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