This is part of the continuing series of random book reviews that'll be nothing like a New York Times book review. Gone is the ten thousand word analysis. Instead, here is a book review like you'd tell your friends.
The book: Joseph Heller's Catch-22
Review:
Could it be 50 pages shorter? Probably.
Could a couple characters be cut out? Maybe.
But is it worth reading? Definitely.
Catch-22 is one of those books people label a classic, but it's never placed on any of those trite "100 Greatest American Novels of All Time!" lists. Why, I'm not sure.
Maybe it's because the novel walks a fine line between humor and the ungodly horrors of war, so that people don't know what to make of it. Great books can't have irreverent humor after all! Only misery and depression is allowed! If you haven't popped half a bottle of Prozac and a fifth of Scotch by the end of a book, then said book can't be great apparently.
In the end, Catch-22 isn't about war. It's really just about the insanity that exists in all of us. Like how insane that this isn't one of the "100 Greatest American Novels of All Time!"
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