American Literature books summary

Yossarian talks to Orr, who tells him an irritating story about how he liked to keep crab apples in his cheeks when he was younger. Yossarian briefly remembers the time a whore had beaten Orr over the head with her shoe in Rome outside Nately's whore's kid sister's room. Yossarian notices that Orr is even smaller than Huple, who lives near Hungry Joe's tent. Hungry Joe has nightmares whenever he isn't scheduled to fly a mission the next day; his screaming keeps the whole camp awake. Hungry Joe's tent is near a road where the men sometimes pick up girls and take them out to the the tall grass near the open-air movie theater that a U.S.O. troupe visited that same afternoon. The troupe was sent by an ambitious general named P.P. Peckem, who hopes to take over the command of Yossarian's wing from General Dreedle. General Peckem's troubleshooter Colonel Cargill, who used to be a spectacular failure as a marketing executive and who is now a spectacular failure as a colonel. Yossarian feels sick, but Doc Daneeka still refuses to ground him. Doc Daneeka advises Yossarian to be like Havermeyer and make the best of it; Havermeyer is a fearless lead bombardier. Yossarian thinks that he himself is a lead bombardier filled with a very healthy fear. Havermeyer likes to shoot mice in the middle of the night; once, he woke Hungry Joe and caused him to dive into one of the slit trenchs that have appeared nightly beside every tent since Milo Minderbinder, the mess officer, bombed the squadron.

Hungry Joe is crazy, and though Yossarian tries to help him, Hungry Joe won't listen to his advice because he thinks Yossarian is crazy. Doc Daneeka doesn't believe Hungry Joe has problems--he thinks only he has problems, because his lucrative medical practice was ended by the war. Yossarian remembers trying to disrupt the educational meeting in Captain Black's intelligence tent by asking unanswerable questions, which caused Group Headquarters to make a rule that the only people who could ask questions were the ones who never did. This rule comes from Colonel Cathcart and Lieutenant Colonel Korn, who also approved the skeet shooting range where Yossarian can never hit anything. Dunbar loves shooting skeet because he hates it and it makes the time go more slowly; his goal is to live as long as possible by slowing down time, so he loves boredom and discomfort, and he argues about this with Clevinger.

Doc Daneeka lives in a tent with an alcoholic Indian named Chief White Halfoat, where he tells Yossarian about some sexually inept newlyweds he had in his office once. Chief White Halfoat comes in and tells Yossarian that Doc Daneeka is crazy and then relates the story of his own family: everywhere they went, someone struck oil, and so oil companies sent agents and equipment to follow them wherever they went. Doc Daneeka still refuses to ground Yossarian, who asks if he would be grounded if he were crazy. Doc Daneeka says yes, and Yossarian decides to go crazy. But that solution is too easy: there is a catch. Doc Daneeka tells Yossarian about Catch-22, which holds that, to be grounded for insanity, a pilot must ask to be grounded, but that any pilot who asks to be grounded must be sane. Impressed, Yossarian takes Doc Daneeka's word for it, just as he had taken Orr's word about the flies in Appleby's eyes. Orr insists there are flies in Appleby's eyes, and though Yossarian has no idea what Orr means, he believes Orr because he has never lied to him before. They once told Appleby about the flies, so that Appleby was worried on the way to a briefing, after which they all took off in B-25s for a bombing run. Yossarian shouted directions to the pilot, McWatt, to avoid antiaircraft fire while Yossarian dropped the bombs. Another time while they were taking evasive action Dobbs went crazy and started screaming "Help him," while the plane spun out of control and Yossarian believed he was going to die. In the back of the plane, Snowden was dying.

Chapters 6-10

Hungry Joe has his fifty missions, but the orders to send him home never come, and he continues to scream all through every night. Doc Daneeka persists in feeling sorry for himself while ignoring Hungry Joe's problems. Hungry Joe is driven crazy by noises, and is mad with lust--he is desperate to take pictures of naked women, but the pictures never come out. He pretends to be an important Life magazine photographer, and the irony is that he really was a photographer for Life before the war. Hungry Joe has flown six tours of duty, but every time he finishes one Colonel Cathcart raises the number of missions required before Hungry Joe is sent home. When this happens, the nightmares stop until Hungry Joe finishes another tour. Colonel Cathcart is very brave about sending his men into dangerous situations--no situation is too dangerous, just as no ping-pong shot is too hard for Appleby. One night Orr attacked Appleby in the middle of a game; a fight broke out, and Chief White Halfoat busted Colonel Moodus, General Dreedle's son-in-law, in the nose. General Dreedle enjoyed that so much he kept calling Chief White Halfoat in to repeat the performance--but the Indian remains a marginal figure in the camp, much like Major Major, who was promoted to squadron commander while playing basketball and who has been ostracized ever since. Also, Ex-P.F.C. Wintergreen explains to Yossarian how Catch-22 requires him to fly the extra missions Colonel Cathcart orders, even though Twenty-Seventh Air Force regulations only demand forty missions.

Yossarian's pilot, McWatt, is possibly the craziest of all the men, because he is perfectly sane but he does not mind the war. He is smiling and polite and loves to whistle show tunes. He is impressed with Milo--but not as impressed as Milo was with the letter Yossarian got from Doc Daneeka about his liver, which ordered the mess hall to give Yossarian all the fresh fruit he wanted, which, in turn, Yossarian refused to eat, because if his liver improved he couldn't go to the hospital whenever he wanted. Milo is involved in the black market, and he tries to convince Yossarian to go in with him in selling the fruit, but Yossarian refuses. Milo is indignant when he learns that a C.I.D. (Criminal Investigation Division) man is searching for a criminal who has been forging Washington Irving's name in censored letters--it is Yossarian who used to pass time in the hospital by writing the letters. But Milo is convinced the C.I.D. man is trying to set him up because of his black market activity. Milo wants to organize the men into a syndicate, as he demonstrates by returning McWatt's stolen bedsheet in pieces--half for McWatt, a quarter for Milo, and so on. Milo has a grasp on some confusing economics: he manages to make a profit buying eggs in Malta for seven cents apiece and selling them in Pianosa for five cents apiece.

Not even Clevinger understands that, but though he is a dope, he usually understands everything, except why Yossarian insists that so many people are trying to kill him. Yossarian remembers training in America with Clevinger under Lieutenant Scheisskopf, who was obsessed with parades, and whose wife, along with her friend Dori Duz, used to sleep with all the men under her husband's command. Lieutenant Scheisskopf hated Clevinger, and finally got him sent to trial under a belligerant colonel. Clevinger is stunned when he realizes that Lieutenant Scheisskopf and the colonel truly hate him, in a way that no enemy soldier ever could.

Given a horrible name at birth because of his father's horrible sense of humor, Major Major Major was chagrined when, the day he joined the army, he was promoted to Major by an IBM machine with an equally horrible sense of humor, making him Major Major Major Major. Major Major Major Major also looks vaguely like Henry Fonda, and did so well in school that he was suspected of being a Communist and monitored by the FBI. His sudden promotion stunned his drill sergeant, who had to train a man who was suddenly his superior officer. Luckily, Major Major applied for aviation cadet training, and was sent to Lieutenant Scheisskopf. Not long after arriving in Pianosa, he was made squadron commander by an irate Colonel Cathcart, after which he lost all his new friends. Major Major has always been a drab, mediocre sort of person, and had never had friends before; he lapses into an awkward depression and refuses to be seen in his office except when he isn't there. To make himself feel better, Major Major forges Washington Irving's name to official documents. He is confused about everything, including his official relationship to Major ----- de Coverley, his executive officer: He doesn't know whether he is Major ----- de Coverlay's subordinate, or vice versa. A C.I.D. man comes to investigate the Washington Irving scandal, but Major Major denies knowledge, and the incompetent C.I.D. man believes him--as does another C.I.D. man who arrives shortly thereafter, then leaves to investigate the first C.I.D. man. Major Major takes to wearing dark glasses and a false mustache when forging Washington Irving's name. One day Major Major is tackled by Yossarian, who demands to be grounded. Sadly, Major Major tells Yossarian that there is nothing he can do.

Clevinger's plane disappeared in a cloud off the coast of Elba, and he is presumed dead. Yossarian finds the disappearance as stunning as that of a whole squadron of sixty-four men who all deserted in one day. Then he tells ex-P.F.C. Wintergreen the news, but ex-P.F.C. Wintergreen isn't impressed with the disappearance. Ex-P.F.C. Wintergreen continually goes AWOL, then is required to dig holes and fill them up again--work he seems to enjoy. One day ex-P.F.C. Wintergreen nicked a water pipe, and water sprayed everywhere, leading to mass confusion much like that of the night seven months later when Milo bombed the camp. Word spread that the water was oil, and Chief White Halfoat was kicked off the base. Around this time, Appleby tried to turn Yossarian in for not taking his Atabrine tablets, but the only time he was allowed to go into Major Major's office was when Major Major wasn't there. Yossarian remembers Mudd, a soldier who died immediately after arriving at the camp, and whose belongings are still in Yossarian's tent. The belongings are contaminated with death in the same way that the whole camp was contaminated before the deadly mission of the Great Big Siege of Bologna, for which Colonel Cathcart bravely volunteered his men. During this time even sick men were not allowed to be grounded by doctors. Dr. Stubbs is overwhelmed with cynicism, and asks what the point is of saving lives when everyone dies anyway. Dunbar says that the point is to live as long as you can and forget about the fact that you will eventually die.

Chapters 11-16

Captain Black is pleased to hear the news that Colonel Cathcart has volunteered the men for the lethally dangerous mission of bombing Bologna. Captain Black thinks the men are bastards, and gloats about their terrifying, violent task. Captain Black is extremely ambitious, and hoped to be promoted to squadron commander; when Major Major was picked over him, he lapsed into a deep depression, which the Bologna mission lifts him out of. Captain Black first tried to get revenge on Major Major by initiating the Glorious Loyalty Oath Crusade, when he forced all the men to swear elaborate oaths of loyalty before doing basic things like eating meals. He refused to let Major Major sign a loyalty oath, and hoped thereby to make him appear disloyal. The Glorious Loyalty Oath Crusade was a major event in the camp, until the fearsome Major ----- de Coverley put a stop to it by hollering "Give me eat!" in the mess hall without signing an oath.

It rains interminably before the Bologna mission, and the bombing run is delayed by the rain. The men all hope it will never stop raining, and when it does, Yossarian moves the bomb line on the map so that the commanding officers will think Bologna has already been captured. Then the rain starts again. In the meantime, Ex-P.F.C. Wintergreen tries to sell Yossarian a cigarette lighter, thus going into competition with Milo as a black market trader. He is aghast that Milo has cornered the entire world market for Egyptian cotton but is unable to unload any of it. The men are terrified and miserable over Bologna. Clevenger and Yossarian argue about whether it is Yossarian's duty to bomb Bologna, and by the middle of the second week of waiting, everyone in the squadron looks like Hungry Joe. One night Yossarian, Nately, and Dunbar go for a drunken drive with Chief White Halfoat; they crash the jeep, and realize it has stopped raining. Back in the tents, Hungry Joe is trying to shoot Huple's cat, which has been giving him nightmares, and the men force Hungry Joe to fight the cat fairly. The cat runs away, and Hungry Joe is the self-satisfied winner; then he goes back to sleep and has another nightmare about the cat.

Major ----- de Coverley is a daunting, majestic man with a lion's mane of white hair, an eagle's gaze, and a transparent eyepatch. Everyone is afraid of him, and no one will talk to him. His sole duties include travelling to major cities captured by the Americans and renting rooms for his men to take rest leaves in; he spends the rest of his time playing horseshoes. He is so good at his room- renting duties that he always manages to be photographed with the first wave of American troops moving into a city, a fact which perplexes both the enemy and the American commanders. Major ----- de Coverley is a force of nature, but when Yossarian moved the bomb line, he was fooled and traveled to enemy-controlled Bologna; he still has not returned. Once, Milo approached him on the horseshoe range and convinced him to authorize Milo to import eggs with Air Force planes. This elated the men, except for Colonel Cathcart, whose spur-of-the-moment attempt to promote Major Major failed, unlike his attempt to give Yossarian a medal some time earlier, which succeeded. Back when Yossarian was brave, he circled over a target twice in order to hit it; on the second overpass, Mudd was killed by shrapnel. The authorities didn't know how to rebuke Yossarian for his foolhardiness, so they decided to stave off criticism by giving him a medal.

The squadron finally receives the go-ahead to bomb Bologna, and by this time Yossarian doesn't feel like going over the target even once. He pretends that his plane's intercom system is broken and orders his men to turn back. They land at the deserted airfield just before dawn, feeling strangely morose; Yossarian takes a nap on the beach and wakes up when the planes fly back. Not a single plane has been hit. Yossarian thinks that there must have been too many clouds for the men to bomb the city, and that they will have to make another attempt, but he is wrong. There was no antiaircraft fire, and the city was bombed with no losses to the Americans.

Captain Pilchard and Captain Wren ineffectually reprimand Yossarian and his crew for turning back, then inform the men that they will have to bomb Bologna again, as they missed the ammunition dumps the first time. Yossarian confidently flies in, assuming there will be no antiaircraft fire, and is stunned when shrapnel begins firing up toward him through the skies. He furiously directs McWatt through evasive maneuvers, and fights with the strangely cheerful Aarfy until the bombs are dropped; Yossarian doesn't die, and the plane lands safely. He heads immediately for emergency rest leave in Rome, where he meets Luciana the same night.

Luciana is a beautiful Italian girl Yossarian meets at a bar in Rome. After he buys her dinner and dances with her, she agrees to sleep with him, but not right then--she will come to his room the next morning. She does, then angrily refuses to sleep with Yossarian until she cleans his room--she disgustedly calls him a pig. Finally, she lets him sleep with her. Afterward, Yossarian falls in love with her and asks her to marry him; she says she can't marry him because he's crazy, and he's crazy because he wants to marry her, because no one in their right mind would marry a girl who wasn't a virgin. She tells him about a scar she got when the Americans bombed her town. Suddenly, Hungry Joe rushes in with his camera, and Yossarian and Luciana have to get dressed. Laughing, they go outside, where they part ways. Luciana gives Yossarian her number, telling him she expects that he will tear it up as soon as she leaves, self-impressed that such a pretty girl would sleep with him for free. He asks her why on Earth he would do such a thing. As soon as she leaves, Yossarian, self-impressed that such a pretty girl would sleep with him for free, tears up her number. Almost immediately, he regrets it, and, after learning that Colonel Cathcart has raised the number of missions to forty, he makes the anguished decision to go straight to the hospital.

Chapters 17-21

Things are better at the hospital, Yossarian decides, than they are on a bomb run with Snowden dying in the back whispering "I'm cold." At the hospital, Death is orderly and polite, and there is no inexplicable violence. Dunbar is in the hospital with Yossarian, and they are both perplexed by the soldier in white, a man completely covered in plaster bandages. The men in the hospital discuss the injustice of mortality--some men are killed and some aren't, some men get sick and some don't, with no reference to who deserves what. Some time earlier Clevinger saw justice in it, but Yossarian was too busy keeping track of all the forces trying to kill him to listen. Later, he and Hungry Joe collect lists of fatal diseases with which they worry Doc Daneeka, who is the only person who can ground Yossarian, according to Major Major. Doc Daneeka tells Yossarian to fly his fifty-five missions, and he'll think about helping him.

The first time Yossarian ever goes to the hospital, he is still a private. He feigns an abdominal pain, then mimics the mysterious ailment of the soldier who saw everything twice. He spends Thanksgiving in the hospital, and vows to spend all future Thanksgivings there; but he spends the next Thanksgiving in bed with Lieutenant Scheisskopf's wife, arguing about God. Once Yossarian is "cured" of seeing everything twice, he is asked to pretend to be a dying soldier for a mother and father who have traveled to see their son, who died that morning. Yossarian allows them to bandage his face, and pretends to be the soldier.

The ambitious Colonel Cathcart browbeats the chaplain, demanding prayer before each bombing run, then abandons the idea when he realizes that the Saturday Evening Post, where he got the idea, probably wouldn't give him any publicity for it. The chaplain timidly mentions that some of the men have complained about Colonel Cathcart's habit of raising the number of missions required every few weeks, but Colonel Cathcart ignores him. On his way home, the chaplain meets Colonel Korn, Colonel Cathcart's wily, cynical sidekick, who mocks Colonel Cathcart in front of the chaplain and is highly suspicious of the plum tomato Colonel Cathcart gave the chaplain. At his tent in the woods, the chaplain encounters the hostile Corporal Whitcomb, his atheist assistant, who resents him deeply for holding back his career. Corporal Whitcomb tells the chaplain that a C.I.D. man suspects him of signing Washington Irving's name to official papers, and of stealing plum tomatoes. The poor chaplain is very unhappy, helpless to improve anyone's life.

Colonel Cathcart is preoccupied with the problem of Yossarian, who has become a real black eye for him, most recently by complaining about the number of missions, but previously by appearing naked at his own medal ceremony shortly after Snowden's death. Colonel Cathcart wishes he knew how to solve the problem and impress General Dreedle, his commanding officer. General Dreedle doesn't care what his men do, as long as they remain reliable military quantities. He travels everywhere with a buxom nurse, and worries mostly about Colonel Moodus, his despised son in law, whom he occasionally asks Chief White Halfoat to punch in the nose. Once Colonel Korn tried to undercut Colonel Cathcart by giving a flamboyant briefing to impress General Dreedle; General Dreedle told Colonel Cathcart that Colonel Korn made him sick.

Chapters 22-26

Yossarian loses his nerve on the mission that follows Colonel Korn's extravagant briefing, the mission where Snowden is killed and spattered all over Yossarian's uniform when Dobbs goes crazy and seizes the plane's controls from Huple. As he dies, Snowden pleads with Yossarian to help him; he says he is cold. Dobbs is a terrible pilot and a wreck of a man, and he later tells Yossarian he plans to kill Colonel Cathcart before he raises the mission total again; he asks Yossarian to give him the go-ahead, but Yossarian is unable to do so, so Dobbs abandons his plan. Yossarian thinks that Dobbs is almost as bad as Orr, with whom Yossarian and Milo recently took a trip to stock up on supplies. As they travel, Orr and Yossarian gradually realize the extent of Milo's control over the black market and vast international influence: he is the mayor of Palermo, the Assistant Governor-General of Malta, the Vice-Shah of Oran, the Caliph of Baghdad, the Imam of Damascus, the Sheik of Araby, and is worshipped as a god in parts of Africa. Each region has embraced him because he revitalized their economy with his syndicate, in which everybody has a share. Nevertheless, throughout their trip, Orr and Yossarian are forced to sleep in the plane while Milo enjoys lavish palaces, and they are finally awakened in the middle of the night so that Milo can rush his shipment of red bananas to their next stop.

One evening Nately finds his whore in Rome again after a long search. He tries to convince Yossarian and Aarfy to take two of her friends for thirty dollars each. Aarfy objects that he has never had to pay for sex. Nately's whore is sick of Nately, and begins to swear at him; then Hungry Joe arrives, and the group abandons Aarfy and goes to the apartment building where the girls live. Here they find a seemingly endless flow of naked young women; Hungry Joe is torn between taking in the scene and rushing back for his camera. Nately argues with an old man who lives at the building about nationalism and moral duty--the old man claims Italy is doing better than America in the war because it has already been occupied, so Italian boys are no longer being killed. He gleefully admits to swearing loyalty to whatever nation happens to be in power. The patriotic, idealistic Nately cannot believe his ears, and argues somewhat haltingly for America's international supremacy and the values it represents. But he is troubled because, though they are absolutely nothing alike, the old man reminds him of his father.

Страницы: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19, 20, 21, 22, 23, 24, 25, 26