Finished: Catch-22 (Heller). What a great book! I can't remember the last time I laughed out loud while reading a book. :-) A funny, but scathing, tale of the chain of command and bureaucracy of the military and the atrocities, mental and physical, of war. As one of the book's future publishers stated in his critique: "It is a very rare approach to the war---humor that slowly turns to horror. The funny parts are wildly funny, the serious parts are excellent."

 I love the central character, Yossarian, who has flown more than his share of bombing missions in WWII and requests to fly no more missions. However, they will only ground pilots from flying missions if they are "insane" and if they are "sane" enough to know to request not to fly missions, then they can't be declared "insane"...hence, the Catch-22. The whole book is quick and witty as it explores Yossarian and all the characters. :-)

Passages like below, page after page. When the troops started asking too many deep questions at the weekly Question and Answer sessions with the officers:

     "Group Headquarters was alarmed, for there was no telling what people might find out once they felt free to ask whatever questions they wanted to. Colonel Cathcart sent Colonel Korn to stop it, and Colonel Korn succeeded with a rule governing the asking of questions. Colonel Korn's rule was a stroke of genius, Colonel Korn explained in his report to Colonel Cathcart. Under Colonel Korn's rule, the only people permitted to ask questions were those who never did. Soon the only people attending were those who never asked questions, and the sessions were discontinued altogether, since Clevinger, the corporal and Colonel Korn agreed that it was neither possible nor necessary to educate people who never questioned anything."

I first laughed out loud during an exchange between General Peckem and General Dreedle, who were always trying to one-up each other, and always sending meaningless memorandums. (The higher the ranking officer, the more merciless his intelligence was treated in the book.) In this passage, Colonel Cargill has written a memo requiring General Peckem's signature, but of course before it goes anywhere, the mail-clerk, ex-P.F.C Wintergreen who reads everything, gets involved:

     "It takes brains not to make money," Colonel Cargill wrote in one of the homiletic memoranda he regularly prepared for circulation over General Peckem's signature. "Any fool can make money these days and most of them do. But what about people with talent and brains? Name, for example, one poet who makes money."
     "T.S. Eliot," ex-P.F.C. Wintergreen said in his mail-sorting cubicle at Twenty-seventh Air Force Headquarters, and slammed down the telephone without identifying himself.
     Colonel Cargill, in Rome, was perplexed.
     "Who was it?" asked General Peckem.
     "I don't know," Colonel Cargill replied.
     "What did he want?"
     "I don't know."
     "Well, what did he say?"
     " 'T.S. Eliot,' " Colonel Cargill informed him.
     "What's that?"
     " 'T.S. Eliot,' " Colonel Cargill repeated.
     "Just 'T.S.---' "
     "Yes, sir. That's all he said. Just 'T.S. Eliot.' "
     "I wonder what it means," General Peckem reflected.
     Colonel Cargill wondered too.
     "T.S. Eliot," General Peckem mused.
     "T.S. Eliot," Colonel Cargill echoed with the same funereal puzzlement.
     General Peckmen roused himself after a moment with an unctuous and benignant smile. His expression was shrewd and sophisticated. His eyes gleamed maliciously. "Have someone get me General Dreedle," he requested Colonel Cargill. "Don't let him know who's calling."
     Colonel Cargill handed him the phone.
     "T.S. Eliot," General Peckem said, and hung up.
     "Who was it?" asked Colonel Moodus (Dreedle's Colonel.)
     General Dreedle, in Corsica, did not reply.....He brooded in ponderous speculation over the cryptic message he had just received. Slowly his face softened with an idea, and he curled his lips with wicked pleasure.
     "Get Peckem," he told Colonel Moodus. "Don't let the bastard know who's calling."
     "Who was it?" asked Colonel Cargill, back in Rome.
     "That same person," General Peckem replied with a definite trace of alarm. "Now he's after me."

And so it continued. OMG, I just loved that! :-)