Hans Kollar Catch-22

I enjoyed reading Catch-22 and find Heller's cynical humor and his rather comical character developments to be rather humorous. At the beginning of the book I had a hard time really getting into the story and understanding the many sly meanings that are very easy to miss if you aren't paying attention; however, as I continued to read I began to catch on to these subtle jokes and stabs Heller takes at war, society, and human nature. As I read I discovered more and more that Heller was trying to comment on the inhumanity of war as well as the way that the military chain of command seems to treat soldiers like expendable tools and that the authorities are always trying to get as much work as possible from them.The story is mostly from the first person point of view of a character named Yossarian who tells the story but includes many short anecdotes and specific scenes. These anecdotes make the story more interesting, but they can also become confusing as you have to think about and remember the multiple story lines. Many of the ironic descriptions in this book perfectly illustrate the term Catch-22 and I now more fully understand the term and its origins.