Have you ever read more of a meme book?
Thoughts?
>>8144233
This book was much better than Catch 22 (or atleast I thought).
>>8144233
>Have you ever read more of a meme book
Gravity's Rainbow desu
Both are good books.
Catch 22 is my favorite book, but this is Hellers best book.
>>8144238
>by Richard Face
>Dick Face
mild heh
>>8144339
My nigga
>>8144339
I've tried reading this a few times but I can't get more than halfway before I start hating life. Is that normal?
>>8144233
How is Catch-22 a meme book? It has an interesting plot, original themes, and a humorous style of writing.
>>8144483
Apparently everything is a meme these days.
>>8144428
I'll say this as a casual reader. Catch 22 was genuinely enjoyable in some parts.
but there was one chapter that was godawful, I couldn't stomach it at all.
SPOILER AHEAD:
That one chapter near the end of the book where Yossarian is just trudging around Rome and it's rainy and dark and gloomy and all the whores have been evicted. Then Heller just goes off with depressing imagery that's honestly just came off as pointless and against the spirit of the book.
>>8144659
The book started of 100% humorous and gradually became darker and darker throughout, culminating in that chapter.
That's one of the best chapters and makes the book what it is, imo.
>>8144685
this
jesus fuck, how much of a pleb can you be not to understand that the book isn't actually randumz lolz
To sound like an idiot:
>l literally lol'ed reading the book
The officers having problems with correct usage of "sir" was one of my most memorable reads.
>>8144500
Certainly on-line. Offline I do think memes are leading to a decrease in the quality of life in the West. Individuals should study Mathematics and German Literature and run in the track club. Such lifestyles lead to a greater overall peace and feeling of clarity, positivity, and cleanliness.
>>8144659
>this nigga doesn't understand that Catch 22 is a deeply moral book
>>8144339
i love this shit
>tfw bought the 50th anniversary edition and the cover is cheap ass paper instead of nice glossy shit
>>8145088
True, that's why I wasn't being mean.
>>8144659
>pointless and against the spirit
It was by far the most masterful use of evocation in the entire book. It's the literal opposite of pointless, being one of the few times that true horror is expressed in the novel. It's a tragicomedy about the absurdity of war. If you take away Rome and the gory death of the airman, you lose all the impact and you're left with whimsical bullshit. Jesus Christ, you picked one of the definitively most important parts and thought it pointless. What the fuck.
>>8145080
>he wants gloss
>>8144233
Literally this book is the biggest source of literary conversation in my family. All of us have read it and we pretty much all love it, wonder if it's genetics...
>>8144233
I want to get into Heller but I feel like he'll be a slightly more erudite and less fantastical Vonnegut, which doesn't sound bad, but makes me put getting his books off because there are things I want to read more immediately than books like that.
>>8145125
I'm not him, but I like the glossy ones more because the feeling of the more papery covers against the palm of my hand is unpleasant when I'm holding a book for a long time
I don't care how autistic that sounds.
>>8144233
Read it when I was 13 pretty good
Just finished it. The first 50 pages or so I really didn't feel it. It was just random lulz, as someone in the thread already pointed out, and not particularly good ones at that.
One of the final scenes, where Snowden's guts are spilling out all over Yossarian, was one of the most enthralling reads I've had this year so far. It shocked me.
>>8145088
True that.
>First time I read it I was 15, shit went so far over my head that I found it hard to cope: still enjoyed it, found it entertaining, but hard to understand.
>re-read it at 24: changed my outlook on life, in more ways than I can count.
To this day, it is easily in my top three best fiction books I've read. Some of the best fun I've had while reading.
>>8144740
I kek everytime I think of Major Major Major Major... Insanity at it's best.
>>8145285
"Some men are born mediocre, some men achieve mediocrity, and some men have mediocrity thrust upon them. With Major Major it had been all three. Even among men lacking all distinction he inevitably stood out as a man lacking more distinction than all the rest, and people who met him were always impressed by how unimpressive he was.”
>>8145322
Lelz
I love it. It's perfect. Every single word.
>>8145322
"Major Major Major Major had had a difficult time from the start"
I'm reading it now and really liking it, but I know I'll have to reread it again so i dont get caught up in who's who
>>8145322
Major Major's chapter is pretty much the high-point in comedic fiction
>>8145201
bruh he's not erudite at all. Maybe you were thinking of a different word but just typed "erudite". Catch-22 is a bit difficult because there's a bunch of characters and the narrative isn't chronological, but it starts to make sense as you go through it. You'll see the same scene over and over as the narrative progresses, each time from different perspectives and each time the reader armed with more background knowledge.
Oh, and it's also fucking hilarious and probably the most enjoyable novel in the starter kit.
>>8144685
>>8144659
I think the tragedy that Heller is trying to evoke is present from the instant the you you get past the "random lulz" interpretation that most people go through. The chapter in which McWatt kills kid Sampson and spirals into a mountain seems comedic at first glance, but imo it was one of the most heat-wrenching emotional scenes in the book, and I agree with>>8144659 that the Rome part threw away the theme of jovial tragedy that made the book so charming.
>>8145869
I'm not saying he's erudite in general, just slightly moreso than Vonnegut, who's an author I've read that I'm comparing Heller to based on what I've heard about his books. And no, I'm not saying I think this means he'll be too hard to read, the exact opposite of that actually; I think Heller's books might be fun as light reads, but there are more challenging things that I want to read sooner rather than later so I keep putting Heller off because I'm more interested in other authors even though I eventually want to read a Heller book or two.
>>8144659
Bait or you have the reading comprehension of a retarded.
>>8146096
No offense, but you sound kinda new to this whole thing. If one of those challenging authors happens to be Pynchon then I recommend you take a second and contemplate what exactly it is you hope to get out of reading literature.
Whatever you come up with, you probably won't get that from Pynchon.
It's literally the literature version of this anime how could you not like it
>>8146279
name please?
>>8147115
cromartie high school
>>8144483
I want to believe it's some sort of joke because Catch-22 repeats itself on purpose a lot.
Book could probably be cut to a third of its length with no problem. Jokes are often plain irony with a repeated structure, not very humorous. The book came off as whiny to me, maybe if it gave more of a historical context I could emphasize with the writer. If you want absurdism done right, read The Trial.
>>8144483
I think that people dont understand the monotony of beauracy and chain of command.
The book repeats jokes in the same kind of formulaic repurposing of sentences to
create an effective point, that the same shit happens over and over again.
People who missed the humor in the multiple iterations of the one formula jokes say that it repeats itself, and therefore must be a meme book.
>>8148878
Thanks for the post desu. I always sorta had this in the back of my mind, but now it's in the front of my mind. So in Catch-22 the form of the writing reinforces the themes.
>>8144349
I laughed harder at this than the name
>>8146096
You should look up what "erudite" means before using it again, it's not what you think
>>8149550
From what I understand, the conditions of WW2 would not warrant the level of absurdism used in this book. It was clear why the war was fought.
