During World War II, U.S. Army Air Forces bombardier John Yossarian is stationed on the Mediterranean island of Pianosa, desperate to escape the endless combat missions his ambitious commanders keep raising. Caught in a web of absurd military bureaucracy epitomized by the paradoxical rule of Catch-22, he tries every ruse to be declared insane and sent home, only to discover the rule guarantees he never can be. Heller's darkly comic satire skewers the insanity of war, profiteering, and institutional logic.
Books mentioned in Catch-22 (6)
Hamlet by William Shakespeare: “I sometimes think of myself as Fortinbras—ha, ha—in the play Hamlet by William Shakespeare, who just keeps circling and circling around the action until everything else falls apart.”
Bleak House by Charles Dickens: “There was the Bible, of course, but the Bible was a book, and so were Bleak House, Treasure Island, Ethan Frome and The Last of the Mohicans.”
Treasure Island by Robert Louis Stevenson: “There was the Bible, of course, but the Bible was a book, and so were Bleak House, Treasure Island, Ethan Frome and The Last of the Mohicans.”
Ethan Frome by Edith Wharton: “There was the Bible, of course, but the Bible was a book, and so were Bleak House, Treasure Island, Ethan Frome and The Last of the Mohicans.”
The Last of the Mohicans by James Fenimore Cooper: “There was the Bible, of course, but the Bible was a book, and so were Bleak House, Treasure Island, Ethan Frome and The Last of the Mohicans.”
Moby-Dick by Herman Melville: “machine and spent his sessions with the dying colonel trying to discuss Moby Dick with him.”
Books that mention Catch-22 (3)
Foucault's Pendulum by Umberto Eco: “(epigraph) —Joseph Heller, Catch 22, New York, Simon & Schuster, 1961”
A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius by Dave Eggers: “Before that was Catch-22, though we didn't finish that—with the obscure (for him) references and all the characters, it was taking us an hour to get through each page.”