You know, since I finished reading A Confederacy of Dunces I’ve been looking for similar novels that scratch that particular itch I have for absurdist humor. There’s precious little of that available, however. So, after finishing the book, I went online and looked up a few lists for must-read novels. One title that was prominent on all the lists was Catch-22, a novel taking place on the Italian front in the Second World War, and was supposedly themed around the absurdity and futility of war. The Time Magazine and had placed it on the top 100 English-language modern novels list and the Observer had titled it as one of the top 100 greatest novels in general. The book seemed to align with my tastes and since it had received such great praise, I decided to give it a go.

Little did I know what I was in for. At the point of writing this, I started the 544-page book a few months ago and I am yet to finish it. Not that the book is bad, quite the opposite. Critics of modern literature don’t throw around such praise like confetti. The book is well written and paced, the characters are many and distinctive, and the overall storytelling works well with the established themes. So why do I struggle getting through it? I’m usually a fast reader and my enthusiasm for absurdism should only boost my efforts.

I have a few nitpicks with the book. First, as I said the characters are distinctive. There’s a method to test this claim; describe a character without referring to their name, looks or trade (in other words, mainly referring to their personality). If a person would be able to name that character accurately by that description, the character is likely very distinctive, and I’d say all the characters in the book are just that. However, I’m a bit overwhelmed by the sheer volume of personalities on display. Almost every chapter introduces a new character, so titles, ranks, relationships and names that you have to remember keep piling on more and more as you progress through the book. Okay, so the chaplain, who is a captain, has this kind of personality, he has this kind of backstory, he works with a corporal whom he has a complicated relationship with and he relates to the other thirty established characters in these various ways… At some point, enough is enough. My brain already has limited space for new information. If I’m introduced to one more new character I’m sure that I will forget some other stuff I’ve learned like some of the original 150 Pokémon.

The way that the book is written certainly doesn’t help. It is written well, I assure you, but one man can’t consume an entire wedding cake alone, no matter how well it has been made. Most of the humor in the book comes from the way it is written, sort of like in The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy. That is good, I approve. However, this means that some of if not most of the sentences will drag on for several lines accumulating witty turns of phrases and adjectives as they go. So, at the end of a paragraph-long sentence I’ve already forgotten how it started, which doesn’t really help with making me remember and understand stuff.

Not that there’s nothing I enjoy about the book. There’s a chapter that centers around a bombing mission over Avignon, and the humorist mood of the book takes a turn to dramatic, and things actually get suspenseful. I’d say that chapter has been the highlight of the book for me, since it doesn’t completely abandon the humor, but rather uses the absurdist nature of it to build up the suspense on whether or not the characters will get out alive. I don’t want to spoil anything, so I won’t go into detail on how it works, but the book utilizes the established motif of craziness to its advantage.

The biggest stumbling block I’ve come across with the book by far, however, has nothing to do with the book itself. It’s not you, Catch-22, it’s me. I’m just going to go and say it: I don’t find it that funny. You might think not being funny for a humorist novel is a bit of a downside, and you’d be right. But as I mentioned, the book is written in a way I like and I love absurdist humor. So, where does the problem lie?

The problem with any joke is that if you have already heard it, the element of surprise is gone, and so is the humor value. Unfortunately for Catch-22, I picked it up after I had been exposed to a masterful military satire and comedic marvel, Blackadder Goes Forth. The fourth series of the British sitcom Blackadder from the 1980s is not only gut-wrenchingly funny, but also deals with the absurdity of war and futility of being a tiny, expendable cog in a huge war machine. Both Catch-22 and Blackadder Goes Forth tell the story of a captain desperately trying to escape the war they have been sucked into, how they have to deal with their superiors, who are classic armchair generals distanced from the actual horrors of war, and their brothers-in-arms, who are in places crazy and incompetent and whom the protagonists resent with passion.

Blackadder Goes Forth is, in my opinion, the best of the series and I watch clips of it religiously on YouTube. It’s a shame that I was exposed to it and Catch-22 in this order; I think I would’ve still preferred Blackadder to Catch-22, but I would’ve enjoyed the latter a whole lot more. I will finish the book, but if you subtract the humor out of a humorist book, then all that are left are words without deeper effect, and the experience turns into not unlike reading a dictionary. So, pardon me for taking my time with the book. At least it does not suck like Fatherland, so I don’t have the excuse to not finish it.

I highly recommend reading Catch-22 if you’re into military satire or absurdism, but only on the condition that you haven’t consumed anything similar but funnier. I have, and I still push through one chapter a night. In the words of General Sir Anthony Cecil Hogmanay Melchett: “If nothing else works, a total pig-headed unwillingness to look facts in the face will see us through.”