How is this book?

How is this book?

Shit if you're over 19 and read more than your high school assigned reading. Could have been a decent novella with the first 100 pages and the last 50. As is, it's just an edgy unrefined "everyone sucks except me" worldview pumped out over the same abbott and costello routine repeaded ad nauseum.

>uses the word edgy
>uses the word repeaded

Pleb detected

Oh no I made a typo, I guess the book isn't juvenile tryhard shit anymore.

It's a good book. Fuck the haters. Has funny moments, has horrifying moments, Just try reading it the first time, and when you inevitably quit 80 pages in, go back to it in about a month, and you'll read the whole thing. Happens that way for everyone.

Really really funny. Worth reading. Ignore the obvious underage guy ripping on it.

>edgy
>tryhard

Sounds like the way you express yourself is pretty advanced too.

How about this:
It's artless. It's not literature. It's a piece of unhealthy underdeveloped cynicism. Cynicism isn't bad in itself, it can be done fine if a person actually sits down to think about it but this sort of "war is bad! institutions are bad! everything is bad!" doesn't take a Schopenhauer to think up, it's nothing you couldn't pull out of the average construction worker on the street. Couple that with how the characters aren't characters, they're mouthpieces with a name and a quirk to distinguish them and unrecognizable as people. In dialogue they all sound the same. And that came from how every interaction is derived from the format of a 50s two man comedy sketch. The sketch is played for laughs, it's not supposed to sell you on any characters. And that's where you understand where Catch-22's intentions lie because it's played for laughs, not nuance. It has no literary ambitions to speak of and it doesn't give a second thought to it. It also doesn't give second thought to even varying the joke or format. The Catch-22 concept isn't quite original but it works, however it's stretched so thin and recycled throughout a novel that doesn't do anything with its length that the only true time it seems effective is one scene near the beginning and one scene near the end. Which is why it would an effective story as a novella but not in its current state. In its current state it's something with no original ideas, played for the same laugh repeated over 450 pages. The only compliment I'll pay Kurt Vonnegut is at least his juvenile nonlinear WWII novel had a sense of style compared to this thing.

When i read it for a middle school project i found it actually kinda funny and interesting, i should probably reread it. You could probably read a lot better postmodernist stuff, but you could also do much worse and it's definitely not a waste of your time

nice copypasta.
if you wrote that out all by yourself, i feel a bit sorry for you. Catch-22 isn't supposed to be grand literature. It's a good book. that's all. If you want to relegate it to the same level of trash, you can fuck right off.

If you're not here for literature perhaps /r/books is more your speed.

>How about this

Better. Your youth is still showing, but now you've made yourself clear. It's hysterical, what you define as "literary ambition", and how you accuse this novel of lacking merit based on its lack of emphasis on characterization, you must be one of those terribly boring people who has to "feel" and "like" and "want to spend time with" the characters.

Oh by all means pick one aspect of my post and claim that's the only thing I said in it. Doesn't make the novel less juvenile.

>thinking that saying catch-22 is good means i'm not here for literature
i'm sorry user, i really do feel sorry for you. Someone asked if catch-22 was any good, it is. If i say that it's not classic literature, that doesn't imply anything about my reasons for being on this board. Try to relax.

>juvenile
I guess that makes Rabelais' works not literature, eh? I guess since Tristram Shandy was ludicrous, it's not literature. It's not serious enough to be literature!
Whether or not something is juvenile has no bearing on its classification as literature. It just means it's not to your liking, and that, unfortunately for you, is only relevant to yourself and anyone foolish enough to listen to you.

>Happens that way for everyone
Hell no, I loved it by about the second or third page. Went straight through it.

Yeah same

>Catch-22 isn't supposed to be grand literature.
I'd disagree there. There's no way Heller was aiming to write airport fiction. If nothing else, the Dostoyevsky section is a bit of a giveaway.

>He was going to live forever, or die in the attempt
pretty good actually

It's a great book. But since it's popular and well known (normies have read it) it is shit.

Over rated but still a good read with some funny moments.

That's unfair of you. You asked for elaboration, he gives it, and then you proceed to criticise him for his choice of words being puerile.

Should a professor ignore your opinion just because you aren't anywhere near his level in terms of vocabulary or personal development? I'd be inclined to say no, and I think you would too.

Be nice to the man; he was just stating his opinion.

>implying I read your whole post

well, i don't doubt he had a message and was intending to write something worth a fuck, but i mean, he's not trying to be joyce or anything.

As in trying to do something new with writing itself? That seems a pretty narrow definition of 'grand literature' (afaik Dosty wouldn't meet it, for one).

Just looked to me like you were accepting user's
>It has no literary ambitions to speak of
which seems crazy to me.

no no, i don't think he had no literary ambitions. not at all, i don't want to shit on heller at all, really. I loved Catch-22. it's one of the books that helped me get back into reading after a drought during my teenage years, and I am indebted to it. I just have high standards for what would be called "Grand Literature", just something that's a cut above the rest, Dante would be another example, the cream that has risen to the top, you know? Catch-22 is still Literature, just not classic (yet, i suppose) and it's not "Grand". but he made a great and enjoyable book. anyone who argues with that can go fuckemselves.

Just finished Something Happened and it's much better. Too bad it's not as well-known.

I dropped it after 80 pages. That was a year and a half ago. I'll give it another try. Thanks user.

I just started reading it recently and despite not being that well-written it's surprisingly funny when I least expect it to be.

>not well written

I swear, people who say this about catch 22 think overwrought tortured nabokovian """"prose"""" = well written.

Catch 22 is a great book. Better than infinite jest by miles and miles.

I don't think the book itself is bad, but the prose isn't one of its strong suits. It's essentially written at a middle school reading level.

That doesn't mean the book's prose is poor nor does it have anything to do with how well written it is.

It does if it wasn't written for middle schoolers.

Whrong

>nabokov too hard for me
>why u make fun of funny war book? funny book great book! also, funny
>no u stupid bully! my dad beat up your dad!

Reading Nabokov is the literary equivalent of watching an old man wank