Reviews with content warning for Sexual harassment - Catch-22

Reviews tagging 'Sexual harassment'

Catch-22 by Joseph Heller

22 reviews

whoischels's review against another edition

dark funny slow-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? No
Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

4.0

Probably the most chaotic book I've ever read. I can't say I've read a book that ignores sequential time so thoroughly. Heller jumps between events gracefully. You'll often find that the narrator begins to recount something that happened quite far in the future or past of the camp on Pianosa, but you don't quite develop an understanding of how distant future and past are until you've reached the end and various

characters have died off and been replaced by new, untrauma-ed characters.

The manipulation of time is breathtaking and exciting once you look back and think about what you've read. I'm surprised I haven't heard this book being discussed in the context of other time bending books, like To the Lighthouse, perhaps I just haven't been listening closely enough about why people read this book.

As the classic comedy of war book, it's a very comedic read. The comedic style throughout the whole thing undergoes its own character development in a way that is quite satisfying. It works to keep the horror of the experience of war at arm's length for the majority of the book and then slowly brings it closer for the end. Heller captures the comedic dichotomy between the very visceral body horror that people experience at war and the slow machine of bureaucracy.

My only complaints are that it's a behemoth to read. Heller can be describing an event that is comedic in its conception, but do so in a way that obstructs feeling, particularly in the first 2/3. I understand this to be intentional, but was still a bit frustrated with the masculine boringness of the prose. It's an odd experience to read something that has these features but still manages to be so dynamic and flexible in its plot structure.

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mahamsiddiqui's review against another edition

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dark emotional reflective sad tense slow-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? It's complicated
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? No
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.5

When the book first came out in 1961, the notion that war is bad might have been something new to the reader and awakening too. But, in this day and age, when there are so many opinions and lived examples available, we all know and can say with assurance that war is bad, except for fascists and dictators. So, as for the concept of 'Catch-22', it's not novel anymore.

I felt like the novel dragged in places, it also felt like I'm reading someone's diary instead of a novel, sometimes felt like a college student looked up the synonyms in a thesaurus and put every word that they could find in the book.

The book certainly is witty and funny. The characters are well written. Their humanness and fallibility and their complexities make you think or forces you to think, human beings are not black and white. War is evil. Human beings are mere pawns in it, and at the mercy of the fascists, who invoke wars to stroke their tiny egos. Through Yosarrian you see how a person in trying to do the right thing is always caught in exasperating circumstances. The skepticism of Yosarrian is something that I guess all of us go through after a certain point in life. It's relatable and quite understanding.

Moving on, I absolutely did not like and was quite frankly disgusted by the rape and sexual assault scenes. They were described jn graphic details, and I believe for which there was no need. The treatment of women as mere sex toys was very disturbing. And we know that, that's how men treat women especially those who go to war. Women and children and elderly suffer the most. Women and children are raped, brutally assaulted and all because the men who go to war think that it is their right for defending their country to gain sexual pleasures by hook or crook. I just wish that the sexual scenes were described to a minimum.

All in all, book is good, okay. 3.5 stars, .5 extra for Yosarrian. I loved him till the end. You cannot predict that the characters will have this human aspect to them when you first start the book but as you go by and the book explore similar scenes from different POVs you understand them and mildly condemn yourself for judging them too hastily.

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c3liaiswhoiam's review against another edition

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slow-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? No
Loveable characters? No
Diverse cast of characters? No
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

1.5

This was shit. It doesn't hit my good spot at all. I'm a very character-driven person, you know? If the plot is bad, I can sometimes get by if the characters are still good, but these characters are so many, and they're all unlikeable, they're all the same, they do the same shit, and they know the same people. I can't read books like this! That's not interesting to me! It's so clearly satire, but it's not funny to me. It's just depressing and frustrating to read. I need hope! This doesn't give it. I need enjoyable characters (not necessarily likeable ones) but this doesn't give it. And finally, it's just such a fucking drag. There was absolutely no reason for this book to be longer than 300 pages. None. Silch. Nu-uh. It's too long, and it's hard to keep tabs on which character you're with, and it's entirely character-driven but without character development (because it's satire...), and I really wish I hadn't needed to waste my precious time reading a book that wasn't suited to my tastes whatsoever, when I'm busy enough as it is right now. Because all this book did was frustrate me. It was just. so. frustrating. Never again do I want to think about this book.

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bekahhinson's review against another edition

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3.0

Oh my god this book would be like 4.5 stars if it wasn’t so fucking disgusting towards women. Why the hell was it necessary to include SO MANY scenes of the men groping women in public sexually assaulting/raping them? Not to mention there’s no justice, no return to that narrative to assert that those types of actions are wrong, and all of them do it so it’s not like you can claim an unreliable narrator situation. Additionally I don’t care if it’s not the authors true opinion on the matter because it happened so much that is felt like he was writing it because he doesn’t think it’s wrong. Fuck you joseph heller. Next time you write a good book simply exclude women if you can’t resist writing in an SA scene.

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southcarolina's review against another edition

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adventurous dark funny lighthearted medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? It's complicated
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.25

A masterpiece. The themes of the book bleed directly into Heller’s circular writing style and dialogue. Events are non-linear, even repeated over again. Eventually you begin to understand the characters you once saw as crazy, and Yossarian’s revelation at the end of the book hit me as it hit him.

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