Read any good books lately? Rate them here

[Thumpalumpacus]

My other current book right now is Catch 22



Gotta admit that I'm very bored by it.  I'm like 80 pages in (it's ~450 long) and I'm wondering how much longer I have to go in it before it becomes, you know, good.

I've tried to read this three times, but the fourth time is the charm: a dear friend and fellow writer mailed me the annniversary copy pictured in your post and essentially guilted me into reading it. He'd spent a couple of years lauding it, to my gruff disinterest, before he spent fifteen bucks sending it to me, knowing I'd feel obligated to plough through it, which is what I'm doing now.

It's not as dreary as I remember it, but from the standpoint of a writer, it's far too self-aware a book to do service to the story or, even more importantly for this book, the message. Heller spends too much energy engaging in cutesy self-conscious writing (too many apposite opposites!) which detract from what I sense so far as his point (I'm 180 pages in), which is essentially a paean to the individual in his struggle against reality, against mindless bureaucracy, and against human brutality.

I will finish it this time, I know that much, but I can't yet gauge whether the satisfaction will be a worthy payoff.