out is to be killed is making them psychotic. Not only that, but now it is even harder to prove or fake your insanitiy due to the normal behaviour of everyone being slightly insane. You're essentially stuck on a boat without a paddle and unable to escape, and you get to witness the psychological pressure that this environment has on the people who experience it.

I bought this for a book club read. We had decided we needed to read a modern classic! I was convinced I had read it before, but once I started I was not so sure ... initially, it is very difficult to 'tune in' to the bizarre, satirical tone but it is worth persevering! Eventually, I realised that, in spite of the challenges of the read, it is wriitng of quality - just let the style 'wash over' you, rather than dwell on the minutiae. So, now for all those other classics I think I have read but probably haven't!

If you are expecting a heavy going war book, prepare to be surprised. All large organisations should read this and consider their ridiculous bureaucracy. Yossarian has become a hero for me. Hilarious in places, dark in others. What a classic book - I can't believe I've never read this before. Red tape rules okay!

I read this book when I was a student in the early 70s and my memory of it was that I thought that it was wonderful. Recently I had to read it again for my book club and I was overcome by utter irritation. The reason...... It is all about bureaucracy and how that overcomes all sensible decisions, about how keen but really not very bright people get promoted to the top jobs and then proceed to reveal their stupidity in spades, and about how all decisions in a bureaucracy defy all logic. Heller has it all down to a T, based on the US army in Italy in the second World War. The reason for my change of stance is that when I was 20 the writing was extremely funny and engaging. Now that I'm retired I can see that it is all oh so true. The writing is still funny and engaging, but the content is so real that it depresses me and all I want to do is wade in and sort them out. Perhaps that says more about me than the book, but please try it.

I'd been meaning to read "Catch 22" for about half a century, and finally got around to seeing what all the fuss was about. I must have been gripped by it because I couldn't put it down, and the truth about self-serving, psycopathic, target-chasing bureaucrats, and the stupidity of war, all ring true. On the other hand, the alleged humour passed me by almost completely, and the sexism and misogyny is, thank goodness, from a bygone age. Would I recommend the book to a friend? Possibly, as an interesting example of a satirical piece from the mid-twentieth-century, but not as the great literary work it's so often cracked up to be. Would I read it again? I doubt it; there are plenty of more interesting books I've yet to read.