{"id":3511,"date":"2007-11-02T21:42:00","date_gmt":"2007-11-03T04:42:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/defectiveyeti.com\/?p=3511"},"modified":"2007-11-02T21:42:00","modified_gmt":"2007-11-03T04:42:00","slug":"catch-22-chapters-1-4","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/defectiveyeti.com\/wordpress\/2007\/11\/02\/catch-22-chapters-1-4\/","title":{"rendered":"Catch-22:  Chapters 1-4"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><img src='\/images\/nanoremologo.jpg' align='right'><b>Chapters Read<\/b>:   1. The Texan; 2. Clevinger; 3. Havermeyer; 4. Doc Daneeka<\/p>\n<p><b>Page reached:<\/b>:  33 of 448 (7.37%).<\/p>\n<p><b>Status Report<\/b>:<\/p>\n<blockquote><p><tt>There was a urologist for his urine, a lymphologist for his lymph, an  endocrinologist for his endocrines, a psychologist for his psyche, a  dermatologist for his derma; there was a pathologist for his pathos, a  cystologist for his cysts, and a bald and pedantic cetologist from the zoology  department at Harvard who had been shanghaied ruthlessly into the Medical Corps  by a faulty anode in an I.B.M machine and spent his sessions with the dying  colonel trying to discuss <em>Moby Dick<\/em> with him.<\/tt><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>Ha!  Dude, I totally sympathize.<\/p>\n<p>Before I got any further, I&#8217;d like to point out that I knew pretty much nothing about <em>Catch-22<\/em> two days ago, aside from these three facts:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>It&#8217;s an &#8220;American Classic&#8221;;<\/li>\n<li>It&#8217;s about War;<\/li>\n<li>It&#8217;s &#8220;funny&#8221;.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>&#8220;Funny&#8221; in scare quotes because, when it comes to classics, you can&#8217;t really be sure what they mean by that.  The aforementioned <em>Moby Dick<\/em> is also purported to be a laff riot, but you have to read 230 page doctoral dissertation entitled <em>Cetologoical  Jocularity:  How Melville Brings On the Epic Lulz<\/em> to get the alleged jokes.  So I wasn&#8217;t 100% confident on point three, really.<\/p>\n<p>Now, four chapters in, I&#8217;m pleased as punch to announce that, yes, this book is funny in a not-strictly-hypothetical way.  Funny in the sense that it actually produces guffaws.  Chuckles, even.<\/p>\n<p>Despite being billed as a great American novel, the humor strikes me as distinctly British, of the sort a <em>Monty Python<\/em> sketch would be built around.<\/p>\n<p>In one of the Pre-NaNoReMo 2007 posts, in fact, someone in the comments likened the writing in <em>Catch-22<\/em> to that of Douglas Adams.  I see it!  Take this passage, for instance:<\/p>\n<blockquote><p><tt>\"They're trying to kill me,\" Yossarian told him.<\/p>\n<p>\"No one is trying to kill you,\" Clevinger cried.<\/p>\n<p>\"Then why are they shooting at me?\" Yossarian asked ...<\/p>\n<p>\"Who's they?\" [Clevinger] wanted to know. \"Who, specifically, do you think is trying to murder you?\"<\/p>\n<p>\"Every one of them,\" Yossarian told him.<\/p>\n<p>\"Every one of whom?\"<\/p>\n<p>\"Every one of whom do you think?\"<\/p>\n<p>\"I haven't any idea.\"<\/p>\n<p>\"Then how do you know they aren't?\"<\/tt><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>Reminiscent of Douglas Adams, sure.  But, to my mind, even more so of a slightly older English author:<\/p>\n<blockquote><p><tt>\"You should say what you mean,\" the March Hare went on.<\/p>\n<p>\"I do,\" Alice hastily replied; \"at least--at least I mean what I say--that's the same thing, you know.\"<\/p>\n<p>\"Not the same thing a bit!\" said the Hatter. \"You might just as well say that 'I see what I eat' is the same thing as 'I eat what I see'!\"<\/p>\n<p>\"You might just as well say,\" added the March Hare, 'that \"I like what I get' is the same thing as 'I get what I like'!\"<\/p>\n<p>\"You might just as well say,\" added the Dormouse, who seemed to be talking in his sleep, \"that 'I breathe when I sleep' is the same thing as 'I sleep when I breathe'!\"<\/p>\n<p>\"It is the same thing with you,\" said the Hatter, and here the conversation dropped.<\/tt><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>And, more recently, this bloke:<\/p>\n<blockquote><p><tt>\"Hallo!\" said Piglet, \"what are you doing?\"<\/p>\n<p>\"Hunting,\" said Pooh.<\/p>\n<p>\"Hunting what?\"<\/p>\n<p>\"Tracking something,\" said Winnie-the-Pooh mysteriously.<\/p>\n<p>\"Tracking what?\" said Piglet, coming closer.<\/p>\n<p>\"That's just what I ask myself. I ask myself, What?\"<\/p>\n<p>\"What do you think you'll answer?\"<\/p>\n<p>\"I shall have to wait until I catch up with it,\" said Winnie-the-Pooh.<\/tt><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>Two of my all-time favorite authors, as luck would have it.  The absurd and the surreal and the non-sequiturian are my preferred forms of humor.<\/p>\n<p>That said, I hope this book has a plot.  There&#8217;s really no sign of it yet.  And the fact that nearly every chapter title to follow is the name of a character doesn&#8217;t bode well.  If the whole novel is nothing but descriptions of wacky personalities and recollections of past events, the schtick may get tiresome.  Quickly.<\/p>\n<p>Still, a promising start.<\/p>\n<p><b>Favorite Passage<\/b>:The chaplain stirred again. He looked from side to side a few times, then gazed up at the ceiling, then down at the floor. He drew a deep breath.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;Lieutenant Nately sends his regards,&#8221; he said.<\/p>\n<p>Yossarian was sorry to hear they had a mutual friend. It seemed there was a basis to their conversation after all.<\/p>\n<p><b>Words Looked Up<\/b>:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><b>Damask<\/b>:  A firm lustrous fabric (as of linen, cotton, silk, or rayon) made with flat patterns in a satin weave on a plain-woven ground on jacquard looms.<\/li>\n<li><b>Musette Bag<\/b>: A small canvas or leather bag with a shoulder strap, as one used by soldiers or travelers.<\/li>\n<li><b>Saturnine<\/b>:  Melancholy or sullen. Having or marked by a tendency to be bitter or sardonic.<\/li>\n<li><b>Gentian<\/b>:  The dried rhizome and roots of a yellow-flowered European gentian, <em>G. lutea<\/em>, sometimes used as a tonic.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><o>Other blogs discussing these chapters<\/b>:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><a href='http:\/\/seanmeade.blogspot.com\/2007\/11\/catch-22.html#links'>interact<\/a><\/li>\n<li><a href='http:\/\/redherrings.wordpress.com\/2007\/11\/03\/nanoremo-catch-22-chapters-1-5\/'>Red Herrings<\/a><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Chapters Read: 1. The Texan; 2. Clevinger; 3. Havermeyer; 4. Doc Daneeka Page reached:: 33 of 448 (7.37%). Status Report: There was a urologist for his urine, a lymphologist for his lymph, an endocrinologist for his endocrines, a psychologist for his psyche, a dermatologist for his derma; there was a pathologist for his pathos, a [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[44],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3511","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-nanoremo-2007"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/defectiveyeti.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3511","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/defectiveyeti.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/defectiveyeti.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/defectiveyeti.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/defectiveyeti.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3511"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/defectiveyeti.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3511\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/defectiveyeti.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3511"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/defectiveyeti.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3511"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/defectiveyeti.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3511"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}