Can we have a discussion about this? I just finished reading it and none of my friends have, would like to hear others' opinions on it.
I don't read many books, but I am glad I had the chance to read this one.
So much wit, the blurry line between
humour and fucked up scenarios, everything felt so good.
It has great characters, which is one of the book's points, and a very nice writing ( at least as far as I can tell from a translation).
Funniest book I've ever read. I really liked it, but there's not that much to say.
I really enjoyed it, especially the chapter toward the end where Yossarian walks around the city.
Heh... Let me show you something, kid.
Gravity's Rainbow by Thomas Pynchon.
It's Catch-22, only spiked with the best drug you ever took. It's a wild ride on a Flower Power chopper down the Highway to Hell. If you partake of the marijuana, you're gonna want to pick this book up. If you don't partake, then you HAVE to pick it up. It's what the doctor ordered.
* Man going down the toilet? Check.
* Pie fight? Check.
* Giant squid? Check.
* Kick-ass songs? You better believe that's a check.
This is World War II like they DIDN'T teach you in school.
Semper High, my friend.
Funniest book I've read so far. A lot of people think this book is a tough read but I never found that. All the circular logic is hilarious and the disconnected structure exentuates that.
If anyone knows of a book that's funnier than this one I would love a recommendation.
>>7866273
A Confederacy of Dunces is the only one, I think
Milo chapters were always my favorite, especially when he explains how he sells eggs to himself and bombs his own base.
It's pretty funny, not as funny as Fear and Loathing though.
I liked it as a teenager, but then I read this and realized it's a cheap incoherent American copy.
>>7866306
Not even close to being as funny as Catch-22. It was pretty mediocre actually.
>>7866198
Yea I really liked that chapter, the way it was all presented and how it was such a stark contrast to earlier stuff made my stomach churn
>>7866382
Beg to report, sir, that Svejk is a very funny novel indeed, although the owner of U Vodarna over in Zizkov, Mr Hrabal, finds the later books to be long and meandering in content, as well as subject matter.
>>7866306
I tried reading that but it kind of just made me feel sad for the guy, I never finished it
>>7865949
read the sequel, it makes absolutely no sense, features and underground carnival baron/devil character, and his completely absurd beyond reality. it's no where near as good as catch 22, but it's worth reading the spectacle
>>7866778
*an underground
It's godawful unfunny garbage. If there's one writer who can't write and can't think it's Heller. would have been decent as a novella with the first hundred pages and the last fifty stitched together.
The best criticism I've ever read of it was one of the original critics on its first release describe it as seeming it was "shouted onto paper"
>>7866273
Confederacy of Dunces. Very different humor, but side splitting nonetheless.
>>7866820
it's past your bed time, nabokov
>>7866273
Hitchhikers guide was great for what it was in my opinion
>>7866273
I wouldn't necessarily say it's funnier than Catch-22, but The Master and Margarita is funny
>>7866828
i think that might be because it's written largely in a working class prose style
>>7866974
yeah, douglas adams is right up there with terry pratchett as a master of humanistic literature
>>7866820
exactly my thoughts, there is too much filler content in the novel, if it was cut in half it would have been perfect
>>7866778
Yeah, Closing Time was pretty awful. The two others I've read of his, Picture This and Something Happened, I enjoyed much more than Catch-22, though.
Vihor pls go
>>7866382
This, such as shame that was never finished.
>>7866306
>>7866949
This came to mind for me as well, only criticism with that is the emphasis on setting can be confusing to those not familiar with 60s-70s New Orleans.
>>7866735
And you never felt sad for Yossarian or Snowden or Hungry Joe or the anabaptist chaplain or Nately's whore or Nately's whore's kid sister? You should have finished Confederacy of Dunces, the ending is worth it.
>>7865982
What language?
>>7866199
What if I don't like drugs?
Thought it was shit. Just a bunch of morons misunderstanding or ignoring each other in conversation because that's Heller's idea of a meme. It was funny the first time but threw it in the garbage after the hundredth instance of slapstick dialogue in the beginning fifty pages.
>>7866382
I love how that last chapters are all about food, and the fact that Hasek basically ate himself to death before he could finish the book.
