Saturday, May 14, 2005

catch-22

i just finished re-reading joseph heller's catch-22, one of my fave reads of all time and one that i used to revisit every coupla years or so. i hadn't had a copy in a decade or so, but when my dtr brought a disintegrating copy from half price books into the house, i quickly co-opted and re-read it. it's a truism, but it's also true, that when you periodically return to a piece of literature, it means different things to you over time. for me, this time, catch-22 seemed less like the surreal vision of a world gone mad that it seemed the first time i encountered it. instead, it seemed like a pretty accurate depiction of the illogic of things in the "real world." maybe it was easier for me to get a handle on this time because i'm familiar with the time-leaping ebb and flow of the narrative (which so flummoxed my dtr that she put it down, like her grandmother when confronted with any movie made after 1973 or so). what was also new was the humanity i saw in heller's exploding universe of improbably-named characters, and the compassion i felt for some of them.

1 Comments:

Anonymous Anonymous said...

During college, one of the local punk acts called themselves "Snowden's Surprise".

That always disturbed me. As, I'm sure, it was supposed to.

2:28 PM  

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