Catch 22

[Antman]

Agree about some American authors, Garrison keilor lake wobegon days was soooo dull but it was meant to be a comedy,

Confederacy of dunces was good, I like Fitzgerald and also I'd add John dos passos and his América trilogy, very enjoyable

[zeitghost]

Despite being a fan of sci-fi (TV and movies rather than books) I'm finding the Electric Dreams TV series interpretations rather dull and coming across as incomplete. Not a patch on the Broken Mirror series.

It must be said that the 4 broadcast so far haven't exactly inspired me much.

The 2nd one on the space ship with the elderly (340 year old) lady searching for earth was the best of a poor bunch.

And they even managed to leave the finding of the coin out of it completely.

Where the feck the swimming in the pool bit came from, feck nose, coz it ain't in the original story.

[SpontaneousOrder]

Bad luck on the disabled, poor, uneducated or sick.

You're illustrating her point. The role of government is to protect men from predators like yourself - especially predators who disguise their predations as empathy.

And indeed bad luck on Ms Rand herself, who fell back on the despised state for five figures worth of Medicaid when her lifetime of smoking took its toll.

Meh.

You mean she fell back on the social security funds she had been paying into for decades. Not sure what your point is here.

[pjclarke]

Not sure what your point is here.]

You're not thick so you must be disingenuous. One of your 'socratic' questions perhaps.

[SpontaneousOrder]

You're not thick so you must be disingenuous. One of your 'socratic' questions perhaps.

Lest I see you as disingenuous, why don't you explain the implied fault or hypocrisy in Ayn Rand making use of the health care she had been paying for for decades?

In fact, as she printed this in 1966 (a decade or so before she started collecting), I have no idea of the point you're trying to make:

The same moral principles and considerations apply to the issue of accepting social security, unemployment insurance or other payments of that kind. It is obvious, in such cases, that a man receives his own money which was taken from him by force, directly and specifically, without his consent, against his own choice. Those who advocated such laws are morally guilty, since they assumed the “right” to force employers and unwilling co-workers. But the victims, who opposed such laws, have a clear right to any refund of their own money—and they would not advance the cause of freedom if they left their money, unclaimed, for the benefit of the welfare-state administration.

[pjclarke]

It was not hypocritical, just an example of an ideology encountering a real world test and failing.

As I understand it, Rand opposed all forms of collective welfare, up to and including income tax, regarding any payments into social security as coerced theft. Thus she could justify claiming medicare (despite promoting rationality she denied the link between smoking and cancer, smoked all her life and required surgery for lung cancer) as 'restitution'.

Naturally, anybody who supported collective welfare and benefitted from it she described variously as 'moochers', 'leeches' and 'parasites'.

I repeat, meh.

[Pip in a Poke]

....

....:

Any chance you guys could get a room?

Either that or at least remain on topic.

[pjclarke]

Apologies.

I would echo those who've urged you to stick with Catch-22. It's a great antiwar novel and satire. It's not a linear timeline; rather it follows the individual narratives of the main characters, jumping around and between. Sometimes he sets up a joke in one chapter and then completes it several sections later, so it is worth perservering. As well as the central paradox of the title, Heller captures the absurdity of conflict (and to some extent bureaucracy and capitalism - the only Germans in the novel are pilots hired by Milo Minderbender to bomb Pianosa - 'What's good for M&M Enterprises is good for the country') by exaggeration and some pithy truisms and reversals of common sense. For example Snowden - whose death is hinted at throughout but not fully described until near the end of the book, despite explaining some of Yossarian's attitude towards the military - is described as an 'old man', and when Yossarian objects the response is 'Well, he died. You don't get any older than that.'.

PS Heller's later work was lacklustre by comparison (though I enjoyed 'God Knows') There's a sequel to Catch-22, Closing Time, but frankly it's a mess. When challenged at the Hay festival with 'Mr Heller, since Catch-22 you haven’t written anything else as good!' Heller's reply was:

“No, you’re right. But then, neither has anyone else"

That's a bit rich, but I think it is perhaps the funniest serious book I've read.

[Pip in a Poke]

Apologies.

I would echo those who've urged you to stick with Catch-22. It's a great antiwar novel and satire. It's not a linear timeline; rather it follows the individual narratives of the main characters, jumping around and between. Sometimes he sets up a joke in one chapter and then completes it several sections later, so it is worth perservering. As well as the central paradox of the title, Heller captures the absurdity of conflict (and to some extent bureaucracy and capitalism - the only Germans in the novel are pilots hired by Milo Minderbender to bomb Pianosa - 'What's good for M&M Enterprises is good for the country') by exaggeration and some pithy truisms and reversals of common sense. For example Snowden - whose death is hinted at throughout but not fully described until near the end of the book, despite explaining some of Yossarian's attitude towards the military - is described as an 'old man', and when Yossarian objects the response is 'Well, he died. You don't get any older than that.'.

PS Heller's later work was lacklustre by comparison (though I enjoyed 'God Knows') There's a sequel to Catch-22, Closing Time, but frankly it's a mess. When challenged at the Hay festival with 'Mr Heller, since Catch-22 you haven’t written anything else as good!' Heller's reply was:



That's a bit rich, but I think it is perhaps the funniest serious book I've read.

Hmmm....inneresting.

Yes, I'd agree with you on bureaucracy and capitalism.

The death/non death of Doc Daneeka which leaves him without pay and unable to eat because he's officially dead even though he's very much alive and well was a good satire on bureaucracy.

While Milo's purchase of the entire Egyptian cotton harvest and his subsequent inability to shift it until he turned it into chocolate covered cotton candy was very redolent of the EEC butter mountains / milk lakes. Anyone remember Lymeswold cheese?

[Pip in a Poke]

Well I finished it

Ok in parts, some good humour/satire but not what I'd call a page turner.

I was compelled to keep on until the end because I though there would be some earth shattering revelation which would suddenly put into a different perspective everything the reader has read in the previous 500 pages. But there wasn't. Other than the stuff about Orr.

And as for Catch-22 itself - I think I had a better definition of that term in my head before I read the book than I did afterwards.

I like the definition introduced by Doc Daneeka at the start of the book who uses the term to explain why any pilot requesting mental evaluation for insanity — hoping to be found not sane enough to fly and thereby escape dangerous missions — demonstrates his own sanity in creating the request and thus cannot be declared insane. But, in other invocations of Catch-22 later in the book, it just seems to apply to any inflexible bureaucratic rule - not necessarily the paradoxical situation that most people think of.