And I am sure that thousands of readers before me experienced the same feeling and that they were excited as well as people who will come across this phenomenon in the future. Undoubtedly, Catch XX-II became a legend of the 20th century, considered to be one of the best anti-war novels. But I don't think this classification expresses the complete message of the book. What lies beneath the enormous success of Catch-XXII?

It might be Heller's brilliant sense of humour used often to reveal the absurdity of our language, or better to say, the way we use it. Most of what we really say has no meaning. Almost every character and scene in the novel contain dialogues where the people speak aimlessly and have no explanation for why they are talking.

Colonel Cargill addresses his men by saying, "You're American officers. The officers of no other army in the world can make that statement. Think about it." Even though the remark is true, it has no meaning. These types of random statements and dialogues occur throughout the whole book. Another situation when two people speak without making any sense is when Clevinger is being question

"I didn't say you couldn't punish me," said Clevinger.

The speech is not the only absurd element of our life. People often act irrationally and Heller's book offers an immense amount of examples. When talking about Major Major's Father whose specialty was alfalfa the government measures are ridiculed. Major Major made a good thing out of not growing any. The government paid him well for every bushel of alfalfa he did not grow. The more alfalfa he did not grow, the more money the government gave him, and he spent every penny he didn't earn on new land to increase the amount of alfalfa he did not produce. Of course, the government wanted to help farmers but they didn't expect them to take the law literally. As posed like this, it looks like a complete nonsense to pay farmers for doing nothing.

"Now you're asking me questions again."

"Just until he goes to lunch," Sergeant Towser replied. "Then you can go right in." "But he wont be there then. Will he?"

When Orr explains why he walks around as a kid with crab apples in his cheeks, he too speaks with no meaning. His explanation was, "because they've got a better shape than horse chestnuts." But, why put anything in your cheeks? This conversation is so ambiguous and had such little meaning that the answer to "why?" is never explained to Yossarian.

"About how long will I have to wait before I can go in to see the major?"

Some common words found in the essay are:
Major Major, You're American, Havermeyer Orr, Yossarian's Catch-XXII, Captain Black, Havermeyer You've, Catch-XXII Heller's, Catch XX-II, , Yossarian Orr, major major, sergeant towser, flies eyes, captain black, flies eyes havermeyer, dr stubbs, alfalfa grow, people speak, starve death, couldn't punish, punished clevinger, peanut brittle crumbs, didn't couldn't punish, clevinger punished clevinger,
Approximate Word count = 1125
Approximate Pages = 5 (250 words per page double spaced)