Catch-22 322

Much has been written of Catch-22
The following is from Wikipedia... the reality lies within the video. Dare you come here not as a properly commissioned officer... mind your tow.Show more

Although the novel won no awards upon release, it has remained in print and is seen as one of the most significant American novels of the 20th century. Scholar and fellow World War II veteran Hugh Nibley said it was the most accurate book he ever read about the military.

The Modern Library ranked Catch-22 as the 7th (by review panel) and 12th (by public) greatest English-language novel of the 20th century.
The Radcliffe Publishing Course ranked Catch-22 as number 15 of the 20th century's top 100 novels.
The Observer listed Catch-22 as one of the 100 greatest novels of all time.
Time puts Catch-22 in the top 100 English-language modern novels (1923 onwards, unranked).
The Big Read by the BBC ranked Catch-22 as number 11 on a web poll of the UK's best-loved book.

Catch-22 is a "satirical" war novel by American author Joseph Heller. He began writing it in 1953; the novel was first published in 1961. Often cited as one of the most significant novels of the twentieth century, it uses a distinctive non-chronological third-person omniscient narration, describing events from the points of view of different characters. The separate storylines are out of sequence so the timeline develops along with the plot.

Catch-22 has landed on the list of the American Library Association's banned and challenged classics.

In 1972, the school board in Strongsville, Ohio, removed Catch-22, as well as two books by Kurt Vonnegut, from school libraries and the curriculum. Five families sued the school board. The Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals rejected the claim, stating that school boards had the right to control the curriculum. The decision was overturned on appeal in 1976. The court wrote, "A library is a storehouse of knowledge. Here we are concerned with the right of students to receive information which they and their teachers desire them to have." In 1982, the U.S. Supreme Court employed a similar rationale in its decision in Island Trees School District v. Pico on the removal of library books.

Because the book refers to women as "whores", it was challenged at the Dallas, Texas, Independent School District (1974) and Snoqualmie, Washington (1979).

The novel is set during World War II, from 1942 to 1944. It mainly follows the life of antihero Captain John Yossarian, a U.S. Army Air Forces B-25 bombardier. Most of the events in the book occur while the fictional 256th US Army Air Squadron is based on the island of Pianosa, in the Mediterranean Sea west of the Italian mainland, although it also includes episodes from basic training at Lowry Field in Colorado and Air Corps training at Santa Ana Army Air Base in California. The novel examines the absurdity of war and military life through the experiences of Yossarian and his cohorts, who attempt to maintain their sanity while fulfilling their service requirements so that they may return home.

The book was made into a film adaptation in 1970, directed by Mike Nichols. In 1994, Heller published a sequel to the novel entitled Closing Time.