Sorry Catch-22

The yowbook choice for May was Joseph Heller's Catch 22. A few days before yowbooks was supposed to convene, emails started circulating the as-of-late silent listserve to confirm / enquire about people's availability. One by one, the yowbookers started replying that they i) hadn't yet bought the book; ii) hadn't yet gotten past page x; and iii) coincidentally were not free on the chosen evening. My move to Recife, scheduled for the same day as the meeting was a perfect excuse [I still haven't moved, but that is a story for another time ....]. Eventually Bookclubber Larry made an executive decision and cancelled the meeting. Thank goodness! It isn't often that I truly cannot get through a book, and maybe I didn't give Catch-22 the chance that it deserved, but I just could not imagine reading all 467 pages of this "American Classic". My main issues being the slow torturous pace combined with a writing style that does not mix well with me.

There is an unwritten rule that bookclub members are not allowed to diss a book online before the meeting. We are such a fragile bunch, that we worry that unkind words towards a book would discourage the fence-sitters from buckling down and finishing the book. So when the emails were circulating, I tried my hardest to stick to the facts and not offer unsolicited opinion on the book. But now that the meeting has been cancelled, I can say that Catch-22 was not one of our better picks. If anyone has read it, let me know what you thought. I would be willing to give it another chance if there were enough positive public opinion.

Our next read is Reading Lolita in Tehran by Azar Nafisi.