Catch 22 – Arthur Hofn

Everything Was Beautiful And Nothing Hurt.

Wow in a blink of an eye it’s the end of April! Whilst the plan for this blog is to be about literature, as I am not qualified enough for anyone to be interested in my opinion on politics and the like, I think it’s not controversial to say that war is bad. In no way do I want to make light of the horrors that happen around us, in many locations around the globe, as every year many people end up damaged in countless terrible ways by conflict. But I do feel literature is an important part of helping us learn. Conflicts are something that writers are moved to tell us about. Some have had first hand experience in war and find the way to help them deal with it is to write, either that or they feel we, the readers, should know what it is really like as far to often in fiction fighting can be glamourised.

The phrase “catch 22” has become ingrained in our language, meaning an impossible and or ridiculous choice. Joseph Heller, the writer observed, “Everyone in my book accuses everyone else of being crazy. Frankly, I think the whole society is nuts – and the question is: What does a sane man do in an insane society?”

The novel itself is an interesting piece as it is not presented in chronological order and whilst sections of the first parts are grim in places it’s not until the end the full horror of the events, which are set in the Second World War, are realised and that lighter tone at the beginning becomes far more sinister. Not for no reason do we use the expression Catch 22 still over sixty years after first publication.

“’They’re trying to kill me,’ Yossarian told him calmly.
‘No one’s trying to kill you,’ Clevinger cried.
‘Then why are they shooting at me?’ Yossarian asked.
‘They’re shooting at everyone,’ Clevinger answered. ‘They’re trying to kill everyone.’
‘And what difference does that make?'”
― Joseph Heller, Catch 22

Slaughterhouse 5 is strange book. The writer, Kurt Vonnegut, uses the first chapter to tell us directly he is writing about events he experienced in Dresden, that many of the things that happened to his characters were real and were taken from his or people he came across’ time in the Second World War. Published in 1969 the full title of the book is Slaughterhouse-Five, or, The Children’s Crusade: A Duty-Dance with Death. Vonnegut is at pains to make out that the soldiers were just young lads, not the experienced men we often see in films.

Then it all goes surreal. Once again this is not presented in chronological order, but this time there is a reason for it. It’s a Sc-Fi book, yes you read that correctly. I don’t like spoilers so I’ll try and not give too much away but early on the main character, Billy Pilgrim, is kidnapped by aliens and taken to live on their home world. As I said I don’t like spoilers so knew very little about this book before I read it and when I got to that event I was somewhat surprised, I just wasn’t expecting it. However it’s written in such away that we only have the one man’s word for it, could it be that this is a result of the PTSD he is trying to suppress?

Having taken such a left field turn the book then allows for a philosophising that would be difficult to include in other stories. For example the aliens see the whole of time all at once; this means that to them no one is really dead, there are just parts that they are not in. When bad things happen, they sit next to good things so the bad can be put in perspective better, or as becomes a mantra within the text “Everything was beautiful and nothing hurt”. Of course that’s not true, but it’s an ideal. When trauma happens any good we have experienced or will experience does not make it any better. But is this a way of blanking out the bad? To refuse to accept it? I’m not a psychologist, but maybe whilst Billy Pilgrim is trying to do exactly that Kurt Vonnegut certainly isn’t. He wants us to know what happened.

“It is just an illusion here on Earth that one moment follows another one, like beads on a string, and that once a moment is gone, it is gone forever.”
― Kurt Vonnegut, Slaughterhouse-Five

Writing can be powerful, no wonder it is used to educate us of the horrors of war. We live in a world where it is happening, but wouldn’t it be nice one day to be able to say “Everything was beautiful and nothing hurt”?

Buy Catch 22 – by Joseph Heller
Buy Slaughterhouse-Five – by Kurt Vonnegut