(Skip this part, it’s mostly pointless)
Everybody hates bureaucracy, but Heller’s portrayal of upper echelon military leadership is beyond anything I could have imagined. It is the most obvious irony in the book. In Catch 22, everyone and anyone that occupies a position of significant responsibility is incompetent, vain and irresponsible. It’s relentless. The entire chain of command is just ridiculous. It is extremely unsettling to think of a military lead by these characters. They spend most of the time fighting themselves, not the Axis. Even the missions detailed in the book are undertaken only to wage war against other commanding officers. Forget the Nazis.
This irony is maximized in the case of Yossarian’s moving of the bomb line. The chain of information is inverted and the commanders learn of the apparent capture of Bologna through their subordinates. Yossarian’s attempts to disrupt the “war effort” are another point of interest in the book. He launches a guerilla war against the military establishment, which is in turn fighting amongst itself and trying to fight the Axis as well.
I love how Yossarian’s crazy and sane at the same time. He is perhaps the craziest soldier ever imagined, however he is one of the most clearheaded characters in the book. He cuts through the attitude of patriotic and wartime rationalization that affects most of the other soldiers and focuses upon the basic truth that holds true for every individual soldier in the field. They are trying to kill me. He is not affected by the team mentality that soldiers are trained think about. Yossarian concerns himself only with the most necessary condition of life…survival.
(This part is way better)
I don’t know. Usually you can identify one main idea that a text addresses. One main question with which it deals. Like a good experiment, it identifies and explores this question, discovering the nature and consequences of the question itself. But in this book, I see more than that. It addresses so many of these issues. And I think the structure of the book allows this. Each section (or in some cases chapter) of the book addresses a different question.
Many of these issues are fundamental questions about one’s humanity, nationality and existence. This book examines question from patriotism to leadership to reward and punishment to meaning and definition of life. I think this is what confuses us while reading Catch 22. Very nearly every chapter examines a different aspect of the (very cliché) human condition and the role of a modern human being in society. The book is not pointless or rambling as some (I also fell prey to this misunderstanding at first) think.
It is not meaningless; it’s comprehensive. It is an encyclopedia of human concern. Like a good recipe, the book is written in the perfect way to achieve this effect. Heller poses many questions, so he needs many characters. In fact, it needs a whole army of them, so that is what he gets. You need time to develop a single idea. Heller briefly examines many ideas, so he doesn’t need time. He doesn’t need to maintain a structured chronology. He only needs enough time to move characters from point to point and allow events to occur. He doesn’t need his time to connect end to end. He doesn’t need his chronology to dovetail perfectly. He only needs a collection of times that fit within a larger framework where some characters can interact throughout events. He needs a war, so he goes and gets one. Like a philosophical Dr. Pepper, this book has at least 23 of the finest and most ultimate questions known to man, and like Iron Chef Mario Batali himself, Heller fuses his ideas with perfect synergy. This story is truly a delightful mix of universal mysteries and flavors. Mmmm, savory and sweet.
Sunday, April 27, 2008
Wednesday, April 23, 2008
A Description of "A Description of the Morning"
In “A Description of the Morning”, Jonathan Swift very nearly describes a morning. There is no great immediate metaphor running throughout the poem and no obvious structure to which he adheres. Swift’s trademark satire is even more subtle than we expect. The poem is far from the obvious satire of his “Modest Proposal” and structurally resembles nothing in particular. It is Swift’s mix of satirical and completely serious characters and events in the poem that mislead us.
In the poem, we encounter mischievous or immoral characters engaging in the last moments of their inappropriate behaviors. Betty steals away from her master’s bed (presumably after some inappropriate and risqué behavior), and the corrupt Turnkey sees his flock of prisoners returning with the loot. Swift obviously satires these unfavorable characters, although he passes no obvious judgment on their actions. We also see a range of characters that might be just lazy inattentive such as Moll whirling her mop, but not having actually done work. However, Swift mixes favorable characters in with the unfavorable ones as well. The apprentice who has already cleaned up around the door and the “youth with the broomy stumps” who has began to sweep the cart tracks have already began their work and are contributing to the preparation of the city for a day’s work. The positioning of these unfavorable or bad characters in comparison to good ones in one of the methods that Swift uses to satire the occupants of the city. The melding of the bad characters with the rest of the poem suggests a way in which the city overlooks this behavior in its attempt to function.
His irony is most immediately present in his portrayal of the lower social class characters as the more hardworking, honest and productive section of society. He presents the official and higher class characters as lazy, dishonest and oblivious (or maybe corrupt). The youth and the apprentice are already at work in the morning, as are the other lower class characters. However, the lord is in debt, the turnkey is corrupt and the bailiffs seem to be lazy and oblivious to the previous line's events. Swift is well known for opposing upper society and this poem perhaps reflects his attitude.
The structure of the poem is even more hazy. It does not resemble any common structure that we have seen. It is more a collection of couplets than anything. However, it does follow certain patterns. The poem generally leads from inside to outside. It begins in a bedroom, with Betty, progresses to the door, and then out into the street with the Duns and the Schoolboys, This sequence of events leads us from the private inner sanctum of the master, where he may do anything he so chooses, out into the real world of official rather than personal moral corruption. Swift leads us from the personal world of secrets, she does steal away after all, to the official world of corruption and greed represented quite plainly as the jailkeeper. This sequence is also very much like waking up, preparing and leaving the house in the morning. The reader makes his or her way to the outside street after being initially left in the bedroom.
Swift also presents a pattern in his use of tense within the poem. Early in the poem, most of the character had done what he described. For example, Betty had flown and Moll had twirled. After the twirling incident, the tense of the verbs changes to more recent past. In the middle section, the youth began, the man was heard, and the Duns began to meet. In the last section of the poem, the actions enter the present. The turnkey sees his flock, the bailiffs take their stands and the schoolboys lag. Initially, all the action seems distant and removed from the reader. However, by the end of the poem, we can see action in the street as the morning progresses. We can see movement directly, such as the flock returning or the schoolboys lagging.
In the poem, we encounter mischievous or immoral characters engaging in the last moments of their inappropriate behaviors. Betty steals away from her master’s bed (presumably after some inappropriate and risqué behavior), and the corrupt Turnkey sees his flock of prisoners returning with the loot. Swift obviously satires these unfavorable characters, although he passes no obvious judgment on their actions. We also see a range of characters that might be just lazy inattentive such as Moll whirling her mop, but not having actually done work. However, Swift mixes favorable characters in with the unfavorable ones as well. The apprentice who has already cleaned up around the door and the “youth with the broomy stumps” who has began to sweep the cart tracks have already began their work and are contributing to the preparation of the city for a day’s work. The positioning of these unfavorable or bad characters in comparison to good ones in one of the methods that Swift uses to satire the occupants of the city. The melding of the bad characters with the rest of the poem suggests a way in which the city overlooks this behavior in its attempt to function.
His irony is most immediately present in his portrayal of the lower social class characters as the more hardworking, honest and productive section of society. He presents the official and higher class characters as lazy, dishonest and oblivious (or maybe corrupt). The youth and the apprentice are already at work in the morning, as are the other lower class characters. However, the lord is in debt, the turnkey is corrupt and the bailiffs seem to be lazy and oblivious to the previous line's events. Swift is well known for opposing upper society and this poem perhaps reflects his attitude.
The structure of the poem is even more hazy. It does not resemble any common structure that we have seen. It is more a collection of couplets than anything. However, it does follow certain patterns. The poem generally leads from inside to outside. It begins in a bedroom, with Betty, progresses to the door, and then out into the street with the Duns and the Schoolboys, This sequence of events leads us from the private inner sanctum of the master, where he may do anything he so chooses, out into the real world of official rather than personal moral corruption. Swift leads us from the personal world of secrets, she does steal away after all, to the official world of corruption and greed represented quite plainly as the jailkeeper. This sequence is also very much like waking up, preparing and leaving the house in the morning. The reader makes his or her way to the outside street after being initially left in the bedroom.
Swift also presents a pattern in his use of tense within the poem. Early in the poem, most of the character had done what he described. For example, Betty had flown and Moll had twirled. After the twirling incident, the tense of the verbs changes to more recent past. In the middle section, the youth began, the man was heard, and the Duns began to meet. In the last section of the poem, the actions enter the present. The turnkey sees his flock, the bailiffs take their stands and the schoolboys lag. Initially, all the action seems distant and removed from the reader. However, by the end of the poem, we can see action in the street as the morning progresses. We can see movement directly, such as the flock returning or the schoolboys lagging.
Sunday, April 13, 2008
College Advice from Dave
College is basically a bunch of rooms where you sit for roughly two thousand hours and try to memorize things. The two thousand hours are spread out over four years; you spend the rest of the time sleeping and trying to get dates.
Basically, you learn two kinds of things in college:
1. Things you will need to know in later life (two hours).
2. Things you will not need to know in later life (1,998 hours).
These are the things you learn in classes whose names end in -ology, -osophy, -istry, -ics, and so on. The idea is, you memorize these things, then write them down in little exam books, then forget them. If you fail to forget them, you become a professor and have to stay in college for the rest of your life.
It's very difficult to forget everything. For example, when I was in college, I had to memorize -- don't ask me why -- the names of three metaphysical poets other than John Donne. I have managed to forget one of them, but I still remember that the other two were named Vaughan and Crashaw. Sometimes, when I'm trying to remember something important like whether my wife told me to get tuna packed in oil or tuna packed in water, Vaughan and Crashaw just pop up in my mind, right there in the supermarket. It's a terrible waste of brain cells.
After you've been in college for a year or so, you're supposed to choose a major, which is the subject you intend to memorize and forget the most things about. Here is a very important piece of advice: be sure to choose a major that does not involve Known Facts and Right Answers. This means you must not major in mathematics, physics, biology, or chemistry, because these subjects involve actual facts. If, for example, you major in mathematics, you're going to wander into class one day and the professor will say: "Define the cosine integer of the quadrant of a rhomboid binary axis, and extrapolate your result to five significant vertices." If you don't come up with exactly the answer the professor has in mind, you fail. The same is true of chemistry: if you write in your exam book that carbon and hydrogen combine to form oak, your professor will flunk you. He wants you to come up with the same answer he and all the other chemists have agreed on.
Scientists are extremely snotty about this.
So you should major in subjects like English, philosophy, psychology, and sociology -- subjects in which nobody really understands what anybody else is talking about, and which involve virtually no actual facts. I attended classes in all these subjects, so I'll give you a quick overview of each:
ENGLISH: This involves writing papers about long books you have read little snippets of just before class. Here is a tip on how to get good grades on your English papers: Never say anything about a book that anybody with any common sense would say. For example, suppose you are studying Moby-Dick. Anybody with any common sense would say that Moby-Dick is a big white whale, since the characters in the book refer to it as a big white whale roughly eleven thousand times. So in your paper, you say Moby-Dick is actually the Republic of Ireland.
Your professor, who is sick to death of reading papers and never liked Moby-Dick anyway, will think you are enormously creative. If you can regularly come up with lunatic interpretations of simple stories, you should major in English.
PHILOSOPHY: Basically, this involves sitting in a room and deciding there is no such thing as reality and then going to lunch. You should major in philosophy if you plan to take a lot of drugs.
PSYCHOLOGY: This involves talking about rats and dreams. Psychologists are obsessed with rats and dreams. I once spent an entire semester training a rat to punch little buttons in a certain sequence, then training my roommate to do the same thing. The rat learned much faster. My roommate is now a doctor. If you like rats or dreams, and above all if you dream about rats, you should major in psychology.
SOCIOLOGY: For sheer lack of intelligibility, sociology is far and away the number one subject. I sat through hundreds of hours of sociology courses, and read gobs of sociology writing, and I never once heard or read a coherent statement. This is because sociologists want to be considered scientists, so they spend most of their time translating simple, obvious observations into scientific-sounding code. If you plan to major in sociology, you'll have to learn to do the same thing. For example, suppose you have observed that children cry when they fall down. You should write: "Methodological observation of the sociometrical behavior tendencies of prematurated isolates indicates that a casual relationship exists between groundward tropism and lachrimatory, or 'crying,' behavior forms." If you can keep this up for fifty or sixty pages, you will get a large government grant.
- Dave Barry
Basically, you learn two kinds of things in college:
1. Things you will need to know in later life (two hours).
2. Things you will not need to know in later life (1,998 hours).
These are the things you learn in classes whose names end in -ology, -osophy, -istry, -ics, and so on. The idea is, you memorize these things, then write them down in little exam books, then forget them. If you fail to forget them, you become a professor and have to stay in college for the rest of your life.
It's very difficult to forget everything. For example, when I was in college, I had to memorize -- don't ask me why -- the names of three metaphysical poets other than John Donne. I have managed to forget one of them, but I still remember that the other two were named Vaughan and Crashaw. Sometimes, when I'm trying to remember something important like whether my wife told me to get tuna packed in oil or tuna packed in water, Vaughan and Crashaw just pop up in my mind, right there in the supermarket. It's a terrible waste of brain cells.
After you've been in college for a year or so, you're supposed to choose a major, which is the subject you intend to memorize and forget the most things about. Here is a very important piece of advice: be sure to choose a major that does not involve Known Facts and Right Answers. This means you must not major in mathematics, physics, biology, or chemistry, because these subjects involve actual facts. If, for example, you major in mathematics, you're going to wander into class one day and the professor will say: "Define the cosine integer of the quadrant of a rhomboid binary axis, and extrapolate your result to five significant vertices." If you don't come up with exactly the answer the professor has in mind, you fail. The same is true of chemistry: if you write in your exam book that carbon and hydrogen combine to form oak, your professor will flunk you. He wants you to come up with the same answer he and all the other chemists have agreed on.
Scientists are extremely snotty about this.
So you should major in subjects like English, philosophy, psychology, and sociology -- subjects in which nobody really understands what anybody else is talking about, and which involve virtually no actual facts. I attended classes in all these subjects, so I'll give you a quick overview of each:
ENGLISH: This involves writing papers about long books you have read little snippets of just before class. Here is a tip on how to get good grades on your English papers: Never say anything about a book that anybody with any common sense would say. For example, suppose you are studying Moby-Dick. Anybody with any common sense would say that Moby-Dick is a big white whale, since the characters in the book refer to it as a big white whale roughly eleven thousand times. So in your paper, you say Moby-Dick is actually the Republic of Ireland.
Your professor, who is sick to death of reading papers and never liked Moby-Dick anyway, will think you are enormously creative. If you can regularly come up with lunatic interpretations of simple stories, you should major in English.
PHILOSOPHY: Basically, this involves sitting in a room and deciding there is no such thing as reality and then going to lunch. You should major in philosophy if you plan to take a lot of drugs.
PSYCHOLOGY: This involves talking about rats and dreams. Psychologists are obsessed with rats and dreams. I once spent an entire semester training a rat to punch little buttons in a certain sequence, then training my roommate to do the same thing. The rat learned much faster. My roommate is now a doctor. If you like rats or dreams, and above all if you dream about rats, you should major in psychology.
SOCIOLOGY: For sheer lack of intelligibility, sociology is far and away the number one subject. I sat through hundreds of hours of sociology courses, and read gobs of sociology writing, and I never once heard or read a coherent statement. This is because sociologists want to be considered scientists, so they spend most of their time translating simple, obvious observations into scientific-sounding code. If you plan to major in sociology, you'll have to learn to do the same thing. For example, suppose you have observed that children cry when they fall down. You should write: "Methodological observation of the sociometrical behavior tendencies of prematurated isolates indicates that a casual relationship exists between groundward tropism and lachrimatory, or 'crying,' behavior forms." If you can keep this up for fifty or sixty pages, you will get a large government grant.
- Dave Barry
The Einstein and the Eddington
This little poem-lyric thing was written by physicist Dr. W. H. Williams of U.C. Berkeley. It is based on Lewis Carroll's lyric "The Walrus and the Carpenter." It has golf and science, so it was basically written for me. (Sir Arthur Eddington was the first astronomer to (seemingly) confirm Einstein's General Relativity and was one of the theories most knowedgable experts and one of its strongest supporters.)
The sun was setting on the links,_The moon looked down serene,_The caddies all had gone to bed,_But still there could be seen_Two players lingering by the trap_That guards the thirteenth green.
The Einstein and the Eddington_Were counting up their score;_The Einstein's card showed ninety-eight_And Eddington's was more._And both lay bunkered in the trap_And both stood there and swore.
I hate to see, the Einstein said;_Such quantities of sand;_Just why they placed a bunker here_I cannot understand._If one could smooth this landscape out,_I think it would be grand.
If seven maids with seven mops_Would sweep the fairway clean_I'm sure that I could make this hole_In less than seventeen._I doubt it, said the Eddington,_Your slice is pretty mean.
Then all the little golf balls came_To see what they were at,_And some of them were tall and thin_And some were short and fat,_A few of them were round and smooth,_But most of them were flat.
The time has come, said Eddington,_To talk of many things:_Of cubes and clocks and meter-sticks_And why a pendulum swings._And how far space is out of plumb,_And whether time has wings.
I learned at school the apple's fall_To gravity was due,_But now you tell me that the cause_Is merely G_mu-nu,_I cannot bring myself to think_That this is really true.
You say that gravitation's force_Is clearly not a pull._That space is mostly emptiness,_While time is nearly full;_And though I hate to doubt your word,_It sounds like a bit of bull.
And space, it has dimensions four,_Instead of only three._The square of the hypotenuse_Ain't what it used to be._It grieves me sore, the things you've done_To plane geometry.
You hold that time is badly warped,_That even light is bent:_I think I get the idea there,_If this is what you meant:_The mail the postman brings today,_Tomorrow will be sent.
If I should go Timbuctoo_With twice the speed of light,_And leave this afternoon at four,_I'd get back home last night._You've got it now, the Einstein said,_That is precisely right.
But if the planet Mercury_In going round the sun,_Never returns to where it was_Until its course is run,_The things we started out to do_Were better not begun.
And if before the past is through,_The future intervenes;_Then what's the use of anything;_Of cabbages or queens?_Pray tell me what's the bally use_Of Presidents and Deans.
The shortest line, Einstein replied,_Is not the one that's straight;_It curves around upon itself,_Much like a figure eight,_And if you go too rapidly_You will arrive too late.
But Easter day is Christmas time_And far away is near,_And two and two is more than four_And over there is here._You may be right, said Eddington,_It seems a trifle queer.
But thank you very, very much,_For troubling to explain;_I hope you will forgive my tears,_My head begins to pain;_I feel the symptoms coming on_Of softening of the brain.
The sun was setting on the links,_The moon looked down serene,_The caddies all had gone to bed,_But still there could be seen_Two players lingering by the trap_That guards the thirteenth green.
The Einstein and the Eddington_Were counting up their score;_The Einstein's card showed ninety-eight_And Eddington's was more._And both lay bunkered in the trap_And both stood there and swore.
I hate to see, the Einstein said;_Such quantities of sand;_Just why they placed a bunker here_I cannot understand._If one could smooth this landscape out,_I think it would be grand.
If seven maids with seven mops_Would sweep the fairway clean_I'm sure that I could make this hole_In less than seventeen._I doubt it, said the Eddington,_Your slice is pretty mean.
Then all the little golf balls came_To see what they were at,_And some of them were tall and thin_And some were short and fat,_A few of them were round and smooth,_But most of them were flat.
The time has come, said Eddington,_To talk of many things:_Of cubes and clocks and meter-sticks_And why a pendulum swings._And how far space is out of plumb,_And whether time has wings.
I learned at school the apple's fall_To gravity was due,_But now you tell me that the cause_Is merely G_mu-nu,_I cannot bring myself to think_That this is really true.
You say that gravitation's force_Is clearly not a pull._That space is mostly emptiness,_While time is nearly full;_And though I hate to doubt your word,_It sounds like a bit of bull.
And space, it has dimensions four,_Instead of only three._The square of the hypotenuse_Ain't what it used to be._It grieves me sore, the things you've done_To plane geometry.
You hold that time is badly warped,_That even light is bent:_I think I get the idea there,_If this is what you meant:_The mail the postman brings today,_Tomorrow will be sent.
If I should go Timbuctoo_With twice the speed of light,_And leave this afternoon at four,_I'd get back home last night._You've got it now, the Einstein said,_That is precisely right.
But if the planet Mercury_In going round the sun,_Never returns to where it was_Until its course is run,_The things we started out to do_Were better not begun.
And if before the past is through,_The future intervenes;_Then what's the use of anything;_Of cabbages or queens?_Pray tell me what's the bally use_Of Presidents and Deans.
The shortest line, Einstein replied,_Is not the one that's straight;_It curves around upon itself,_Much like a figure eight,_And if you go too rapidly_You will arrive too late.
But Easter day is Christmas time_And far away is near,_And two and two is more than four_And over there is here._You may be right, said Eddington,_It seems a trifle queer.
But thank you very, very much,_For troubling to explain;_I hope you will forgive my tears,_My head begins to pain;_I feel the symptoms coming on_Of softening of the brain.
I must be crazy...
I don’t really know what to say about Catch-22 so far. It is confusing, even unintelligible in spots. The characters fade in and out the story. The story jumps back in forth throughout time in an almost random sequence of flashbacks and it is futile to try and string together to events of the story in your head. And there is absolutely no plot (at least none so far). It violates or stretches almost every rule of literature that you can imagine. I love it. For some reason, I love this type of storyline. The book Jarhead (upon which the movie starring Jake Gyllenhall was based) was the same way. No definite plot, just a collection of anecdotes related by subject or approximate time. I guess plot ruins to current moment by introducing a new one. Once I find that moment, I don’t want it to end. Anyway, Catch-22 fits the bill and I really enjoy reading it.
All of the literary properties of the book that would normally make a story confusing, in this case, appeal greatly to me. I mean, reading this book never gets boring because it never focuses on one event or character for more than a number of pages. It is always unpredictable and is always a challenge to interpret. Reading this book is like spending a day with that kid who incessantly makes inside jokes to his friends in passing but never explains any of them as you follow along in complete humorless confusion. I hate that kid. But I still love this book.
However, I think the structure of Catch-22’s storyline is deliberate or at least effective in describing the wartime lives of the characters. It is easy to see a goal if you are reading a book or watching a movie that compresses years into hours. However, you would get lost if you read a book that took five years to read. That’s how I perceive the characters in this book. Their story is so long that they can’t see where they are going or where they have been. They only vaguely know if they are alive or dead, and that drives them.
I think the structure of the story reflects this attitude. Not really a story, just a collection of memories that are so convoluted that they cannot be ordered anymore, just recalled. I don’t know what that really means. The book also appeals greatly to my sense of humor. Everything in the story is backwards. Even old adages and clichés are backwards in this story. And yes, all of it highlights the absurdity of the war and the military hierarchy. It is so sarcastic and sardonic and ironic and I love it. So far, the military court scene with Clevinger has been my favorite part of the book. I can’t even describe how amazing it is.
Anyway, Heller’s persistence in maintaining the absurd environment in which Yossarian lives is inspiring. To tell the truth, I have no idea what is going on in this story. Heller has got me thinking that maybe I am the crazy one. And I think that’s exactly what he wants.
Sorry this blog is late Mr. Coon, but this time I just wanted to read further in the story before posting any commentary. The delay really didn’t help me any. Ironic.
All of the literary properties of the book that would normally make a story confusing, in this case, appeal greatly to me. I mean, reading this book never gets boring because it never focuses on one event or character for more than a number of pages. It is always unpredictable and is always a challenge to interpret. Reading this book is like spending a day with that kid who incessantly makes inside jokes to his friends in passing but never explains any of them as you follow along in complete humorless confusion. I hate that kid. But I still love this book.
However, I think the structure of Catch-22’s storyline is deliberate or at least effective in describing the wartime lives of the characters. It is easy to see a goal if you are reading a book or watching a movie that compresses years into hours. However, you would get lost if you read a book that took five years to read. That’s how I perceive the characters in this book. Their story is so long that they can’t see where they are going or where they have been. They only vaguely know if they are alive or dead, and that drives them.
I think the structure of the story reflects this attitude. Not really a story, just a collection of memories that are so convoluted that they cannot be ordered anymore, just recalled. I don’t know what that really means. The book also appeals greatly to my sense of humor. Everything in the story is backwards. Even old adages and clichés are backwards in this story. And yes, all of it highlights the absurdity of the war and the military hierarchy. It is so sarcastic and sardonic and ironic and I love it. So far, the military court scene with Clevinger has been my favorite part of the book. I can’t even describe how amazing it is.
Anyway, Heller’s persistence in maintaining the absurd environment in which Yossarian lives is inspiring. To tell the truth, I have no idea what is going on in this story. Heller has got me thinking that maybe I am the crazy one. And I think that’s exactly what he wants.
Sorry this blog is late Mr. Coon, but this time I just wanted to read further in the story before posting any commentary. The delay really didn’t help me any. Ironic.
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