Classics for Beginners discussion

Enjoy!

Was always curious about this book. Gonna start it today, also my first group read.

This book.

I loved how Heller delivers punchlines for jokes that are set up hundreds of pages in advance.

Be prepared to find yourself in the middle of a tear-producing belly-laugh and suddenly gasping at the horror of what you thought was funny.

Tremendously intelligent book. Did you know there is a SEQUEL???

Stopped reading after 60 pages.
After a few pages I lost interest. I don't know what it was, maybe the writing, or how he changes the story almost every paragraph, or how he introduces a dozen new characters every page.
The idea that there was so much more of the same to read put me off.

Curious about the opinion of others.

I loved this book, but I read it very slowly; a few pages at a time were all my brain could take.

Joy wrote: "But I allowed myself to quit this one and when I did, it was like a weight lifted."

I felt the same way! I never had this with another book. Most of the time if I don't like it, I'll just stop reading. But with this, maybe the fact that the majority loves it and finds it funny, I felt obligated to read more. You know: maybe it will get funnier/ or more interesting.

Maybe I was in the wrong mindset. Maybe I'll love it if I read it 10 years later :P

One of the things that annoyed me (I hope I can explain it): the very first page (sentence if I remember correctly) he talks about falling in love with the pastor(?). That's it, 60 pages later there's nothing about the pastor.
This kept happening, starting a 'story'/character, and then HOP here's another one, HOP here's another one.

I wasn't this confused reading Jane Eyre ;)

It's been a year and a half since I read it, so I don't remember all of the details. But, I did go back and check my status notes, and I was definitely bored at the beginning. I didn't figure out that the story is not told in a linear fashion until Chapter 16.

It was the number of missions that clued me in finally. The colonel kept increasing the number of missions that they had to fly before they could go home. At the beginning of the book, the number stood at 50, but chapter 16 was when the colonel raised it from 35 to 40.

I was the "soldier who saw everything twice." Because Heller meticulously gave me the entire story twice in this book, but it wasn't given to me linearly and it wasn't given to me by a single perspective and it wasn't given to me at all. I had to work for it.

I would love if someone bookworm somewhere would list the chronological order of the chapters so that I could read it linearly. (Someone did that for Infinite Jest, but I haven't had the gumption to read THAT one again! LOL!)

Did anyone in the group make it as far as the 'moaning epidemic' during the Avignon briefing? My notes were that I was laughing so hard I was wiping tears from my eyes. I'm curious what others thought of it, and maybe they can remind me of the details.

Rereading Catch 22 for this challenge has been a joy. It has felt like being back amongst old friends, meeting the various characters, some of whom I had remembered more than others. It must be the third or fourth time I have read it. However, I must point out that there was a first attempt that ended in failure, as others here have done, before I got used to a book that leaps around and mentions events hundreds of pages before they are described. This time I had to read another book at the same time, otherwise I would have read it much too quickly in under a week and not savoured it enough.

It is one of the funniest books I have ever read, but I think that is because it is, at heart, very serious. It is about the madness of sending people out to die, when killing other people. Yossarian is quite right that people are trying to kill him and some are 'the enemy" and some are "on his side". How else can you cope with this, except by laughing at it, by poking fun at the way war and the military are run. Very dark satire.

Possible spoiler follows:

It's not a book for everyone! But it does actually end on a hopeful note, although it gets extremely dark as you approach the end!

Hi Joy... why obtuse? Not to nitpick - and, by all means, I can see plenty of reasons NOT to like this book - but 'obtuse'? Perhaps memory is failing me. I read this book a long time ago and I remember enjoying it greatly. Frankly, it was one of the funniest thigns I have read. Yet, I believe it is time for me to re-read it, but the month is slipping under me.

On the other side, I did abandon the 'sequel' - Closing Time. That was NOT funny, I recall.

Sunny in Wonderland wrote: "It's been a year and a half since I read it, so I don't remember all of the details. But, I did go back and check my status notes, and I was definitely bored at the beginning. I didn't figure out..."

Here is a list about the chapters in chronological order I found http://elvoz.tripod.com/oldcatch22/ch... though I can't promis it is accurat (I haven't read it in that order ;) ) Though it looks a lot like another list I found, so it might be worth checkng out http://faculty.up.edu/asarnow/351/Cat...

Marie Marcelle wrote: "Sunny in Wonderland wrote: "It's been a year and a half since I read it, so I don't remember all of the details. But, I did go back and check my status notes, and I was definitely bored at the beg..."

Oh, wow! That's awesome! I'd forgotten that there were time-shifts mid-chapter as well, which should make it fairly interesting to try to keep up with it. But, I'm definitely interested in giving this a re-read in chronological order.

Thanks for taking the time to find those for me! :)

Veljko wrote: "Hi Joy... why obtuse? Not to nitpick - and, by all means, I can see plenty of reasons NOT to like this book - but 'obtuse'? Perhaps memory is failing me. I read this book a long time ago and I reme..."

You're definitely not the only one! I've seen a number of reviews that make me hesitant to even try out Closing Time. I'm sure I will at some point, but for now, I think I'll let it simmer. LOL!

Hi Joy - that makes a lot of sense. I always thought of 'obtuse' as a synonym of 'stupid' - but I can see how it can have a different meaning. The book has that surreal side to it - some of the absurd humor, I guess - that can make it obscure at points. I was frustrated by that as well.

Yes, the center message is anti-war. But the fact that "war is hell" was well depicted by others. I think what I like about the book is that, better than anything else I have read, it emphasizes that "war is absurd".