Posts tagged Catch-22

Mediocre

Major Major had been born too late and too mediocre. Some men are born mediocre, some men achieve mediocrity, and some men have mediocrity thrust upon them. With Major Major it had been all three. Even among men lacking all distinction he inevitable stood out as a man lacking more distinction than all the rest, and people who met him were always impressed by how unimpressive he was.

Catch-22 (Joseph Heller)

You Can’t Go Home

‘No, you can’t go home,’ ex-P.F.C. Wintergreen admitted. ‘Forty missions is all you have to fly as far as Twenty-seventh Air Force Headquarters in concerned.’

Yossarian was jubilant. ‘Then I can go home, right? I’ve got forty-eight.’

‘No, you can’t go home,’ ex-P.F.C. Wintergreen corrected him. ‘Are you crazy or something?’

‘Why not?’

‘Catch-22.’

‘Catch-22?’ Yossarian was stunned. ‘What the hell has Catch-22 got to do with it?’

‘Catch-22,’ Doc Daneeka answered patiently, when Hungry Joe had flown Yossarian back to Pianosa, ‘says you’ve always got to do what your commanding officer tells you to.’

‘But Twenty-seventh Air Force says I can go home with forty missions.’

But they don’t say you have to go home. And regulations do say you have to obey every order. That’s the catch. Even if the colonel were disobeying a Twenty-seventh Air Force order by making you fly more missions, you’d still have to fly them, or you’d be guilty of disobeying an order of his. And then Twenty-seventh Air Force headquarters would really jump on you.’

Catch-22 (Joseph Heller)

Catch-22

There was only one catch and that was Catch-22, which specified that a concern for one’s own safety in the face of dangers that were real and immediate was the process of a rational mind. Orr was crazy and he 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 didn’t, but if he was sane he had to fly them. If he flew them he was crazy and didn’t have to; but if he didn’t want to he was sane and had to. Yossarian was moved deeply by the absolute simplicity of this clause of Catch-22 and let out a respectful whistle.

Catch-22 (Joseph Heller)

Live Forever or Die in the Attempt

Havermeyer was a lead bombarbier who never missed. Yossarian was a lead bombardier who had been demoted because he no longer gave a damn whether he missed or not. He had decided to live forever or die in the attempt, and his only mission each time he went up was to come down alive.

Catch-22 (Joseph Heller)

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