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Catch-22 is a satirical book about the bureaucracy in the military in World War II, with many situations that also could be applied to civilian life. The novel's main character is Captain Yossarian, a bombardier in the U.S. Air Force. He is in a squadron on a small island off the west coast of Italy. Every time the airmen fulfill the number of combat flights needed before they can be sent home, their commanding officer increases the number of flights. Yossarian sees his friends die in combat missions one by one. In order to survive, Yossarian tries to come up with a plan to be sent home.

Catch-22 is a self-contradictory circular rule that is used to keep the airmen from being released from combat flights. If an airman is crazy, he can ask to avoid bombing missions. But if he asks to be released from combat missions, that proves that he is sane. It's a no-win situation.

The book uses humor to examine ideas of sanity and insanity, the misuse of power by the military superiors, patriotism, survival, disregard for human life, exploitation of individuals by bureaucrats, greed, and profiteering. Behind the absurb humor of the novel, Heller has created some very tortured characters trying to survive, and others trying to grab power and get promoted by any means. Heller may have also been influenced by the excesses of McCarthyism in the early 1950s when this book was written.

I first read this book in the 1970s as a college student, when it was very popular during the Vietnam War. On rereading it now, Catch-22 is still a wonderful satirical novel that has withstood the test of time.