/lit/ - Literature

[Anonymous No.13660211]

Give me some insightful thoughts about this book that I can parrot as my own.

[Anonymous No.13660226]

it's too spherical

[Anonymous No.13660232]

Its a book, buy it

[Anonymous No.13660259]

>>13660232
I already did.

[Anonymous No.13660266]

>>13660259
Read it

[Anonymous No.13660332]

>>13660266
I already did.

[Anonymous No.13660341]

>>13660332
What
>>13660211
The guy where yoosaruan is naked in a tree is like the Chaplin is gay and all that, but so are we all so the gay comes out as god and being quite shy. That’s why we don’t wanna get blown up! Well not only the gay, but also sex haha. That’s all I got.

[Anonymous No.13660352]

>>13660341
Is it actually about gay shit? I noticed some stuff that kind of pointed that way, but I don't know if I was just reading into it too much.

[Anonymous No.13660408]

Milo is the archetypal ubermensch

[Anonymous No.13660457]

>>13660408
Which one was he again?

[Anonymous No.13660468]

>>13660457
Everybody has a share

[Anonymous No.13660471]

>>13660457
Nevermind, I remember now.

[Anonymous No.13660511]

>>13660211
Halfway through the book Yossarian laments to someone else (IDK who maybe Clevinger) that "he's the bravest person he knows." I think about it a lot because he's literally sabotaging his own guys to get out of war but it also kind of makes sense for someone who values their own life more than some vague military order that just came from some guy. In reality, he is very brave because he literally stood naked in formation and stared down the general honoring him. He moved the bomb line to keep from needing to fly over Bologna and did everything that it took to save his life and (try to) save his friends.

[Anonymous No.13660550]

>>13660511
>and (try to) save his friends
I actually disagree with this. I think the great flaw of Yossarian's character is that he gets other people fucked over all the time. Similar to the guy who crashes the jeep while drunk and says after the fact that he should have listened when someone said to turn on the headlights, Yossarian laments the pain he causes others but never actually changes his actions. He is responsible for what happens to the Chaplain, as well as the deaths when they are forced to return to Bologna. He really realizes how shitty he's being when he poses as the dead soldier for the family in chapter 18.

[Anonymous No.13660559]

>>13660211
>let's interrogate him now, he might say something incriminating!

[Anonymous No.13660595]

>>13660550
That's actually kind of a good point. I guess the Washington Irving shit he did kind of represent how over time behavior like that would lead to issues up the line. Just like bologna but at a smaller scale.

[Anonymous No.13660665]

>>13660595
>I guess the Washington Irving shit he did kind of represent how over time behavior like that would lead to issues up the line.
Yeah, Yossarian spends most of the book rebelling against the command structure because they're all retarded. But the CID men who come looking for Washington Irving are retarded too, and they still cause actual real life damage to the chaplain because of Yossarian. This mirrors the structure of the book, where the reader spends most of the time laughing at how moronic everyone is, but at the end you get suckerpuched with Snowden's death, showing that they might be laughable but they cause real damage to people.

[Anonymous No.13660686]

>>13660457
Did you read the book? You sound pretty retarded.

[Anonymous No.13660696]

>>13660686
See >>13660471

[Anonymous No.13662041]

>>13660211
Here's some free takes that are all pretty much correct

Yossarian is a Jew and the entire book is basically a Jew's-eye view of the goyim.

Yossarian is a barely-competent, solipsistic goldbricker who makes up outrageous cope/power fantasies about how corrupt and incompetent everyone who outranks him is (must) be as self-justification.

I don't know about WW2 bomber squadrons, but the book is an incredibly true portrayal of what life is like in military medical facilities minus the horny nurses fucking patients in closets (see above re:fantasy).

One of Heller's big tricks, which you won't recognize unless you're familiar with the above points, is that he immediately makes Yossarian look like a malingerer (book opens with him basically playing possum in a hospital aka sham central) then trickle-feeds details about Yossarian's bravery and preternatural competence as a way to mock the informed reader for JUDGING Yossarian too early on.

The book is a good portrayal of the incomprehension with which the average soldier views strategic decisions. The actual objectives of Yossarian's squadron appear completely surrealistically inscrutable to him. Presumably these objectives are detailed in the briefings during which him and his buddies play grab-ass with each other. The reader never hears the contents because Yossarian doesn't pay attention to them.