Catch-22 – 7 Days of Books

“Anything worth living for,” said Nately,
“is worth dying for.”

“And anything worth dying for,” answered the sacrilegious old man, “is certainly worth living for.”

(I definitely thought I had pressed publish on this months ago…) We’ve reached the final day of this shoulda-been-on-Facebook-but-I-wanted-to-waffle-on-here-instead book thing, and clearly, it took a while to collate my thoughts on this one. So, for my final book I wanted to share my favourite novel of all time, Catch-22 by Joseph Heller. Having re-read this novel at least five times, it never fails to impress me; in fact, I find each re-read more rewarding. So you can imagine my excitement when the miniseries recently came out, and if you’ve also read this book, my crushing disappointment with the adaptation once it was finished. So rather than gush about this novel, I want to have a little chat about why the series didn’t work for me.

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Set on a fictional Italian island during the Second World War, Catch-22 follows Captain Yossarian, a US Bombardier who is desperate to get out of the war. Whilst Yossarian is the focal character, the novel also details the lives of the men in his regiment, focusing on a different character each chapter. There are so many that it would have been impossible for the show to focus on each of them individually, so it largely focuses on Yossarian, with characters popping up briefly at the beginning of an episode, acting quirky in the middle, and then at the end they die. That is literally the plot of every episode from the mini-series, and it is ultimately the biggest problem I had with it, because other than it just being incredibly repetitive and predictable, it fails to understand one of the fundamental themes of the novel (in my opinion – obviously!)

I chose the quote at the top of this post for a reason. It is from a conversation Nately has in the novel, being one of the younger airmen on the base he is headstrong and proud and stupidly unafraid, even in the face of real danger. He is patriotic to a fault and continuously gets into arguments with an old Italian man who runs a brothel and who holds completely antithetical opinions to Nately. In this exchange they are arguing about the point (or pointlessness) of war, and why a country is (or isn’t) worth dying for. And here they reach a loggerhead. Nately declares anything worth living for would also be worth dying for, because that denotes its importance. But the old man disagrees, anything worth dying for is absolutely worth living for. Because life is important. Life is precious.

And that is the point of the novel. I can’t remember how half the characters die, honestly, outside of a few more memorable deaths. Heck, I didn’t even remember that Clevinger’s demise was in a disappearing plane! Because it was never more important than Clevinger himself, how principled he is and how utterly lacking in sense. I can’t remember how Nately dies, but I remember him as naïve, stupidly optimistic and hilariously smitten. In a story filled with instances where men in charge show completed disregard for the wellbeing of those under their command, viewing them as fodder to push them further up the ladder, viewing their worth in their deaths, it is hard not to read the long passages of back-and-forth conversation between two characters as important. To view their lives and opinions as important. To view them as important.

And that is what the show missed, in diminishing these characters down into just their deaths. That their only contribution to this story is to die, and that the only way to remember them is in their death, rather than in their life. It feeds into the same thought process as the fictional Generals in the novel. The TV series was Nately, arguing that death is what makes one worthy, whilst the book knows it is to live, in spite of it all.

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How to Be Both – 7 Days of Books

“It’s good, to be seen past, as if you’re not the only one, as if everything isn’t happening just to you. Because you’re not. And it isn’t.”

For the penultimate day, I thought I would share my favourite book written in this century, seeing as all my previous picks were published in the 20th Century (I love a modern classic, what can I say?) when my current reading habits are a little more modern. So today I wanted to chat about Ali Smith’s How to Be Both.

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How to Be Both is a novel set in two parts, one following a teenager in the modern-day grieving the death of her mother, whilst the other is a fictional account of the life of renaissance painter Francesco del Cossa. The two don’t sound related at all, and really, the string tying them together is quite thin but there are commonalities enough between the two, and I would be lying if I said I didn’t have a favourite.

When I first read this novel I didn’t think of it as one of my favourite books of all time, but after putting it down I couldn’t stop thinking about it. It was like it gnawed away at my conscious, which I think is pretty apt given the themes present throughout. George’s story (the teenager) in particular just wouldn’t leave me alone, the stark image of grief and teenagedom and sexual awakening just stuck with me – I kind of wish the whole novel was from her perspective, but I get why it isn’t. Cossa’s dreamlike exploration adds a (literal) otherworldly element, written without punctuation in a poetic style, which happens to be one of my literary weaknesses – give me all the experimentation, dammit!

Even now, years after reading it, my appreciation for it grows and grows and my mind continually wanders back to it. It is the ghost that won’t leave me alone…

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The Hobbit – 7 Days of Books

“Go back?” he thought. “No good at all! Go sideways? Impossible! Go forward? Only thing to do! On we go!”

For my fifth pick I decided to choose my favourite childhood novel, which is of course, The Hobbit by J.R.R.Tolkien

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I’m sure I don’t need to summarise The Hobbit, even those who haven’t read it will probably at least be aware of its successor, Lord of the Rings – but on the off chance, the novel is about Bilbo Baggins of Bag End (who lives in a hole in the ground… you know how it goes) who gets drawn into a wild adventure by a wizard and some dwarves to defeat a gold-hoarding dragon. Cue lots of excitement, a little mystery and a couple of battles (including one of wits) – it is a fun romp.

I remember my Mum and I reading this together at bedtime when I was young – it is one of her favourites too – and being so mesmerised by the incredibly imaginative world of Tolkien. I used to re-read the ‘Riddles in the Dark’ chapter over and over again because I thought it was so clever – I truly cheered for Bilbo. I love the Lord of the Rings too, and obviously it has become a cultural phenomenon, but it is so different in tone to The Hobbit, more serious and grown-up. There is so much whimsy and wonder in the children’s classic, and I’ll always appreciate that.

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Animal Farm – 7 Days of Books

“ALL ANIMALS ARE EQUAL,
BUT SOME ANIMALS ARE MORE EQUAL THAN OTHERS”

I may have failed to post these over a consecutive 7 days, but that doesn’t mean I’ve forgotten my remaining four books! So, for book 4 I chose my favourite novella (surely most people’s favourite novella…) – George Orwell’s infamous Animal Farm.

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Set on an English farm, the book follows a group of animals who rebel against their human farmer and unfair working conditions. They set out to create a fairer farm, one that benefits them all and where they are all treated equally, in the hopes of having happier lives – but of course, that isn’t how things end up going. It is an allegorical take on the Russian revolution by way of farm animals and is so astute in its observations.

It is wonderful in that it makes a certain period of time and regime (though arguably works well as a condemnation against dictatorships in general) extremely accessible – there is a reason it was originally subtitled as a fairy tale – whilst being knowing enough for anyone with some understanding of the Russian Revolution and Stalinism. Yet it is also terrifying in that the satire remains ageless, relevant as ever, as the animals are easily swayed by a big personality and big promises – it is impossible these days to look from animal to man, and from man to animal and tell which is which…

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In Cold Blood – 7 Days of Books

“How much money did you get from the Clutters?”

“Between forty and fifty dollars.”

I thought I’d share my favourite non-fiction book for day 3. Though it arguably has more in common with novels than its non-fiction counterparts, Truman Capote’s In Cold Blood is a compelling true crime read.

The book chronicles the murders of the Clutter family from a small town in Kansas, detailing the lead-up and aftermath of the horrific crime with interviews with the killers themselves. Weaving multiple narrative strands, Capote creates a tense read with fascinating insights into the motive behind the crime.

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What sets this book apart is how much it focuses on the victims. Written with descriptive prose, the first half of the novel follows the daily lives of the Clutters in the days before their death, allowing them room to breathe on the page as more than just victims. The reader is invited into their lives, learns of their friends and loved ones and who they were as people, which I think is incredibly rare in true crime – especially in a text that features conversations with the culprits so heavily.

It is an intensely interesting and upsetting story, with three film adaptations – two of which focus on Capote’s experience writing the novel and his somewhat ambiguous relationship with one of the killers, proving that it is as compelling on the page as off. It is truly an incredible cornerstone of the genre.

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