There was only one catch and that was Catch-22, which specified that a concern for one’s own safety in the face of dangers that were real and immediate was the process of a rational mind. Orr was crazy and could be grounded. All he had to do was ask; and as soon as he did, he would no longer be crazy and would have to fly more missions. Orr would be crazy to fly more missions and sane if he didn’t, but if he was sane he had to fly them. If he flew them he was crazy and didn’t have to; but if he didn’t want to he was sane and had to. Yossarian was moved very deeply by the absolute simplicity of this clause of Catch-22 and let out a respectful whistle.
“That’s some catch, that Catch-22,” he observed.
“It’s the best there is,” Doc Daneeka agreed.
When your life explodes all around you, it seems to me, it may be desirable to make changes. Some of these changes are conscious. For example, I’ve tried to watch less television. I determined that Facebook had become a trivial time waster that I would do well to log off from for a while (And yet somehow, Mark Zuckerberg is still a billionaire). Other changes are subconscious. I’ve been eating inappropriately small meals, for example. (Despair, it turns out, is an excellent dieting tool. I highly recommend it.)
I also made a conscious decision to read more. And lo, I’ve read more novels over the past 2 months than I have in the last 2 5 alright, 10 fucking years. This is a pathetic and shameful admission, but you can’t rewrite the past. We can only move forward, and the path forward is truly the path backward. I have headed Back to the Future, to a time when reading was king, and plan to stay there, until I become bored and move on to something else- which seems to be a recurring theme in my sometimes unfocused existence. (Angsty!)
But I digress. Since mid November of 2010, I have read 4 novels. Each stylistically different, all recommendable in their own way, but there is only one novel to rule them all (because I just finished it late last night), that one novel is Catch-22 by Joseph Heller.
Another digression. Reviews of the 3 other novels, in 10 words or less/fewer #10wordbookreviews:
The Priveleges by Jonathan Dee:
“Rich assholes. Sorta want to be them. Also hate myself.”
Tender is the Night by F. Scott Fitzgerald:
“Not as Great as Gatsby. More personal. Beautiful. Dick Diver.”
Pilgrims: A Lake Wobegon Romance by Garrison Keilor:
“Like Praire Home Companion? Get this. Don’t? Don’t.”
Let me begin my review by saying I know that reviewing a book 50 years after it was published is ludicrous. There is surely nothing left unsaid that hasn’t been said. I am not a critic and so I will have no keen insights to add to the discussion. I’m just an ordinary asshole with a brand new blog. (Let’s move on) But here’s the thing: I really enjoyed this book. Tons. A shit ton, if you will. The tone is fucking bonkers (future dust jacket quote?!?) shifting from Marx Brothers style absurdity, to smash-your-head-against-the-wall-in-frustration absurdity, into the most hauntingly searingly brutal depictions of human depravity and violence I’ve ever read (small sample size). Seriously, if you can make it through the gauntlet of chapters 39 (The Eternal City) 40 (Catch-22) and 41 (Snowden) with your faith in a just and caring deity intact, I would like to steal your right parietal lobe (or do mushrooms with you).
I had tried to read this book 3 other times without success because it’s easy to get caught up trying to make sense of every exchange, which made me want to go back and re-read sections to figure out what I was missing. Once I realized that the episodes and characters didn’t make literal sense, the novel washed over me much more enjoyably. If you’re looking for a modern classic to read, I will stand by Catch-22. Other novels by Joseph Heller include Something Happened, Good as Gold, God Knows, Picture This, Closing Time, and Portrait of an Artist, as an Old Man (#6thgradebookreporttimefillingtechnique) (#oxfordcomma, #whogivesafuckabout)
Oh right. Suggestions for the next book! Post them in comments. I’m thinking Dickens…
apatheticallydecomposing 
OK, fine. For whatever reason, C-22 has never managed to leap quite to the top of my personal queue, but you’ve won me over. This seems like the right time for the most hauntingly searingly brutal depictions of human depravity and violence Paul Hazen has ever read.
In the world of Dickens, here are my #10wordbookpreviews, in rough order of recommendation (you’ve already read Great Expectations and David Copperfield, no?)
Bleak House
Smog everywhere. Rich with complexity and pointlessness of modern life.
Our Mutual Friend
River of death: Dickens’s darkest? Still happy ending (no HJ).
Pickwick Papers
Winningly goofy, preposterous; but also hardly a novel.
Martin Chuzzlewit
Dickens in America: but we only brag, spit tobacco. Avoid.
Oops. Caught me in a blog editing snafu. Fixed now. You know I never read a Tale of Two Cities. And Katie R. highly recommended Little Dorrit (I guess technically a serialized novel?).
I was tempted to not write a comment about Penn State, but THAT WOLD MEAN THE YALIES WOLD WIN. Heller conceived of Catch 22 while he was teaching at Penn State. And then did the only reasonable thing to do when you find yourself in State College, PA: he got the fuck out. Let’s go, State!
I lost my copy of Catch 22 and therefore never finished it. Since this happened to me twice with Portnoy’s Complaint, I’ve developed a rule to let what’s lost remain.
Also, I took a Lost Generation lit class at We Are Penn State and saved $5 by getting a used copy of Tender is the Night. After sitting through a seminar where I was thoroughly confused, I realized that I had bought a copy that had switched two sections of the books from the original publication, making the novel chronological. Mine was edited by Malcolm Cowley posthumously apparently following Fitzgerald’s instructions after the negative critical reaction. However, critical consensus had changed since 1951, and now the only copies in print are the original.
Also, I’m looking to read Dickens soon. Consensus pick?
Paul all of this self-improvement is making me insecure. #allaboutme.
Misery diet ftw!
I can’t recommend either Little Dorritt or Tale of Two Cities in under 10 words because I haven’t read them. But I’d be much more interested in the former than the latter, even if it is, like most of Dickens’ best stuff, 800+ pp.
If you end up going with LD, I might be convinced to take the plunge with you, if only better to defy (invisibly, uselessly) the puerile Yglesian idea that no one needs to read monster novels anymore, unless they are called Infinite Jest (yes, I’m looking at you, Goldfarb).
A book club, that simultaneously allows me to rail futilely at Yglesias and poke Goldfarb in the eye? LD it is! Let me poke around to see if there’s a copy around here I can use. Otherwise, it’s Davis Library for me.
Watch out for the Davis Library masturbator. However lost he may appear, do not point to anything on his map. #reallifelessonslearned
Also, more book reviews!
This is the single greatest comment to ever appear in the history of blogs. You win 1 million internets.