For $9.52, I just ordered from amazon.com the 50th anniversary edition of Catch-22 with a new forward by author Joseph Heller. I also went ahead and ordered The Catcher in the Rye for old-times' sake: $8.35.
No two books were more important to me, and to this day, though I’ve never reread either, these two books still stand out in my mind as the best expression of who I was and what I felt about the world as a sixteen-year-old kid. They had an enormous emotional impact on me. I felt as though if I had the words to tell it, this is what I would say to the world.
Make of that what you will.
Morris Dickstein has written an excellent retrospective review of Catch-22 here:
http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2011/09/04/joseph-heller-catch-22-50th-anniversary-how-the-novel-changed-america.html
I just hope I don’t find the whole goddam thing too depressing and all.
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