May
7
I Was So Much Older Then
May 7, 2008 |
I have been re-reading Catch-22 by Joseph Heller. I first read this incredible novel when I was 15 years old. At the time I thought it a clever and satirical look at the human condition. I enjoyed the convoluted wordplay, the satire, and the absurd cast of characters. When I saw the movie version, directed by Mike Nichols, I remember being disappointed that the film was darker and “less funny” than the book.
Catch-22
Fast forward to 2008. (I will discuss the anachronistic linearity of “fast forward” another time.) Me, age 15, was a long time ago and the Catch-22 I am reading today bears little resemblance to the one I read back then. While my 15 year old self picked up on the satire (we were ‘all about’ satire back then) I missed the irony. I hadn’t been around long enough to appreciate Yossarian, and the other characters in the book, as more than devices used to convey a social and political message.
People behave absurdly and endanger others all the time and it isn’t funny; it’s scary. Self-important, clueless bureaucrats actually do have too much control over our lives and they keep raising the number of missions we need to fly (Metaphor alert!) in order to inflate their own atrophied self-image. In some ways I wish I could just shake my head and, with a wry smile, assure myself that it’s all in harmless fun. But, if I have discovered anything in the intervening years, it’s that Joseph Heller’s message was more a warning than a passive commentary on human foibles.
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