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