Catch-22 is like no other novel we have ever read. It has its own style, its own rationale, its own extraordinary character. It moves back and forth from hilarity to horror. It is outrageously funny and strangely affecting. It is totally original. It is set in the closing months of World War II, in an American bomber squadron on a small island off Italy. Its hero is a bombardier named Yossarian, who is frantic and furious because thousands of people he hasnt even met keep trying to kill him. He has decided to live forever even if he has to die in the attempt. His problem is Colonel Cathcart, who keeps raising the number of missions the men have to fly. The others range from Lieutenant Milo Minderbinder, a dedicated entrepreneur he bombs his own airfield when the Germans make him a reasonable offer cost plus 6, to the dead man in Yossarians tent from Major Major Major, whose tragedy is that he resembles Henry Fonda, to Natelys whores kid sister from Lieutenant Scheisskopf he loves a parade to Major -- de Coverley, whose face is so forbidding no one has ever dared ask him his first name from Clevinger, who is lost in the clouds, to the soldier in white, who lies encased in bandages from head to toe and may not even be there at all from Dori Duz, who does, to the wounded gunner Snowden, who lies dying in the tail of Yossarians plane and at last reveals his terrifying secret.
