I have always been a bit of a bookworm. I’ll read anything and I’ll give every book a fair chance, but I don’t have endless patience either. I’ll stick with it for a hundred pages or so but if by then I’m still struggling, I’ll chuck it to one side.
Over the years, I’d built up a decent collection and until recently, all my books were languishing in various piles in the attic gathering dust. I had planned at some stage to organise a small library for myself but like many other things, it went on the long finger. I’ll never get around to it now though because it’s too late, thanks to Covid-19.
During the various lockdowns, my wife passed her time by cleaning and tidying. When she was finished, she cleaned and tidied some more. When she’s in that kind of humour, nothing is safe and because she was always complaining about my books cluttering up the place, I knew it was only a matter of time before they got the treatment.
With military precision, plastic bags full of books were removed from the house in the dead of night and delivered to an unidentified co-conspirator. It was a slick operation involving shadowy figures, codewords and disguises. As a result, I no longer need a library because what I’m left with would fit comfortably on top of a small coffee table, with plenty of space left for the coffee.
It was a shock at first but after some medical intervention and an appropriate period of mourning, I pulled myself together. In all honesty, some of the books were no great loss but others were priceless.
One book in particular I was anxious to hold onto, was a satirical novel I first read over forty years ago called Catch 22. It was written by American author Joseph Heller and unfortunately was one of the casualties.
The story is set in a military camp on an island off the Italian coast in the Mediterranean Sea during World War II. A young soldier named Yossarian was stationed there with the United States Air Force. The war was raging, and they lived in poor conditions surrounded by madness.
The commanding officers had little regard for the welfare of their men and were only interested in making themselves look good to their superiors to improve their promotion prospects. (There is a ring of familiarity about that.) The pilots were constantly being sent on dangerous bombing missions with instructions to capture good aerial photographs of explosions. It didn’t matter if their targets were destroyed as long as the photos were good.
The crews were told they could go home when they had completed a certain number of bombing runs, but the number of missions kept rising so no one ever got to go home. Yossarian was completely frustrated and couldn’t understand why he appeared to be the only one who understood what was going on.
He hated the idea that strangers were trying to kill him, and he didn’t want to die while trying to kill people he didn’t know either, so he stopped flying and began visiting the camp doctor, complaining of various illnesses. The doctor was a clueless alcoholic who was starting to go a bit mad.
Yossarian discovered it was possible to be discharged from military service by reason of insanity so, he claimed he was mad too. But by claiming to be insane, he was actually proving his sanity because only insane people would want to fly bombing missions in the first place. In other words, he was proving he was sane by not wanting to take part in dangerous missions, and that was what kept him flying. That was catch 22.
There were other characters in the camp too like Major Major who was so useless that he hid from his own sergeant and refused to meet anyone. He would lock the door of his office and climb out the window to avoid making decisions. (There’s that ring of familiarity again).
Then there was the Camp Chaplain who ran off and lived alone in the woods, and Captain Block, who ordered everyone to sing “The Star- Spangled Banner” before they used the salt and pepper.
It’s a great read and I was reminded of it again in 2014 when I found myself stationed in a small military camp in Famagusta on the island of Cyprus called Camp General Stefanik. It was very basic and has remained the same since it was built in 1974. That was confirmed to me one day when I met a group of visiting Swedish military guys who had been stationed there in 1974. I asked one of them what had changed since his time and after looking all around he said, “Absolutely nothing.”
It reminded me of the camp in Catch 22, so I dug out a copy and read it again and as I was working in a military environment with some great characters, I could identify more easily with those in the novel.
I had a problem with my back at one stage and the military guys decided I should see the camp doctor who was affectionately known as “Mengele”. The real, Josef Mengele, was a Nazi doctor, responsible for carrying out medical experiments in the concentration camps during WWII so I wasn’t filled with confidence when they brought me to see him. Turned out he was a nice guy.
A Liutenant Colonel from Croatia entered the office every day singing a morning greeting to everyone in operatic style. He made up the words and included all our names in the greeting. He was a lovely character, and we became good friends.
I witnessed lots of marching, saluting and patrolling, but thankfully there were no bombing runs.