Just when Ol’ Matty thinks he’s got it made, escaping the island, making a new best friend, headed to a new island of wine and people, he start to suspect a strange truth when he is drafted into World War II. Ol’ Matty and his new-new best friend Yo-Yo navigate the perils of the war and, worse, Joseph Heller’s ultimate paradoxical tragedy Catch-22. Thrilling dogfights, tomatoes and potato peelers bloodily fly with Ol’ Matty through the bullet drenched sky as Ol’ Matty comes to learn Joseph Heller’s ultimate truth and confirms his initial suspicion: People are trash, and that may just make life worth living. Damn you, you beautiful Catch-22.
EPISODE NOTES:
A contradiction from beginning to end, when Catch-22 was published in 1961, to a harsh contemporaneous reception and no awards, and then became a best-selling classic, renowned as a masterpiece of the 20th century. Yet Joseph Heller, former WW2 Bombardier and one of the greatest satirists of literature, still found a way to be bitter. Now, everyone’s other favourite contradiction, so he tells me, Ol’ Matty tries to eat the legendary catch. It’s not a fish.
Ol’ Matty has escaped the tropical Tartarus that was his island, filled with malevolent tribes with lasers and laserdiscs, boars as paddlepop sticks and Jim Pawsby doing a wicked sick unicycle flip off the volcano into the unknown. Perhaps that’s the last we’ll see of him. Hopefully. How Ol’ Matty thinks that bear would make an interesting and enduring series nemesis is anybody’s guess, but I won’t bother. He is, as he tells me, a “Stupid genius”.
Ol’ Matty’s salvation came in the form of Major ____ de Coverley, recruiting our inept intrepid hero for his skill (?) of turning literature into sandwiches. What Ol’ Matty thought was a free ride to the vineyard island Pianosa was a cunning ruse (not that cunning) and he was immediately drafted as a bombardier, meeting his newest best friend Yo-Yo. Together, they read through The Match by Colson Whitehead, a hard-hitting short story rife with tragic contradictions, graduate bombardier academy and fly head first into the dog fights of World War 2. Ol’ Matty was having too much fun.
The dogfight in the skies, already a questionable expression, becomes all the more confusing with the addition of more assorted animals, enemies and mischief. I’m pretty sure I heard a nuke somewhere in the mix. He couldn’t just have a simple little World War, could he? No one questioned Ol’ Matty’s paws at the joystick, however, so small victories. But then the Colonel wanted them to finish their mission count and get the hell off his base, so Ol’ Matty made the great sacrifice for friendship and pulled some strings to keep them in the war. Friends will be friends. Yo-Yo was…displeased, and before long, so was the entire airbase. Help the war effort, Ol’ Matty, and leave. Please.
All the same, Ol’ Matty has created a scrumptious enigma of a delicious word sandwich, an edible contradiction, partly truth and partly fiction, with all the brutality, perseverance, wit and cynicism of Joseph Heller’s story, along with all the beauty, humanity, tenderness and poetry of that very same story. I’m surprised he didn’t put a coin in there, or, better yet, a nickel. Do so at your own risk, Quixotes.
Catch-22 is the satirical war novel by American author Joseph Heller about WW2 bombadier Captain John Yossarian, the perfect audience surrogate being a deeply flawed anti-hero. Most of the events in the book occur while the fictional 256th US Army Air Squadron is based on the island of Pianosa, an island not nearly big enough to hold an airbase. Catch-22’s non-chronological structure may at first seem random, but it is, in fact, highly structured based on free association. Okay, I’m calling it there. Ol’ Matty really latched onto this tragic beacon of the paradox. It is not for everyone, Quixotes, but it is undoubtedly a masterpiece.
Love stories? Love hearing about the tales of old with Ol' Matty but want to know them yourself? Want to join the Book Club Sandwich but don't have the time or desire to sit down and read? Well, you dolt, check out Audible, where you can drive to your destination and faraway lands all at once. P.S. Audible, please sponsor me.
For more short stories like the one featured here, The Match by Colson Whitehead, see The New Yorker either online or subscribe to have the magazine delivered for those delectable morning reads. You sponsor me too, New Yorker.
I have only ever read the book with my own eyeballs so I can't personally vouch for any version on Audible, however there is a highly lauded recording of Catch-22 narrated by Trevor White. That being said, I believe this is a book best read as all the unique characters can come to life in your head in your unique way.
In terms of film adaptations, there’s the Stan Original mini-series directed and produced by George Clooney, which is I think the best and most faithful translation of a novel that is borderline unfilmable with Christopher Abbott as an impeccable Yossarian, and there’s the classic 1970 adaptation starring Alan Arkin as John Yossarian with Orson Welles as General Dreedle. All is swell when you watch Orson Welles.
Until next time, my Quixotes!
Ol' Matty's sources:
https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2019/04/01/the-match
https://www.thespruceeats.com/veal-cutlets-prosciutto-sage-saltimbocca-alla-romana-2017913
https://www.sparknotes.com/lit/catch22
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Catch-22
https://www.notablebiographies.com/He-Ho/Heller-Joseph.html
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