NaNoReMo - completed

[dirtylibrarian]

I generously gave myself a 10 hour grace period...and I am now done!  Hooray!

I'm glad I took this excuse to read Catch-22.  I don't think I would have made it very far on my own (I think I only got in a few chapters in high school).  There was a long while where I was just frustrated by the seeming lack of plot and overabundance of confusing characters.  But once I started to get that it was gradually circling back to one defining event, a moment of truth in a maddening chaos of lies, brutality,  greed, and mind numbing bureaucracy, then I was with it.  And what a perfect book to read during a war that makes even less sense than the one it is criticizing.  The bits about war profiteering stood out in particular.  And the massive unnecessary loss of life.  I see now why he needed so many characters in the beginning. 

While I was reading the book I wasn't sure if I was enjoying or even liked it, but the ending really won me over (and not just the relief of getting through it).  If you haven't read it, I do recommend it.  Between this and Battle of the Sexes in Science Fiction, I read fewer individual titles this month than I have in a very very long time, and I now have a huge pile of teen books and graphic novels to whittle down or just return.  But I'm glad I took the time for this.

Comments

[holyoutlaw.livejournal.com]

I never read Catch-22. I picked it up from the pile of library books my dad had brought home one day, I was probably eight or ten. The page and a half I can remember reading sounded interesting, even though I didn't understand the use of "whore" as in "Yossarian's whore was hitting him with a shoe." My father took it away from me and said it was not fit for a boy my age. Hah!

[dirtylibrarian.livejournal.com]

That is a funny story. It does have a lot of whores in it.