Catch-22
With the weather forecast for the weekend being rainy and grey, I'd planned to do a lot of indoorsy things, like reading, coding, writing, tidying up, sorting out some papers. All things calm and pleasant. Except I'd forgotten to take the flu into account. All the grand ideas I wanted to portray about deeply profound and important things (well, relatively), any mildly intelligent thought I have had, had been suitably reduced to a wobbling quibble by the sheer inability to concentrate.
Anyway, every so often, I'd hunger for a Murakami book. It seemed to be the perfect time to tackle the gigantic volume of The Wind-up Bird Chronicle. Read one chapter, sleep for a time. Read another chapter, sleep for a time. In this manner, the hours of my weekend dwindled.
There's something that I've been dying to bring up for a time, and it has to do with a phrase "Catch-22". Most English speakers I have met use the term loosely and frequently enough, and I've had to explain the phrase time and time again to non-anglophones. Yet I am pretty sure that most people who use the phrase haven't actually read the book. So, courtesy of the copy I stole off Boris' shelf, here's the bit which talks about what Catch-22 is:
"You're wasting your time," Doc Daneeka was forced to tell him.
"Can't you ground someone who's crazy?"
"Oh, sure. I have to. There's a rule saying I have to ground anyone who's crazy."
"Then why don't you ground me? I'm crazy. Ask Clevinger."
"Clevinger? Where is Clevinger? You find Clevinger and I'll ask him."
"Then ask any of the others. They'll tell you how crazy I am."
"They're crazy."
"Then why don't you ground them?"
"Why don't they ask me to ground them?"
"Because they're crazy, that's why."
"Of course they're crazy," Doc Daneeka replied. "I just told you they're crazy, didn't I? And you can't let crazy people decide whether you're crazy or not, can you?"
Yossarian looked at him soberly and tried another approach. "Is Orr crazy?"
"He sure is," Doc Daneeka said.
"Can you ground him?"
"I sure can. But first he has to ask me to. That's part of the rule."
"Then why doesn't he ask you to?"
"Because he's crazy," Doc Daneeka said. "He has to be crazy to keep flying combat missions after all the close call's he's had. Sure, I can ground Orr. But first he has to ask me to."
"That's all he has to do to be grounded?"
"That's all. Let him ask me."
"And then you can ground him?" Yossarian asked.
"No. Then I can't ground him."
"You mean there's a catch?"
"Sure there's a catch," Doc Daneeka replied. "Catch-22. Anyone who wants to get out of combat duty isn't really crazy."
There was only one catch and that was Catch-22, which specified that a concern for one's 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.
These days, I believe the accepted definition of "catch-22" is "a no-win situation".
Posted by sniffles at June 01, 2003 09:00 PM