I'll keep you warm and won't ask you where you've been

Wow. 11:30 already? Yeah, I was planning on taking a ten minute nap at eight thirty. Uhh. Oops?

But, I finished Catch-22 yesterday, in any case. Sooo. Of course, I loved the book. I'm gonna be honest here--I'm totally in love with this book. There really is nothing wrong with it, so far as I'm concerned, except for the fact that everything is catch-22 and at the end, when the Chaplain is basically tortured (verbally) falsely. It's even more frustrating when he's get verbally tossed about than the court scene in To Kill a Mockingbird because of the fact that Atticus got his say out--he still lost, but he lost with his head held high. In this case though, there was no way around the madness and surreality. No matter what, you were going in circles, and I was going a little bit insane by that point. Another part in the book I go insane a little at is around page 160, where Yossarian asks the prostitute to marry him, and she can't because he is crazy, and he is crazy because he wants to marry her. Catch-22 exists where it shouldn't. It is everything--it rides everything (not gravity!). And, as a side note, before I start including passages and quotes I favor: A teacher of mine, my psych teacher actually, had been in the air force too when he was younger. I happened to have a quote from the book as my signature and e-mailed him and the next day we were talking about it and he mentioned that the book really is what being in the air force is like. I sort of nodded it off at the time, but thinking about it while rereading it--holy God. Can you imagine? I would go mad. Really, I'd probably end up killing myself or someone around me. It's absolutely maddening! Anyways...

I love Yossarian. He's got a contradiction for everything. He's no oaf, either, so he's not just being a big, dumb... contradictor? Well. I guess you'll see what I mean when we get to my favorite passage. And I hate Orr. I detest his circular nature and he does nothing but enrage me.

"He had decided to live forever or die in the attempt..." A description of Yossarian. I love that line, and I just want to say, I do think people live forever. Well, I have a theory that I'm not sure I'd like to subscribe to, in any case, because it basically discredits the afterlife and I'm only human, and so are my readers. I think. But by saying people live forever, they live their wholes lives--they live until they die. That really is forever for a human. History and time stretch out, but they're too large for us to comprehend... 'Forever' is defined by who's saying it. So in that case, Yossarian really wouldn't be able to fail.

"'Well, maybe it is true,' Clevinger Conceded unwillingly... 'Maybe a long life has to be filled with many unpleasant conditions if it's to seem long. But in that event, who wants one?' 'I do,' Dunbar told him. 'Why?' Clevinger asked. 'What else is there?'" Exactly.

"'If you're going to be shot, whose side do you expect me to be on?' ex-PFC Wintergreen retorted." As much as we'd love to have our noble heroes and martyrs, I do believe they are the minority. I think more people would love to cling to life than stand up for an idea, and a lot of the people who do stand up for an idea are maybe just people stuck in the romanticized views of dying for your cause. I know that sounds cruel while we're in the midst of a war, but I think I just can't see things from an upstanding view because I'd be like Wintergreen, most likely. Saving my own skin would be number one. I'm not sure if I'd turn on my friends, but when your own side is pointing the guns at you? Who knows.

"He knew everything about literature except how to enjoy it." : )

"Major Major had been born too late and too mediocre. 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." Any Shakespeare fans? No?

"He was told that he should not kill, and he did not kill, until he got into the army. Then he was told to kill, and he killed. He turned the other cheek on every condition and always did unto others exactly as he would have others do unto him. When he gave to charity, his left hand never knew what his right hand was doing. He never once took the name of the Lord his God in vain, committed adultery, or coveted his neighbor's ass. In fact, he loved his neighbor and never even bore false witness against him. Major Major's elders disliked him because he was such a flagrant nonconformist." At first that last part didn't seem quite right, but really, it makes sense. Who really lives by the Bible in this time? What worries me is that it would be unrecognized in a time where religion was more important and more a part of everyday life. But the fact that Major Major should be so out of place and thought a nonconformist for taking the Bible's teachings to heart? There's something to be said for society there.

Well, to quote the bit I like on page 170 would be too obnoxious and time-consuming, but basically a group of fliers are talking about how they have things that really belong to other people--"someone else's three hundred thousand dollars", a "dose of the clap", etc. Basically saying that I didn't deserve X, this is what happened to me--and another fighter saying yes, that certainly sounds like my [what I should have, instead of health, etc] case of X or X items. It doesn't sound too great the way I'm describing it, but it's one of my favorite sections. It's page 170 if you pick up the Simon & Schuster Paperbacks edition (with the blue cover).

"It was miraculous. Each day he faced was another dangerous mission against mortality. And he had been surviving them for twenty-eight years."

Now, to back this next bit up: Yossarian tells a woman he's sleeping with that for every good thing she can name, he can probably name two unpleasant things. This is my absolute favorite bit in the whole book. "'Be thankful you're healthy.' 'Be bitter you're not going to stay that way.' 'Be glad you're even alive.' 'Be furious you're going to die.' 'Things could be much worse,' she cried. 'They could be one hell of a lot better,' he answered heatedly."

"'Why in the world did He ever create pain?' 'Pain?' Lieutenant Scheisskopf's wife pounced upon the word victoriously. 'Pain is a useful symptom. Pain is a warning to us of bodily dangers.' 'And who created the dangers?'" Yossarian goes on to bash God, but I think the point is gotten well enough here. The general consensus seems to be that God went quite insane (Kurt Vonnegut, Michael Chabon) and that's what made him think Earth and its contents would be a good idea. Kurt Vonnegut's take is... well, in Breakfast of Champions he describes snakes and then says "Sometimes I really wonder about the Creator of the Universe sometimes". And in Timequake while God is performing his seven-day feat, Satan starts thinking the man's gone mad--how far is this guy planning to go? As for Chabon, a character in The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay (I think it was Joe) says something like "I think God went insane just before He, you know. Created the universe." Anyways. I'm backing Kurt Vonnegut with this one. Sure, maybe the first humans failed some divine test, but He would have known, no? So why bother, when everything will play out exactly as you know it will? Poor Dr Manhattan. He can't even kill himself.
And aside from that, what could He have had in mind? A gladiatorial match between animals? I guess He wouldn't even make much of a shipping clerk, either. I roll mad deep with Vonnegut on this one.

Anyways, now that I've alienated the world... I guess I'll make this a two-parter. I'd like to get to bed a little early so 8:30, nine o'clock doesn't seem like too much of a stretch. There's randomly a chain of Twilight Zone episodes on from eight to eleven or so tomorrow, which is AWESOME.