Catch-22
(Joseph Heller)

Joseph Heller was born in 1923 in Brooklyn, New York. In his early adult years, he served in World War II in the Air Force, which inspired his writing in his first and most popular novel, “Catch-22”. After the war, he worked for a marketing firm and began his writing career.

He wrote many well-known novels though “Catch-22” remains his most critically acclaimed. Despite the fact that it was well-received by critics, it was equally ill received by some and for most of the same reasons. “Catch-22” was an antiromantic war novel before antiromantic war novels were accepted. As it was written after World War II, and before the Vietnam War, the idea of war being something less than heroic was taboo, though, in later years, post-Vietnam, the idea of war being a horrific ordeal became more mainstream.

Many critics appreciated the fact that “Catch-22” was so raw and truthful while using crude humor to describe horrific circumstances, and many others criticized Heller’s debut novel for the same reasons.

The ideas behind “Catch-22” were revolutionary for its time because it was on the eve of the hippie movement and was not scared to challenge authority. While so many other war novels of the time were just war novels and depicted the romanticism and heroic ideals of war, “Catch-22” was a lesson in the grotesque realities of war and bureaucratic authority.