This week in reading, the final post.

Hello everybody, and welcome to the final post on this blog!

So a little bit, of what has happened in the book this final time, there are some spoilers here. So if you want to read the book for yourself just know that in my opinion, it is a great book and i want you to read it!

(Just pretend it says, "I want YOU to read Catch-22)

Either way, from here on out is a minefield of spoilers so read at your own risk, you have been warned.

So here we reach the climax of Catch-22, something that has been hinted at all the way through the novel, we have Yossarian in his darkest point in the novel. It is nighttime in Rome, Nately's whore and her sister has gone missing, probably taken by Military police officers. Yossarian sees abusive people, neglected children and buildings that has deteriorated without anyone to care for them over time. Oppression of the free people, he sees rape and murder. Yossarian's mind goes crazy and eventually explodes (not literally) with one big moral question regarding the absolutes of war. "One cannot kill another person and not pay for it" is what is going through his mind, yet what he sees, is Aarfy, the murderer getting an apology from the police officers. While one of the requirements of war is to kill people, yet what he has seen seem to him to be undermining every moral and natural law there is. Then Snowden's death, being hinted at as long as i can remember in the novel, although it happened a few chapters ago, we did not know the whole picture, until the end of the novel. Probably one of the most important events of the book, this is where Yossarian learns that death is not something he can control, and that there are some wounds you can't get away from without eventually succumbing to them.

Yossarian finally realizes that even though it is said that the impulse to live is the strongest there is in a human, and that people will do everything to survive is wrong. Rather that he himself, cannot live as either a hypocrite or a slave. This leads him to take his life in his own hands and attempt an escape from the military. In the end, he runs away refusing to sell his mind and body to the bureaucratically made machine that is the U.S military.

The book is one of the more interesting i have read, maybe it is because i haven't just been reading it for the ride along, but because i have dug deeper, read more between the lines and looked for real life comparisons and similarities with the modern society. Overall, it is an easy to read book, easy to keep track of and great literary piece of work.

The ending was grim and dark, and fitting for a novel set during the bloodiest war in history, yet I am happy that it went the way it did.

Here is a picture of Yossarian signing off for the last time with me. Enjoy your life everybody, we all know Yossarian did his best to enjoy his and of course, to live through the war, or die trying.

-Mikkel

Friday focus (better late than never)

Sorry for me being late, but I had some computer issues forcing me to send it to a workshop to get it repaired, but I am back now to finish the blog about Catch-22. This time I will talk... Well, write about how Catch-22 could be related to certain political, economic and historical topics.

Catch-22 is a brilliant work of writing and the way it describes the bloodiest, most gruesome war in history in a satirical way is nothing but pure genius. It reflects very well on how the military's rules and doctrines can be a spider web that almost everybody will somehow get tangled in when they enlist. It brings you into the mind of the soldiers, how the different regulations effect their daily lives in the camp. You can see the similarities with certain governments *cough* America *cough*. If you have not read the book, or simply cannot see the comparison, then I will explain it a bit further for you. I just wrote a little bit, about how you could get tangled into the web of rules, doctrines and regulations in Yossarian's camp. It's the same with politics, you could easily get tangled into a web of, let's say financial backers during a presidential campaign, a campaign cost a lot of money, therefore you will probably need several backers, so you promise them to change certain rules, or give them a tax-break. Then you enter the white house, and realize that you cannot really do what you promised them to do. Mostly due to the messy web of rules and regulations, that is gridlock and checks & balances. Another huge web of outdated rules that will limit you in every direction. 

Another topic that caught my eye was that of greed, here i want to bring in the character Milo Minderbinder, which would obviously be the representative for this topic, although he is not alone with having an excessive ambition for power, which is another type of greed. Milo the black-market mess officer and a corrupt entrepreneur manipulates his way into directing his own little crime syndicate which he calls "M & M Enterprises". His greed knows no bounds, seen when he purchased the entire Egyptian cotton crop he ran out of money. Desperately he turns to the enemy and hires them to bomb the base at Pianosa. While Milo claims that he is not alone in owning M & M Enterprises, he is the only one to receive a dividend from it in any way. Overreaching one of the typical traits of a greedy man that does not know where the line goes. The same kind of greed is alive in plenty of corporations all around the world, for the sake of keeping within the U.S borders I will bring to light a certain pharmaceutical company CEO that raised prices for a drug with 5000%. Martin Shkreli, the CEO of Turin Pharmaceuticals raised the price of a drug from 13.5 to 750 dollars overnight. Corporate money hungry scum... Just like Milo though, he overreached, sure he made tons of money, due to the internet's outrage almost everybody knows who he is and what he did, Which lead to him later resigning as CEO due to his run ins with the federal police and all around bad reputation.

Third topic is the historical aspect, and I will be short in this one, as I have mentioned it in another blog post earlier, the futility of the war. We now know just how idiotic the Second World War was, and how it could have “easily” been stopped early on, with so many deaths and destruction I dare say nothing good came out of it. This is how Yossarian felt during the war, the uselessness, the idiocy. All for the end, which brought nothing to those in the war. Well, possibly some greedy CEO's of the weapons and ammunition companies earned tons, but that is back to greed again.

Thanks for listening... no, reading my little rant about the book. I will see you all again really soon!

-Mikkel

Some sources regarding Martin Shkreli

http://wonkette.com/594159/douchebag-pharma-ceo-raises-drug-price-5000-because-screw-your-sick-baby

http://gothamist.com/2015/12/18/martin_shkreli_resigns.php

This week in Reading

Ok, so now it is time to summarize what I have read this week and what has happened in the book so far! So sit back and relax.

So over in Italy Yossarian's squadron receives the green light to bomb the city of Bologna, but Yossarian being Yossarian does not feel like doing this and pretends that the internal communication system in his plane have broken down and is not working properly. He orders his pilot to find a place to land. They end up on a deserted airfield and Yossarian takes a nap on the beach. He wakes up from the sound of the other airplanes returning and believes that the clouds have prevented them from doing the bombing runs since no plane seemed to be damaged at all. Upon returning to base he finds out the squadron faced no opposition and completed the run. Captain Pilchard and Captain Wren says that the bombing run was a bust as they missed the ammunition storage the first time and will be forced to bomb Bologna again. On the second bombing run Yossarian flies in fearless believing that there will be no Opposition and no anti-aircraft guns. He is surprised when suddenly shrapnel is fired around him and he tells the pilots to do evasive maneuvers. They manage to drop the bombs and complete the mission. Several planes got shot down, yet Yossarian survives. 

Yossarian pleased with surviving another day and another mission goes to a bar where he meets a woman called Luciana, Yossarian buys Luciana dinner and dances with her. The next morning Luciana meets Yossarian in his tent but refuses to sleep with him before the room is clean. Yossarian falls in love with Luciana and asks her to marry him. She scoffs it off and calls him crazy as nobody wants to marry a girl that was not a virgin. During a conversation about a scar, she got when the allied forces bombed her town when suddenly Hungry Joe rushes into Yossarian’s tent with a camera. After getting dressed, they go outside when Luciana gives Yossarian her number, and tells him she expects him to rip it into several pieces, as he should be proud of himself for sleeping with her. Yossarian not understanding the logic asks why he would do it. Right after Luciana leaves, Yossarian being so proud of himself, does rip the note into pieces, but instantly regrets it. When the colonel again raises the number of missions, he feels a sudden pain in his liver and goes back to the hospital.

That is it for this week everyone!

See you next week!

Focus Friday - Themes

Hello everybody, nice to see you again!

This week’s Friday Focus focuses on central themes in the book.

I want to draw out two themes I find to be central in the book; these two themes are the inevitability of death and the absolute power of bureaucracy.

Both of these are closely linked to each other, Yossarian and his squadron mates lives are not governed by their own decisions, but rather a frightening and impersonal bureaucracy. Forcing these men to risk their lives even though everybody there knows that the missions are useless and dangerous. Like when the war is just about over, they still have to fly on these missions, even though the war is essentially over. All attempts to reason and talk logically with the bureaucrats’ falls on deaf ears. They seem to try to defy logic at every turn they can, for example, Major Major only allows people to meet with him in the office when he himself is not there, and Doc Daneeka refuses to sign Yossarian's insanity papers that would ground him because his desire to be grounded proves to Doc Daneeka that he is completely sane. Another way the book shows us a way of bureaucracy being abused and misused is when Scheisskopf is interrogating Clevinger, Refusing to let Clevinger prove his innocence by spending all the time interrupting him by correcting Clevinger's grammatical errors and mispronunciations. 

Now on to the inevitability of death, As i have stated earlier Yossarian's only goal during this war is to Stay alive or die trying, Which he has based on an assumption that he will inevitably fail, due to both sides of the war trying to kill him either directly or indirectly. When the book starts, we already have one dead man, the one in Yossarian's tent that never signed in. Throughout the book, several people have lost their lives and Yossarian keeps visualizing how his own end will be like. Yet all of Yossarian's thoughts about his own death does not only have negative effects though. As his fear of death has gotten him to get more out of every pleasure, he has in life.

This book has many different themes, but these two are the ones i felt are most important to the main plot and our protagonist Yossarian.

But that's all for today folks, I’ll see you later this week when it's time to summarize everything I’ve read this week for you!

This week in reading!

Hello everybody! It is time to tell you all about what I have read this week!

A bit of a sad note to start on, I have not been able to read as much as I would have wanted this week, although it is a thrilling book to read and lots of fun. Lately I am swamped with everything from schoolwork to regular work and all the way to having my food held hostage to get me to go to a family get together after a tiresome day at work. To summarize my weekend in short, I have been home for about 2 hours. Enough about my weekend, and me let us get to the book!

So far, there is nothing bad to say about the book. I think it is great, and from what I have read so far, if you want to read a book soon, then catch 22 would be my suggestion. It manages to draw you in and makes you want to keep reading until you know the whole story of Yossarian and his task to survive a war no matter who tries to kill him. In my opinion, the book is easy to read and there is no problem being able to follow along and keep track of what is happening and what has happened.

Now this week quite a lot has happened, we have a character that they call Hungry Joe, due to his insatiable lust for attempting to photograph nude women. He even went as far as telling them that he was taking pictures for life Magazine. Now the catch here is, he actually was before the war. He has flown the required minimum amount of missions to be sent home (which is now at 50 bombing runs), but the order that will eventually send him home has not come yet, and he screams about it at night when the colonel raises the minimum, and sends him on yet another dangerous mission. 

While Joe is being brave and going on bombing runs, another character named Appleby has decided it's time to be brave around the ping pong table, which inevitably ends in a fight.

Yossarian goes out on yet another dangerous mission when the colonel has the brilliant idea to raise the minimum requirement to fifty-five missions, although the U.S army only requires a soldier to do forty. Due to what Yossarian calls stupid army regulations, he has to obey the orders, again Yossarian thinks that both sides are trying to kill him either directly by shooting at him or indirectly by serving him on a silver plate for the enemy to gorge on. Yossarian, being Yossarian eludes death once again and returns to camp in one piece. In all of this mess, Yossarian's pilot manages to keep a cheerful smile on his face, making Yossarian believe his pilot to be the "Craziest combat man in the unit" 

Meanwhile, Milo, one of the few chefs on the base that wants to serve quality food has tried starting a small mafia family within the base, by stealing Yossarian's pilot's bed sheet, ripping it into several smaller pieces then selling them off to other soldiers, while being delusional about how he still holds the moral high-ground while doing so. Yossarian is unable to understand Milo's economic model when he tries to explain it to him and some other soldiers. At the same time, a C.I.D officer is continuing to investigate the letters from Irving Washington, or Washington Irving, also known to us as Yossarian. Milo believes the C.I.D officer is after him and his black market operations.

That is all for this week everybody, hopefully I will be able to read a little bit more and tell you about it next week! Come back anytime and ask me any questions you would like! I will try my best to answer them all.

Focus Friday - Characters

Hello everybody! Time for some Focus Friday!

In this review, I will go over some of the characters we have met so far and some relevant info about them!

First off our protagonist, namely Yossarian.

Yossarian is a 28-year-old captain in the U.S air force; he is in the 256th squadron and flies a B25-Bomber plane. Yossarian is currently still alive in the book (obviously), but he seems to be fixated on the fact that everybody seems to be trying to kill him, either by shooting towards his plane or by sending him on these dangerous missions. He is willing to go to great lengths to stay alive; one of these attempts is the very beginning of the book, where he stays at an army hospital in Italy for an extended period, even though the pains that got him there probably went away quickly.

"Live forever or die trying"

 This is what you can call Yossarian's motto during the Great War. As I stated earlier he will go to great lengths to do this, one time he even poisoned his own crew to postpone a bombing run.

He is kind of a smart-ass and likes to toy around with other people for his own amusement, like when he was censoring random stuff in the letters he was forced to censor while in the hospital, which was sent by other soldiers to their loved ones. Yossarian, like so many other soldiers want to escape the grim reality that is war. In addition, because of this he has entered a downwards spiral of alcohol abuse, gorging himself in the mess hall and having sex as often as he can.

Yossarian's tent-mates:

On Yossarian's military base the soldiers sleep in big tents with several others. Yossarian only shares his tent with two people, one of whom is already dead. Therefore, the nickname "The dead man in Yossarian's tent" he got this nickname by dying in action before he even signed in. Due to idiotic army regulations and policies, his belongings are still laying on the bed where he threw them upon arrival. As he never signed in, the army cannot remove his belongings, as they cannot sign him out. Although this can be sad for some, Yossarian does not seem to mind as it gives him and his living tent-mate more room. The one still alive has the weird name "Orr". A weird and remember able name, he is short of growth and good-hearted. Orr and Yossarian get along great so far. Being the only two in the tent makes enough room for modifications and customization of the tent to make it more comfortable, which Yossarian has left to Orr. 

This was all for now folks, I will have another update for you shortly! Next time is "This week in reading" where i will update you on Yossarian's shenanigans to stay alive throughout the war. 

Happy reading!

-Mikkel

Sunday Fun day!

The book starts with an American soldier named Yossarian not wanting to face the grim violence of the war and tries to escape it by going to an Italian military base claiming his liver is giving him grievous amounts of pain. The doctors let's him stay as they cannot prove that he is healthy, but is perplexed by the fact that he does not seem to either recover or worsen during his stay. He is also playing a game with himself, as soldiers must to censor letters they send home so they do not give out information he has decided to play by his own rules and censors words after his own arbitrary rules and signing it under the false name of "Washington Irving". With him in the ward, there are a few nurses who seem to dislike him and a fellow soldier who is bandaged and immobile, his name is Dunbar, even though he goes by the nickname "the soldier in white" a nickname given to him due to the excessive amounts of bandages on him. After a while another soldier comes to the ward, all we know so far about this soldier is that he is from Texas, and will hereby be referred to as the Texan. The Texan will not stop talking about how he feels as though "decent" people should have two votes. His patriotic talk seems to annoy not only Yossarian but all the other patients and the nurses too. Yossarian and others are not able to stand the Texan with his constant patriotic babbling and escapes the ward, suddenly recovering from their ailments and return to active duty.

a brief summary of the first chapter and a mood setter for the rest of the book, it is written in a way that makes you feel for Yossarian and his "troubles" in a war he seem to be the only one to think is senseless.

The book takes a stance through Yossarian that the war is senseless and idiotic. I believe this to be a reflection of what Heller thought about the war during his stay in Italy. As for my expectations and feelings towards the book, i assume it will be a good read and that it will reflect some of my own opinions on war. At the same time, i hope the book holds the same form throughout and keeps me wanting to read more about Yossarian and his "adventure". I also feel as though it accurately reflects the mind and actions of soldiers during a time of war.

I believe the book will have a lot of reflection on the morality and at times moronic decisions made by governments, soldiers and commanding officers during a time of war. In addition, that towards the end Yossarian will grow weary and tired of telling his nonsensical and fictitious, although at times comedic stories to those around him and do what he can to escape the war and go back to the United States of America.

Friday Focus - Joseph Heller

The late Joseph Heller, the author of the book "Catch 22" was born on May 1st 1923 and died December 12th 1999 of a heart attack. His parents were poor Jews that came to Brooklyn, New York from Russia. According to GoodReads.com, he loved writing as a young boy and knew he wanted to become a writer at age 11, already sending in a story about the war in Finland to the New York Daily News, sadly, they rejected it. In 1941, he worked three jobs after finishing his senior year at Abraham Lincoln High School. At age 19, Heller was assigned to the U.S Airforce and headed to Italy where served his part in World War 2. During his time in Italy, he flew approximately 60 combat missions in a B-25 bombardier. He has stated that he is proud of his tour in Italy, and claimed that the war was exciting in the beginning. Joseph is famous for writing satirical novels, and the book Catch 22 is his most famous works and Wikipedia claims it to be one of greatest literary works of the 20th century. Interestingly enough, the book Catch 22 is about a B-25 bombardier, in Italy during World War 2. Therefore, it is safe to assume that he used quite a lot of his own experiences and possibly feelings and locations for the book. The best way i have found to describe His writing style is from Encyclopedia.com and goes like this:


"Heller's tragicomic vision of modern life, found in all of his novels, focuses on the erosion of humanistic values and highlights the ways in which language obscures and confuses reality"

And Encyclopedia.com also states that all his protagonists are so called antiheroes, or a hero that lacks the normal qualities one usually associate with a normal hero such as courage. While instead, they usually have traits like dishonesty and lack of morale. Which is a fitting kind of protagonist for a setting such as World War 2. Another important theme in Heller's writing is the struggle between big and powerful institutions such as the federal government and the military. Other central themes in Heller's novels are skepticism, cynicism, corruption and degeneration. Which is topics I have decided to keep an eye out for when reading catch 22, which is considered as his crown achievement in literature.

I hope you all will enjoy my weekly updates about Catch 22 and my interpretation, views and expectations from the book as I read chapter after chapter, dragging you alongside me.

See you on Sunday!

-Mikkel

Sources:
http://www.encyclopedia.com/topic/Joseph_Heller.aspx
http://www.goodreads.com/author/show/3167.Joseph_Heller
http://www.biography.com/people/joseph-heller-9334279
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joseph_Heller