Catch-22 (1961) - Joseph Heller

Category: Adults, Classic, General Fiction, Humor
Language: English
Keywords: dark humor World War II

Written by Joseph Heller
Read by Jay O. Sanders
Format: MP3
Bitrate: 64 Kbps
Unabridged

Publisher: Harper Collins/Simon & Schuster Audio
Release date: February 20, 2007/August 29, 2017
Duration: 19:58:29

Catch-22 is like no other novel we have ever read. It has its own style, its own rationale, its own extraordinary character. It moves back and forth from hilarity to horror. It is outrageously funny and strangely affecting. It is totally original.

Set in Italy during World War II, this is the story of the incomparable, malingering bombardier, Yossarian, a hero who is furious because thousands of people he has never met are trying to kill him. But his real problem is not the enemy—it is his own army, which keeps increasing the number of missions the men must fly to complete their service. Yet if Yossarian makes any attempt to excuse himself from the perilous missions he’s assigned, he’ll be in violation of Catch-22, a hilariously sinister bureaucratic rule: a man is considered insane if he willingly continues to fly dangerous combat missions, but if he makes a formal request to be removed from duty, he is proven sane and therefore ineligible to be relieved.

Catch-22 is a microcosm of the twentieth-century world as it might look to someone dangerously sane. It is a novel that lives and moves and grows with astonishing power and vitality. It is, we believe, one of the strongest creations of the mid-century.

Fifty years after its original publication, Catch-22 remains a cornerstone of American literature and one of the funniest—and most celebrated—books of all time. In recent years it has been named to “best novels” lists by Time, Newsweek, the Modern Library, and the London Observer.

AudioFile…
“Heller’s celebrated novel of WWII is given an entertaining reading by actor Jay O. Sanders. The novel itself is a high-energy, absurdist romp through the machinations of governmental bureaucracy, the labyrinth of circular and paradoxical military “reasoning,” and larger questions of rationality, sanity, war, and peaceâ featuring a sizable cast of characters presided over by the paranoid and put-upon bombardier, Captain Yossarian. Sanders brings a friendly, earnest tone to the production, and offers accomplished and consistent characterizations of all the novel’s main characters. The sound level of the recording itself is inconsistent–Sanders drops to near inaudibility in the quieter passages.”