h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

no doubt, M*A*S*H was a poor depiction of what the war was really like, but it did make its point. I always liked it(especially the older ones with Trapper John).

what the hell kind of a reply was that!?!?! I didn't even think about what I was saying or what I was replying to!! Yes, I have read the novel(and most of the series), and I would have to say that the movie did the story more justice than it deserved. As did the TV series.

The novel was poorly written -- it was written by a doctor, not a writer -- but it did lay down a good scenario and create some memorable characters. The movie, I think, was better by a long shot, and I enjoy the series even more. But the whole point is that it shows the insanity of war -- the insanity that soldiers go use to put attrocities at a distance (like Catch 22) -- through humor, while juxtaposing that with the horrors of the operating romm...

you said it...

Interesting that you should bring up M*A*S*H while talking about Heller. Not just that it's another funny anti-war book, but that it was (or was taken up as) an attack on the madness of the Vietnam War through an attack on an earlier war. Catch-22 attacked Vietnam through WWII, M*A*S*H through Korea. And then they both survived the end of Vietnam and are timeless (or at least relevant to the last few decades).

good point, Eeyore. Are you always as despondant as you are portrayed in the Christopher Robin stories??

The Christopher Robin stories are libellous. I am Very Much Misunderstood.

M*A*S*H is oft compared to Catch-22, in fact I first sought the book out when I was reading M*A*S*H and it was advertised on the back page. C-22 is rather darker, I feel than M*A*S*H tho... When you start getting to the last few chapters when Yos is compleatly paraniod and refuses to fly anymore, it is depressing. You almost start to get the same paranioa and are furious when Col. Cathcart (IIRC) rasies the misions to 80.

Catch 22 and M*A*S*H always seemed related to me. In fact, I'm almost possitive that the "Colonel Flagg" character from the series was taken from the SID men who were trying to track down Washington Irving and Irving Washington (and discover whether they were working together) in Catch 22.

~Irving

To continue where the first post in this chain left off --

Catch 22 was going to be named Catch 18, but Heller changed titles because Leon Uris had recently published Mila 18.

Whether Heller's original choice of 18 had anything to do with its association with the word "life" in Hebrew, and his novel's association with death, I have no idea.

While the entry says that nothing of his later works are supposed to be as good as Catch-22, "Something Happened" did receive some acclaim. In addition, I really enjoyed his "No Laughing Matter" detailing his experiences in the hospital with Guillain Barre Syndrome. Of course, I was a teenager overcoming the same disease at the time it was released which may have had an influence on why I enjoyed reading it.

I didn't intend to dismiss heller's later work completely, though perhaps it looks that way, as all had some great moments - I think, for example, that 'God Knows' had his best one liners.

But as 'complete works' I think they all fail pretty comprehensively, especially 'Something happened' which I felt to be a strong idea for a short story, dragged out (protesting all the way) into a novel.

As for the 'sequel' to Catch-22 ...

If any of ya'll haven't seen the movie yet, you really should try to find it. I'm not sure if Heller had a hand in the making or not, but it follows the book fairly accurately, albeit much more quickly. The movie has a huge cast, too. Alan Arkin, Charles Grodin, Bob Newhart, Spaulding Gray, Marin Sheen, and a bunch of other folk. BTW Heller taught for a time at Penn State University, my alma mater.
*beaming with pride*

thank you; after reading this I had to read the book and I wouldn'thave otherwise, which would have been a great shame as I loved the book.

Has anybody read his final novel? I forget the title, but I saw it in a bookstore, and according to the blurb on the back its a novel about an author who's first novel was a big hit, and was never quite able to repeat the performance in his later attempts.

If you've read it, how good was it?