Catch-22 (MOST RED) (Acting Edition S.) (Textplus)

by Joseph Heller

The titles in the "Textplus" series, designed to reflect the changing nature of English Literature at advanced post-GCSE level, offer the complete text with a specially commissioned introduction and compact background notes placing the work in historical and critical context. Together, these components are intended to open up the text for students, allowing them to plot their own course of study, to plan extended projects, to compare writers' perspectives on similar themes and to relate works to key social and historical phenomena.

• ISBN10: 0224602675
• ISBN13: 9780224602679
• Publish Date: 1 January 1962
• Publish Status: Out of Print
• Out of Print: 17 October 2003
• Publish Country: GB
• Publisher: Vintage Publishing
• Imprint: Jonathan Cape Ltd
• Format: Hardcover
• Pages: 443
• Language: English

Reviews

[matas]

Really hard to get through and the humour wasn't funny at all.

Many people compare the humour to the Hitchiker's Guide to the Galaxy, but I don't think you can even compare these two, as that book was hilarious, but this one didn't get a single chuckle from me.

Even though I liked the idea before I tried reading it, actually trying to read it was just too hard to go through and reading other negative reviews of people who actually went through the book, I don't feel like I'm missing anything out.

Some people are also confused by the nonlinearity of it, but I didn't have an issue with it as I think I usually enjoy it in other books as it can add to the story being more fluent. (This is why I'm giving it 2 stars instead of 1)

I think there are plenty of other, more enjoyable books to read, so I'm ditching this one.

It grew on me. It took quite a while (basically until the last few chapters) for me to appreciate the book, with all its endless jokes but it comes together in the end. For a while I was reading it piecemeal but when I finally dug in and read quite a bit at a time it really picked up. In many ways this feels similar in town to another anti-war book I read, Slaughterhouse V. Although I feel like a lot of the "gags" are overdone the book really leaves a strong impression of the author's disillusionment and contempt for the military and war. Goes from very dark to very light very quickly.

[jamiereadthis]

Every few years I make room in my life to read this book again and it’s a different book each time. This time, it’s more profound and less funny and more true and more human. And more inhuman too— how does someone even come up with the sentences that Heller writes? It’s the GOAT for a reason. What it means to be sane, what it means to be crazy, what it means to be human— it’s all in this book.

Reviewed July 2019

- - -

June 2012:

Superb as ever. It blows my mind sometimes that a book like this exists. A book this hilarious shouldn’t have this much heart.

- - -

March 2008:

I love, love, love this book. Hilarious and heart-wrenching. It’s another I never seem to stop reading. From the first line, it was love at first sight.

[Michael @ Knowledge Lost]

I really loved this book; tacking the mental issues suffered during war time would be really difficult, but Joseph Heller’s satirical take and amazing writing made it easier to both understand and read. I don’t think I’ve ever read anything like this; it was humorous, it was very enjoyable.

[anne]

loved this