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Journalism of Courage
Catch 22
By Joseph Heller
In 1961, Heller published Catch-22, his first novel, which tells the story of Captain Joseph Yossarian and his attempt to avoid serving in World War II by feigning insanity. However, Yossarian is thwarted by the doctor’s argument that if he were truly mad then he would endanger his life and seek to fight more missions. On the other hand, if he were sane, he would be capable of following orders to fight more missions. Thus the phrase ‘‘catch-22’’ came to mean ‘‘a proviso that trips one up no matter which way one turns.’’ The novel was an immediate success, despite a very acrid review by The New Yorker, and a popular movie was produced in 1970.
In his subsequent, not-so-successful books, Heller shunned both realism and modernism, concocting a curious mix of the two, which then became his trademark style.
Available at all leading bookstores for Rs 275
