Typically brilliant - tough but fair - analysis from Chris Uhlmann : At the heart of Joseph Heller's novel Catch-22 is a brilliant paradox: if you plead insanity to avoid suicidal bombing missions then you must be sane and can't be excused. "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...
It took me a few weeks to read Blake Bailey’s exhaustive and exhausting (770 pages tip to tail) biography of John Cheever. Living with Cheever even for a month was no picnic: as his wife or children would tell you. He was a depressive, conflicted alcoholic, notably “enchained within the prison of self” even for a writer: when his children read some of the thousands of pages of his...
+IHS+ On the Age of the Earth You can be a good Catholic and hold that the universe is thousands or millions or billions or trillions or quadrillions or other numbers of years old. The Church does not teach any particular age or age-range for the earth or the cosmos. You can follow the evidence where you think it leads. This is because the Magisterium has determined that the question of the ages of...
A couple of different clips (from the 1980s? Not sure.) are compiled in this 5 minute video of Paul Krassner interviews. From the Film Archive description, a bio of Mr. Krassner: Paul Krassner (born April 9, 1932) is an author, journalist, stand-up comedian, and the founder, editor and a frequent contributor to the freethought magazine The Realist, first published in 1958. The Realist, edited and published...
Booklover - Herald on Sunday - 15 November, 2009 Mark Crysell is the Europe correspondent for TVNZ News & Current Affairs The book I love most is....the nominees are: The Executioner’s Song by Norman Mailer, a haunting white trash epic, devastatingly written. Songlines by Bruce Chatwin, beautiful evocative writing about why we travel. Catch 22 by Joseph Heller, a classic, I've read it five...
Last Tuesday I headed off to see my dad in hospital once again. I drove this time as now my dad is in the Panteg hospital public transport is inadequate. That seemed to suit me better. Certainly not being in Newport or Cwmbran where there are so many people was less depressing I think. I also listened to music and not the radio so much, which may have helped. There were a lot of nice little providences...
Lynda Barry has known Matt Groening forever. Since they were students at Evergreen State College in Olympia, Wash., in the early 1970s. Groening heard about this woman who wrote to Joseph Heller, the author of "Catch-22," and asked him to marry her. Heller wrote back to politely decline (he didn't want to live in a dorm), but Groening thought that was so cool. Groening asked Barry to write...
Creating a satire on your own culture is a doubled-bladed dagger. Satirists seldom become lionized or praised for their efforts as pointing out failures and dangers and the ridiculous presence of deluded emperors wearing invisible clothes tends to invoke more embarrassment than wisdom or appreciation. Sometimes greatness is achieved - most readers and critics still applaud Joseph Heller's "Catch-22"...
There's a bit in Joseph Heller's " Catch-22 " where Captain Black runs something he calls the "Glorious Loyalty Oath Campaign", where everyone in the squadron finds themselves forced to sign oaths pledging their loyalty in order to get absolutely anything or everything: " Almost overnight the Glorious Loyalty Oath Crusade was in full flower, and Captain Black was enraptured...
A clickable index of titles covered so far... 2001: A Space Odyssey by Arthur C Clarke A Against Nature by Joris-Karl Huysmans Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland by Lewis Carrol l All Quiet on the Western Front by Erich Maria Remarque And Then There Were None by Agatha Christie Appointment in Samarra by John O’Hara Arden of Faversham, possibly by William Shakespeare Around the World in Eighty...
So, we're starting to get some tantalizing glimpses of the where the publishing industry is likely to be in the next couple of years. First of all, Publishers Marketplace reoprted last week on former HarperCollins boss, Jane Friedman who officially announced her new venture Open Road Integrated Media at Frankfurt, though the unit was first reported on in August when her funding of $3 million was disclosed....
Friedman to publish Catch-22 e-book 19.10.09 - The Bookseller Joseph Heller's Catch-22 will be published as an e-book for the first time as part of Jane Friedman's new publishing venture, Open Road Integrated Media . Speaking at the Frankfurt Book Fair last week, the former HarperCollins chief executive described Open Road as a "content marketing company", which creates "enhanced"...
I was looking at a list of banned books , and found myself amazed anew at the idea that anyone would feel so powerful and so right that they would take it upon themselves to attempt to control the flow of information into another person's life, another person's mind. And yet books are banned every year--books many of us consider great, important, wonderful works of literature. Consider the list below,...
"There was only one catch and that was Catch-22, which specified that a concern for one's own safety in the face of dangers that were real and immediate was the process of a rational mind." Joseph Heller's Catch-22 The Washington Times reports that, only weeks prior to the deadly attack, several intelligence report were issued warning of an imminent assault on the base. From the article:...
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