I first read Catch-22 in college and it made no sense to me, but years later after Vietnam, Nixon, Watergate, etc., and working a Federal government job, then I got it…
What a thread to unravel from that time and place in the war. When I was in the Marine Corps, I wrote a column on it called Road to Victory. You brought me back to my own deep dive into World War II.
Settimo Bridge is one of those great "morality plays" in war. After the war, the lead bombardier said that when he saw the target, how close the town was to the bridge, he almost aborted the run. Some 250 people (of a population of around 800) were killed or wounded by the bombing.
I knew Joe Heller a little bit, since he ended up teaching in the same Creative Writing Program at CCNY I attended. at a party to welcome new faculty, my father (the college's PR guy) showed up. he thought "Catch-22" was the funniest--and probably the best--novel he'd ever read. I introduced them assuming they'd spend all night jawing about the AAF. needless to say, it was the last thing they wanted to talk about. chalk it up to the youth's ignorant woe (I was 22).
when I came to re-read the book about ten or fifteen years ago, what struck me wasn't how funny it was but the fine quality of its prose. I guess when you're in your fifties (my age during the re-reading) and have already lost a good friend or two due to "natural attrition," that gallows humor sometimes rings a little hollow.
excellent piece, Tom. this is your NEXT book to come out, right?
Another bit of real history compared to the novel then:
The 57th Wing Commander was Brigadier General Robert D. Knapp, a man involved with aviation since he met the Wright Brothers at age 10 when they stayed with his family for ten days in 1907. Commissioned a Second Lieutenant in the Army Air Service in March 1918, he held U.S. Pilot License Number 187 and had flown for longer than most of his young aircrews had been alive. In 1919, he served with Captains Hap Arnold and Ira Eaker on the U.S.-Mexico border. In 1923, he pioneered the southern air mail route from Montgomery, Alabama, to New Orleans. As Chief of Primary Flight Training at Randolph and Kelly Fields in 1929, he was responsible for all Air Corps flight training. In 1937, he led a 98-plane formation of Advanced Flight Training graduates on a national tour to recruit ROTC students into the Air Corps.
In 1941, Knapp organized the first six B-25 groups and trained three: the 310th, 321st and 340th groups that would become the 57th Wing. He became commander of the 321st, despite being considered “too old for combat duty,” taking them to North Africa in February 1943. At age 45, Knapp flew lead on 40 tough missions including the first bombing of Rome, an attack on an Axis convoy protected by German and Italian fighters, for which he was awarded the Silver Star, and the attack on Athens for which the 321st received its first Presidential Unit Citation. He was promoted to Brigadier General and became commander when the 57th Wing was formed in January 1944,. He was remembered by those who flew with him for never asking anyone to do anything he had not done first.
Replacements like Heller didn’t know Knapp as the leader who flew “the tough ones.” For them, he was “the general” - a hard taskmaster who kept upping the number of missions required to go home, unaware of his work to get timely replacements in competition with the air forces “fighting the real war” in Northwest Europe. The men benefitted from his largesse at their dinner tables, unaware that they made their deals from Naples to Cairo to Tunis and Casablanca under his protection since he didn’t “toot his horn.” General Robert Knapp was the polar opposite of “General Dreedle.” the caricature he would become in the most famous war novel of the 20th Century.
Thank you. In the last move I donated most of my books to charity auctions. In my twenties I resolved to read everything “important” lol. War and Peace, Heller, Spy books, Lolita… and Catch 22. And anything Carlos Castañeda wrote lol. Should have kept hauling them around. Or have kept a list. I’d like to look at them with fresh eyes.
I’m a volunteer, locally. I’ll just buy the damn things again in the cloud. I still have a couple of Loves. One of them Truman by McCullough I still have.. I guess because it was so boring I didn’t finish. Oh, and Marjorie Morningstar.
I thought Truman by McCullough was a revelation. To each his or her own of course. The author was part of Truman's "resurrection" and re-appreciation of one of our finest, most consequential presidents.
Someday the winds will change for Carter as well...
As to the Carlos books...you just blew up my brain. I can now remember being of altered brain - reading about a fellow walking in a straight line through the desert taking only what he needed to survive. A simple concept in the face of a society consuming in an overwhelmingly wasteful fashion.
I saw catch 22 the movie when it first came out, then read the book. Close to that time the movie MASH came out. The television series started a few years later, maybe 1972. I was 19 and some of my friends were drafted into the Viet Nam war. My recollection from the Catch 22 movie and book was a conundrum. You need to get out and you want to get out but you can’t get out because you know you need to get out. Hmmm. So Catch 22 became a “catch phrase” for the time. It seemed to fold into Mash. Probably my favorite television show ever. Although I protested the Viet Nam war my heart goes out to the vets. They are my heroes. They were truly in a catch 22 and should have received the hero’s welcome home that our WW2 veterans got, but they didn’t. Many atrocities happened there, and I’m sure there were some bad actors, But most were young boys just out of high school like my friends, lost in a sea of chaos and death for what? WW2 we fought and defeated Fascism. Viet Nam war we??? Ok jumping off my soapbox now.
Interestingly, the original name of the novel, that it was almost published under, was "Catch-18". Three months before it was to be published, they found out Leon Uris' novel "Mila 18" was coming out around the same time and thought there would be confusion, so the publisher asked Heller to come up with a changed title. He thought a moment and said "22, Catch 22," and that's how it happened. For some reason, "Catch 18" does not sound as "catchy" as "Catch 22." There's every possibility it wouldn't have been successful under that original name for just not being "catchy."
Bob Gottlieb (the editor, who has always been as much co-author as editor) tells this story at some length in his book of memoirs (highly recommended) called "Avid Reader."
Karen, I tend to park my personal past on most subjects - just because my brain is only capable of handling the present and the immediate future effectively. I want to stay focused. My wife says "you never look back". Maybe I should. Because there are big lessons there.
Your reflections on 1972 have disrupted my parking process. I don't often think about my personal conflicts during that era. Along with millions of others, I felt a horror (cue Col Kurtz). But I think it is healthy to reflect on the dynamics of the time.
I need to find a person of the next generation to explain it to. That feeling of patriotism quashed by the insanity of the war and the fear of death for no reason. I escaped being a sacrificial grunt. They almost got me. But so many I knew were sucked into it and if they returned, they were forever changed - just because idiots in government had a stupid theory.
As Russians are pressed into service for a stupid war, I can't help but relate. "Why are we doing this?"
BTW, Mash was one of the few TV shows I "had to see every episode". It was brilliant.
"Catch-22" is still living very happily as a catchphrase. I suppose it's because it's the only term that's ever existed for the particular thing it defines, which is something that doesn't just happen in war.
Several people that I follow on Twitter. There should be several great histories written by people on the ground where the fighting takes place. Overview histories will take a while longer and not sure who will write them. Timothy Snyder I hope will be one
Oh I’m so sorry. When I hear these horrible experiences people have in healthcare I want to know what happened and prevent it from happening again. You should never have been sent home. A good doctor or nurse listens to the patient.
damn...I would have said '71 or '72. when you're that age, a single year can mean a great deal.
I've seen the movie several times and, like most movies based on significant novels, it was a very, very pale reflection of its source, although Orson Welles made me laugh when he said something like "what the hell point is there to being a general if I can't have a man shot?"
Interesting but may have fit the times better. “Catch-18 year old boys and send them to Viet Nam” That said by my snarky self, Catch-22 is probably catchier but possibly by familiarity only
nah..."Catch-22" has a much better rhythm. and it definitely wasn't written about Vietnam because it came out in '62 or '63 and had taken years to write. of course, that wouldn't prevent it from SEEMING to be about Vietnam when a lot of us read it ('65 in my case, mostly due to my father's days of hysterical laughter...and "hysterical" is very much the right word on every level).
the funny thing, of course, is that "Mila-18" was virtually unreadable.
I first read Catch-22 in college and it made no sense to me, but years later after Vietnam, Nixon, Watergate, etc., and working a Federal government job, then I got it…
My husband was a helicopter pilot in Vietnam. He flew combat assault
missions primarily and inserted and
pulled out LRRPs. The hardest thing for him to handle were the children.
He was listed MIA on 11/1, confirmed KIA 11/15, I buried him on
11/22 and our anniversary is 11/26.
War is hell, gentlemen and leaves
collateral damage of everyone.
I can’t heart this. You have my condolences.
Oh wow. This must stir such memories for you. And yes, war is always Hell..for those who fight and those who love them. .
This hurts my heart.
I’m so sorry Victoria. Yes, war is hell.
What a thread to unravel from that time and place in the war. When I was in the Marine Corps, I wrote a column on it called Road to Victory. You brought me back to my own deep dive into World War II.
Settimo Bridge is one of those great "morality plays" in war. After the war, the lead bombardier said that when he saw the target, how close the town was to the bridge, he almost aborted the run. Some 250 people (of a population of around 800) were killed or wounded by the bombing.
That was the picture I stared at the longest.
I knew Joe Heller a little bit, since he ended up teaching in the same Creative Writing Program at CCNY I attended. at a party to welcome new faculty, my father (the college's PR guy) showed up. he thought "Catch-22" was the funniest--and probably the best--novel he'd ever read. I introduced them assuming they'd spend all night jawing about the AAF. needless to say, it was the last thing they wanted to talk about. chalk it up to the youth's ignorant woe (I was 22).
when I came to re-read the book about ten or fifteen years ago, what struck me wasn't how funny it was but the fine quality of its prose. I guess when you're in your fifties (my age during the re-reading) and have already lost a good friend or two due to "natural attrition," that gallows humor sometimes rings a little hollow.
excellent piece, Tom. this is your NEXT book to come out, right?
Nope - came out back in 2016. Got re-released in a special trade paperback edition last month.
$19.95
https://www.amazon.com/Bridgebusters-True-Story-Catch-22-Bomb/dp/1684513634/ref=sr_1_6?crid=3DMM1JA03NCI3&keywords=thomas+mckelvey+cleaver&qid=1668926879&s=books&sprefix=thomas+mckelvey%2Cstripbooks%2C379&sr=1-6
And a very good book too. Recommend it
just bought it!
Be sure to review it there - it needs some more reviews from actual readers.
It’s been over 40 years since I read it. I’ll pull it out. Thanks.
Another bit of real history compared to the novel then:
The 57th Wing Commander was Brigadier General Robert D. Knapp, a man involved with aviation since he met the Wright Brothers at age 10 when they stayed with his family for ten days in 1907. Commissioned a Second Lieutenant in the Army Air Service in March 1918, he held U.S. Pilot License Number 187 and had flown for longer than most of his young aircrews had been alive. In 1919, he served with Captains Hap Arnold and Ira Eaker on the U.S.-Mexico border. In 1923, he pioneered the southern air mail route from Montgomery, Alabama, to New Orleans. As Chief of Primary Flight Training at Randolph and Kelly Fields in 1929, he was responsible for all Air Corps flight training. In 1937, he led a 98-plane formation of Advanced Flight Training graduates on a national tour to recruit ROTC students into the Air Corps.
In 1941, Knapp organized the first six B-25 groups and trained three: the 310th, 321st and 340th groups that would become the 57th Wing. He became commander of the 321st, despite being considered “too old for combat duty,” taking them to North Africa in February 1943. At age 45, Knapp flew lead on 40 tough missions including the first bombing of Rome, an attack on an Axis convoy protected by German and Italian fighters, for which he was awarded the Silver Star, and the attack on Athens for which the 321st received its first Presidential Unit Citation. He was promoted to Brigadier General and became commander when the 57th Wing was formed in January 1944,. He was remembered by those who flew with him for never asking anyone to do anything he had not done first.
Replacements like Heller didn’t know Knapp as the leader who flew “the tough ones.” For them, he was “the general” - a hard taskmaster who kept upping the number of missions required to go home, unaware of his work to get timely replacements in competition with the air forces “fighting the real war” in Northwest Europe. The men benefitted from his largesse at their dinner tables, unaware that they made their deals from Naples to Cairo to Tunis and Casablanca under his protection since he didn’t “toot his horn.” General Robert Knapp was the polar opposite of “General Dreedle.” the caricature he would become in the most famous war novel of the 20th Century.
Thank you. In the last move I donated most of my books to charity auctions. In my twenties I resolved to read everything “important” lol. War and Peace, Heller, Spy books, Lolita… and Catch 22. And anything Carlos Castañeda wrote lol. Should have kept hauling them around. Or have kept a list. I’d like to look at them with fresh eyes.
Most of those are well worth re-reading. Perhaps you can find them in the local library.
I’m a volunteer, locally. I’ll just buy the damn things again in the cloud. I still have a couple of Loves. One of them Truman by McCullough I still have.. I guess because it was so boring I didn’t finish. Oh, and Marjorie Morningstar.
I thought Truman by McCullough was a revelation. To each his or her own of course. The author was part of Truman's "resurrection" and re-appreciation of one of our finest, most consequential presidents.
Someday the winds will change for Carter as well...
As to the Carlos books...you just blew up my brain. I can now remember being of altered brain - reading about a fellow walking in a straight line through the desert taking only what he needed to survive. A simple concept in the face of a society consuming in an overwhelmingly wasteful fashion.
Thanks for the memories :)
Agreed about Truman - my favorite president, the last small-r republican president, not a pretender to an imperial throne.
I very recently discovered, due to a cousin's genealogical investigations, that Herman Wouk was my third cousin.
Wow!
Riveting account.
Must reread Catch 22. Embarrassed by how much I’ve forgotten, or perhaps chose to forget…
I saw catch 22 the movie when it first came out, then read the book. Close to that time the movie MASH came out. The television series started a few years later, maybe 1972. I was 19 and some of my friends were drafted into the Viet Nam war. My recollection from the Catch 22 movie and book was a conundrum. You need to get out and you want to get out but you can’t get out because you know you need to get out. Hmmm. So Catch 22 became a “catch phrase” for the time. It seemed to fold into Mash. Probably my favorite television show ever. Although I protested the Viet Nam war my heart goes out to the vets. They are my heroes. They were truly in a catch 22 and should have received the hero’s welcome home that our WW2 veterans got, but they didn’t. Many atrocities happened there, and I’m sure there were some bad actors, But most were young boys just out of high school like my friends, lost in a sea of chaos and death for what? WW2 we fought and defeated Fascism. Viet Nam war we??? Ok jumping off my soapbox now.
Interestingly, the original name of the novel, that it was almost published under, was "Catch-18". Three months before it was to be published, they found out Leon Uris' novel "Mila 18" was coming out around the same time and thought there would be confusion, so the publisher asked Heller to come up with a changed title. He thought a moment and said "22, Catch 22," and that's how it happened. For some reason, "Catch 18" does not sound as "catchy" as "Catch 22." There's every possibility it wouldn't have been successful under that original name for just not being "catchy."
Bob Gottlieb (the editor, who has always been as much co-author as editor) tells this story at some length in his book of memoirs (highly recommended) called "Avid Reader."
Karen, I tend to park my personal past on most subjects - just because my brain is only capable of handling the present and the immediate future effectively. I want to stay focused. My wife says "you never look back". Maybe I should. Because there are big lessons there.
Your reflections on 1972 have disrupted my parking process. I don't often think about my personal conflicts during that era. Along with millions of others, I felt a horror (cue Col Kurtz). But I think it is healthy to reflect on the dynamics of the time.
I need to find a person of the next generation to explain it to. That feeling of patriotism quashed by the insanity of the war and the fear of death for no reason. I escaped being a sacrificial grunt. They almost got me. But so many I knew were sucked into it and if they returned, they were forever changed - just because idiots in government had a stupid theory.
As Russians are pressed into service for a stupid war, I can't help but relate. "Why are we doing this?"
BTW, Mash was one of the few TV shows I "had to see every episode". It was brilliant.
"Catch-22" is still living very happily as a catchphrase. I suppose it's because it's the only term that's ever existed for the particular thing it defines, which is something that doesn't just happen in war.
trust me, I know. I suspect we ALL do.
Another fascinating bit of literary history.
Thank You, TC, for your insights and back story. Inspired to read it again.
Who is recording the history of today's Ukraine? I wonder.
Several people that I follow on Twitter. There should be several great histories written by people on the ground where the fighting takes place. Overview histories will take a while longer and not sure who will write them. Timothy Snyder I hope will be one
since he's the main guy for Ukrainian history, I bet you're right.
did anyone else read his short book about American health care? pretty devastating.
"Our Malady: Lessons in Liberty from a Hospital Diary." I could have written it, and why I've had a career as an RN Patient Advocate.
wow! good for you!! I once had a hospital pretty much toss me out when I insisted I needed to stay.
so I went home and developed sepsis.
Oh I’m so sorry. When I hear these horrible experiences people have in healthcare I want to know what happened and prevent it from happening again. You should never have been sent home. A good doctor or nurse listens to the patient.
Tom, on a different subject, maybe.
When was the movie Catch22 released? I remember seeing a WWII movie in early 1970s that had
some fantastic aero dog fighting
scenes. Do you know this movie?You're our Hollywood and
military guru.
Catch 22 was released in 1970, but you are probably thinking of Battle of Britain, released in the US in 1969-70.
damn...I would have said '71 or '72. when you're that age, a single year can mean a great deal.
I've seen the movie several times and, like most movies based on significant novels, it was a very, very pale reflection of its source, although Orson Welles made me laugh when he said something like "what the hell point is there to being a general if I can't have a man shot?"
Interesting but may have fit the times better. “Catch-18 year old boys and send them to Viet Nam” That said by my snarky self, Catch-22 is probably catchier but possibly by familiarity only
That's most of my own thought too - that I am 50 years familiar with "Catch 22' before hearing "Catch 18" 10 years ago.
nah..."Catch-22" has a much better rhythm. and it definitely wasn't written about Vietnam because it came out in '62 or '63 and had taken years to write. of course, that wouldn't prevent it from SEEMING to be about Vietnam when a lot of us read it ('65 in my case, mostly due to my father's days of hysterical laughter...and "hysterical" is very much the right word on every level).
the funny thing, of course, is that "Mila-18" was virtually unreadable.
Heller started writing the novel in 1952. It was finally accepted for publication in 1960 and it was published November 10, 1961,