No War Can Be Born Again - Joseph Heller's Twenty-Second Military Rule

I'm going to make people laugh first, and then go back and look back with fear about everything they've laughed about. --Joseph Heller

"Military Rule 22" is a powerful novel. From the perspective of content, style, language, etc., it has broken through the rules of previous novel writing and created a new school of novel writing - absurdity; and a new way of literary expression - black humor literature.

The story takes place in a U.S. air base in the Mediterranean Sea south of Italy, where the squadron of the protagonist, Captain Josselin, is stationed on this island.

If viewed from above, it seems that everyone on the island is fully engaged in the war with Germany -- the pilots, the cooks, the doctors, the nurses, the upper lieutenant generals, the upper lieutenants, the upper lieutenants are busy, and everyone seems to be doing their duty to serve this just war.

But the author asks the reader to swoop down from a high altitude and land in the middle of this group of people, using a magnifying glass to observe their absurd and crazy words and deeds under the camouflage of methodical planning of operations and the defeat of the enemy army.

Some of them revealed their evil nature in a state of war, doing as much as they could to harm others and themselves; others became victims, collapsing physically and mentally, frantically searching for a way to survive.

With 30 characters highlighted and numerous minor characters taking turns, life on the island is not interesting at all, but in this seemingly chaotic novel, there are distinct images, personalities, and deeds, and for most of them, life on the island is not interesting at all, but rather terrifying.

Their real enemy was not the Germans, but their superiors, who were directly in control of their destiny. They are actually weak and kind at heart, bent on escaping from this seemingly reasonable but chaotic and absurd world. Is Sweden really the way out that all of them can reach? Sweden escaped World War II, can it escape all other wars?

The Twenty-second Military Regulation focuses on "organized chaos" and "institutionalized madness." The novel had a huge impact when it came out, and its English name catch-22 has even been incorporated into the English dictionary, which means the ruler's foolishness of the people, but also implies the people's criticism of the ruler. In addition to this, catch-22 also symbolizes that people live in a ridiculous dilemma.

With his "black humor" style and quiet writing, Heller portrays a group of absurd soldiers living in a world disordered by war, which reflects Heller's anti-war ideas and superb narrative skills.

In Heller's pen, catch-22 is like a mysterious and inescapable force, people can't see its existence, but it controls the actions of all soldiers, even all of them, all the time.

Although at the end of the text, Joséren chose to flee to neutral Sweden, I still can't believe that Joséren would escape the control of the catch-22. It is an undeniable fact that as long as there is war, there will be no one who is not affected by war.

So I think Heller must also be expressing this theme: without war, there will be new hope.