Catch-22,
a review
Juan
José Angulo de la Calle
The
book Catch-22 was
written by Joseph Heller in the twentieth century. Although it is a
great book, it is not very famous because of its strange plot and
characters.
The
book is set in Italy in the middle of the twentieth century, during
the Second World War.
It
is about the missions and life of a crazy group of American soldiers
who were attacking Italy during its occupation. Actually, they did
not want to be at war and they wanted to come back to the States, but
they could not because of the catch-22. That was a law which said
that only mad people could ask to return to the USA in order not to
be a risk for the army. However, the generals did not accept any
request because they thought that crazy people did not recognize that
they were mad. So, in the end, the soldiers had to complete several
missions and they got worse and worse.
Apart
from that, the characters are quite interesting: as they were in a
Kafkian situation, they were tired of everything and they usually did
strange and weird actions, such as having arguments with prostitutes,
being in front of official soldiers without clothes or selling food
quite expensively.
Everybody
must read this book because the characters are incredible and its
plot is really thought-provoking: it has a message which says the war
is a complete madness.
