What's the moral of the story with this book?
>>23613641war can be fun when you have your friends around
Does it need one?
>>23613641war is... le absurd!
>>23613641it's better to live on your feet than die on your knees
>>23613641War is absurd
>>23613641I think catch 22 instilled a hatred of, not really people, but systems that misalign incentives and empower the most flagrant violators of the rules of that system to enforce them. Ultimately though its a meditation on how people try to make sense of absurd and ambiguous situations. Some go crazy, some choose death, or they bargain, or they try to cheat or act dishonorably, or cling to some pointless moral framework or outlook and are continuously betrayed for their loyalty, and some are circumspect and open to circumstances outside of their control. I think the moral is that some games you can't win, or at least the closest you can get is refusing to play them
>>23613641The moral of the story is that you should read Guard of Honor by James Gould Cozzens if you want a moral to a 'military bureaucracy is crazy' novel.
>>23613641War sucks. No one wins if you play. Fuck the state. Poor men die so
>>23613641just finished this two days ago.Bros what the FUCK was nately's whore's problem?
>>23613716It has nothing to do with war
>>23614965Calabrian whore who thought Nately was her ticket to America for herself and for Nately's Whore's Kid Sister.
post some funni bits ‘She’s just a twelve-year-old virgin, Milo,’ he explained anxiously, ‘and I want to find her before it’s too late.’ Milo responded to his request with a benign smile. ‘I’ve got just the twelve-year-old virgin you’re looking for,’ he announced jubilantly. ‘This twelve-year-old virgin is really only thirty-four, but she was brought up on a low-protein diet by very strict parents and didn’t start sleeping with men until—’
>>23614982Wasn't she one-third estonian as well?
>>23613661Maybe the true war was the friends we made along the way
Did you ever watch that awful cartoon Camp Candy as a kid? The is a lot like that show but worse and with guns and prostitutes. There is no moral, it's just supposed to be fun, which is fails at. Thank you for reading my constructive comment.
>>23615425There aren't really any guns but there are several prostitutes. Have you even read it? There's hardly any actual combat.
>>23615425>it's just supposed to be funHow to know when someone has been utterly filtered>>23613716Same with this post
>>23614982>Look, I saw this great opportunity to corner the market in Egyptian cotton. How was I supposed to know there was going to be a glut? I've got a hundred warehouses stacked with the stuff all over the European theater. I can't get rid of a penny's worth. People eat cotton candy, don't they? Well this stuff is better - it's made out of real cotton.>Milo, people can't eat cotton!>They've got to - it's for the Syndicate!>It will make them sick! - why don't you try it yourself if you don't believe me?>I did - and it made me sick
>>23617644 >One day Milo flew away to England to pick up a load of Turkish halvah and came flying back from Madagascar leading four German bombers filled with yams, collards, mustard greens and black-eyed Georgia peas. Milo was dumbfounded when he stepped down to the ground and found a contingent of armed M.P.s waiting to imprison the German pilots and confiscate their planes. >Confiscate! The mere word was anathema to him, and he stormed back and forth in excoriating condemnation, shaking a piercing finger of rebuke in the guilt-ridden faces of Colonel Cathcart, Colonel Korn and the poor battle-scarred captain with the submachine gun who commanded the M.P.s.> ‘Is this Russia?’ Milo assailed them incredulously at the top of his voice. ‘Confiscate?’ he shrieked, as though he could not believe his own ears. ‘Since when is it the policy of the American government to confiscate the private property of its citizens? Shame on you! Shame on all of you for even thinking such a horrible thought.’ > ‘But Milo,’ Major Danby interrupted timidly, ‘we’re at war with Germany, and those are German planes.’> ‘They are no such thing!’ Milo retorted furiously. ‘Those planes belong to the syndicate, and everybody has a share. Confiscate? How can you possibly confiscate your own private property? Confiscate, indeed! I’ve never heard anything so depraved in my whole life.’ >And sure enough, Milo was right, for when they looked, his mechanics had painted out the German swastikas on the wings, tails and fuselages with double coats of flat white and stenciled in the words M & M ENTERPRISES, FINE FRUITS AND PRODUCE. Right before their eyes he had transformed his syndicate into an international cartel.
>>23617822>Milo’s planes were a familiar sight. They had freedom of passage everywhere, and one day Milo contracted with the American military authorities to bomb the German-held highway bridge at Orvieto and with the German military authorities to defend the highway bridge at Orvieto with antiaircraft fire against his own attack. >His fee for attacking the bridge for America was the total cost of the operation plus six per cent and his fee from Germany for defending the bridge was the same cost-plus-six agreement augmented by a merit bonus of a thousand dollars for every American plane he shot down. >The consummation of these deals represented an important victory for private enterprise, he pointed out, since the armies of both countries were socialized institutions. Once the contracts were signed, there seemed to be no point in using the resources of the syndicate to bomb and defend the bridge, inasmuch as both governments had ample men and material right there to do so and were perfectly happy to contribute them, and in the end Milo realized a fantastic profit from both halves of his project for doing nothing more than signing his name twice.>The arrangements were fair to both sides. Since Milo did have freedom of passage everywhere, his planes were able to steal over in a sneak attack without alerting the German antiaircraft gunners; and since Milo knew about the attack, he was able to alert the German antiaircraft gunners in sufficient time for them to begin firing accurately the moment the planes came into range. >It was an ideal arrangement for everyone but the dead man in Yossarian’s tent, who was killed over the target the day he arrived.
>>23617830> ‘I didn’t kill him!’ Milo kept replying passionately to Yossarian’s angry protest. ‘I wasn’t even there that day, I tell you. Do you think I was down there on the ground firing an antiaircraft gun when the planes came over?’ > ‘But you organized the whole thing, didn’t you?’ Yossarian shouted back at him in the velvet darkness cloaking the path leading past the still vehicles of the motor pool to the open-air movie theater. > ‘And I didn’t organize anything,’ Milo answered indignantly, drawing great agitated sniffs of air in through his hissing, pale, twitching nose. ‘The Germans have the bridge, and we were going to bomb it, whether I stepped into the picture or not. I just saw a wonderful opportunity to make some profit out of the mission, and I took it. What’s so terrible about that?’> ‘What’s so terrible about it? Milo, a man in my tent was killed on that mission before he could even unpack his bags.’> ‘But I didn’t kill him.’> ‘You got a thousand dollars extra for it.’> ‘But I didn’t kill him. I wasn’t even there, I tell you. I was in Barcelona buying olive oil and skinless and boneless sardines, and I’ve got the purchase orders to prove it. And I didn’t get the thousand dollars. That thousand dollars went to the syndicate, and everybody got a share, even you.’ Milo was appealing to Yossarian from the bottom of his soul. ‘Look, I didn’t start this war, Yossarian, no matter what that lousy Wintergreen is saying. I’m just trying to put it on a businesslike basis. Is anything wrong with that? You know, a thousand dollars ain’t such a bad price for a medium bomber and a crew. If I can persuade the Germans to pay me a thousand dollars for every plane they shoot down, why shouldn’t I take it?’It's fun and easy to read. The dialogue isn't the strong point, but rather the description of events. Also it doesn't have much of a straight-through plot, it jumps around from anecdote to anecdote. These are two reasons why it hasn't really been possible to adapt it to film very well.
>>23617124That's true. I may have misremembered but there is at least one knife involved.>>23617136I don't know what filtered means but I appreciate the reply.
Am I the only one that despised this book and thought it had zero literary merit whatsoever? I tried to like it, I really did. But it's just RawR sp0rk XD: WW2
>>23617875>But it's just RawR sp0rk XD: WW2That's the best way I've heard anyone describe this overrated piece of shit.
>>23617866>there is at least one knife involved.Oh yeah wielded by Nately's Whore
>>23617875>>23617948Felt the same way. I even watched the Hulu series they advertise on the book and it was ok, but it just felt like a live-action parody of WW2. Couldn't stand any of the characters and how the actors would exaggerate every emotion. It's not bad, sometimes genuinely funny, but extremely overrated.
>>23614234(You) deserve a reply for the correct answer. >>23617875>DAE THINK HIGHLY ORIGINAL AND UNIQUE DO NOT STEAL THOUGHT ON THE LITERATURE SECTION OF A BASKET WEAVING FORUM???
>>23618163>I even watched the Hulu series they advertise on the book and it was okThis was so fucking badThey somehow turned it into chronological order and sucked all the fun out of it.God it was badEg the whole character of Aarfy was fucked. He was supposed to be a jovial character to the point of being annoying, so that his heel turn was interesting. Instead they made him like a serial killer right from the start.George Clooney should be gassed.
>>23614234>ystems that misalign incentives and empower the most flagrant violators of the rules of that system to enforce themThis is probably the key insight.Among the officers, the only ones who actually care about their jobs are Lt Scheisskopf, preoccupied with parades, and Gen Dreedle, and burned out combat general who is sidelined by his own people. Every other commanding officer is just trying to get ahead, treating the army like a big corporation.
>>23618163If you want to watch a Catch-22 adaptation the only choice is the 1970 movie by Mike Nichols. It's pretty good.The netflix version is very very bad. It's boring and cheap. Eg Major Major's backstory is a whole chapter in the book, in the netflix show it's him awkwardly narrating it while they're waiting in the mess room. It's shit.
>>23617875I threw this book against a wall and later binned it.It's garbage.
>>23613641
i'm 100 pages in and warming up to it. I like the part with the two CID men talking to Major Major Major
