antiz’s Reviews > Catch-22 > Status Update

“Men went mad and were rewarded with medals. All over the world, boys on every side of the bomb line were laying down their lives for what they had been told was their country, and no one seemed to mind, least of all the boys who were laying down their young lives. There was no end in sight.”

…
days later, all charges paid, bloated, blue and putrescent, water draining out through both cold nostrils.”

Ironic describing that people want to kill you but you, too, kill them (aka war is stupid).
Even nature becomes poisonous, destructive and violent. Ironic also that it mentions money (all charges paid), perhaps bringing light to how stupid money in modern day society can be, putting a price on life/death

“Clevinger really thought he was right, but Yossarian had proof, because strangers he didn’t know shot at him with cannons every time he flew up into the air to drop bombs on them, and it wasn’t funny at all. And if that wasn’t funny, there were lots of things that weren’t even funnier.” Then describes even nature being violent, “[gulping] down a person” and “[shipping] him back to shore three CONT

‘They’re trying to kill me,’ Yossarian told him calmly.
‘No one’s trying to kill you,’ Clevinger cried.
‘Then why are they shooting at me?’ Yossarian asked.
‘They’re shooting at everyone,’ Clevinger answered. ‘They’re trying to kill everyone.’
‘And what difference does that make?’

“Dunbar was lying motionless on his back again with his eyes starting up at the ceiling like a doll’s. He was working hard at increasing his life span. He did it by cultivating boredom. Dunbar was working so hard at increasing his life span that Yossarian thought he was dead.”

That’s funny

“Death to all modifiers, he declared one day…The next day he made war on articles…he began attacking the names and addresses on the envelopes, obliterating whole homes and streets, annihilating entire metropolises with careless flicks of his wrist as though he were God.”
Violent description seems absurd for the context Then you remember the incredible violence being inflicted by war CONT