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130-435: Catch-22 is a satirical war novel by American author Joseph Heller . It is his debut novel . He began writing it in 1953; the novel was first published in 1961. Often cited as one of the most significant novels of the twentieth century, it uses a distinctive non-chronological third-person omniscient narration, describing events from the points of view of different characters. The separate storylines are out of sequence so

260-532: A conformist . Appleby is also a renowned table tennis player in the squadron, "who won every game he started until the night Orr got tipsy on gin and juice and smashed open Appleby’s forehead with his paddle after Appleby had smashed back each of Orr’s first five serves. ... Pandemonium broke loose." While Orr is a small man, Appleby is large, strong and athletic, and so is able to get a hold of Orr and almost "smite him dead". However, Yossarian intervened and "took Orr away from him." Yossarian fights Appleby instead; this

390-487: A military–industrial complex . Heller emphasizes the danger of profit-seeking by portraying Milo without "evil intent". Milo's actions are portrayed as the result of greed, not malice. The novel has over 50 named characters, many of whom have titular chapters dedicated to expanding on their personalities or motivations. Heller wanted to be a writer from an early age. His experiences as a bombardier during World War II inspired Catch-22 ; Heller later said that he "never had

520-552: A neutral country such as Switzerland or Sweden to be interned there for the rest of the war. Since heading directly toward one of the two countries would give the appearance of fleeing similar to AWOL , a more surreptitious and clandestine indirect path would work better. By practicing to crash, Orr learned how to do so in a fashion where he could escape as narrowly as possible to hint at death; those in higher power would simply wave it off and move on with their bureaucratic motives, leaving Orr to his especially spacious freedom. He used

650-496: A "tortured, funny, deeply peculiar human being". After publication in 1961, Catch-22 became very popular among teenagers at the time. Catch-22 seemed to embody the feelings that young people had toward the Vietnam War. A common joke was that every student who went off to college at the time took along a copy of Catch-22 . The popularity of the book created a cult following, which led to more than eight million copies being sold in

780-507: A bad officer". In a 1977 essay on Catch-22 , Heller stated that the "antiwar and antigovernment feelings in the book" were a product of the Korean War and the 1950s rather than World War II itself. Heller's criticisms are not intended for World War II but for the Cold War and McCarthyism . The influence of the 1950s on Catch-22 is evident through Heller's extensive use of anachronism . Though

910-487: A book") and The New York Times ("A dazzling performance that will outrage nearly as many readers as it delights"). On the other hand, The New Yorker disliked it ("doesn't even seem to be written; instead, it gives the impression of having been shouted onto paper", "what remains is a debris of sour jokes"), and a second review from the New York Times also disliked it ("repetitive and monotonous. Or one can say that it

1040-484: A clumsy, foolish pilot who has little knack and knowledge for his craft. In the concluding chapters, Orr purposefully crashes for two reasons: to throw off all of the commanding officers who would believe he met his demise and to learn where and how to crash in order to escape to Sweden. The generals, colonels, and other commanding officers in the higher echelons constantly and consistently appear to be vain and care only about their own careers. To expect that Orr could survive

1170-471: A cold from the fighter captain and come down with pneumonia." Chapter 2, titled "Clevinger", begins with "In a way, the CID man was pretty lucky because outside the hospital the war was still going on." The CID man connects the two chapters like a free association bridge and eventually Chapter 2 flows from the CID man to Clevinger through more free association links. As Heller utilizes an episodic structure for most of

1300-472: A colossal, immortal blunderer! When you consider the opportunity and power He had to really do a job, and then look at the stupid, ugly little mess He made of it instead, His sheer incompetence is almost staggering. …" Later Heller writes of Yossarian wandering through a war-torn Italian city (Chapter 39): "Yossarian quickened his pace to get away, almost ran. The night was filled with horrors, and he thought he knew how Christ must have felt as he walked through

1430-409: A crash would certainly fall out of their range of focus and would not create much of an uproar, especially because of Orr's unfailing "ability" to crash. It is also paradoxical, in the classic way of the novel, that Orr has to crash his plane repeatedly - practising for the time that he will crash his plane. Throughout the last ten chapters Yossarian along with Orr thinks diligently about crashing near

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1560-417: A far more obviously extreme and unrealistic tale, involving interplanetary exploration, war among alien life forms, and life inside a 200 mile long whale back in the terrestrial ocean, all intended to make obvious the fallacies of books like Indica and The Odyssey . Medieval Arabic poetry included the satiric genre hija . Satire was introduced into Arabic prose literature by the author Al-Jahiz in

1690-475: A general is thwarted by ex-P.F.C. Wintergreen sabotaging his correspondence. Major Major's and Yossarian's mis-censoring of correspondence is blamed on the Chaplain, who is threatened with imprisonment as a result. Yossarian questions the idea that God is all-powerful, all-good, and all knowing. The narrator seems to believe that God, if not evil, is incompetent. In chapter 18, Yossarian states that he "believes in

1820-469: A good whack to his head, leaving him with a concussion "that kept him out of combat for only twelve days." Yossarian, on learning that Orr has escaped to Sweden, in the concluding pages of the novel, understands that she was hired by Orr as part of a plan to be discharged. Yossarian realises that the prostitute was hitting Orr on the head "because he was paying her to, that's why! But she wouldn't hit him hard enough, so he had to row to Sweden." The incident

1950-413: A little even as you chuckle. Laughter is not an essential component of satire; in fact, there are types of satire that are not meant to be "funny" at all. Conversely, not all humour, even on such topics as politics, religion or art is necessarily "satirical", even when it uses the satirical tools of irony, parody, and burlesque . Even light-hearted satire has a serious "after-taste": the organizers of

2080-496: A means of expression and an outlet for common people to express their anger against authoritarian entities. A popular custom in Northern India of "Bura na mano Holi hai" continues, in which comedians on the stage mock local people of importance (who are usually brought in as special guests). Orr (Catch-22) Orr is the only airman of the group to successfully get away by the end of the novel. Orr's motivation throughout

2210-429: A prominent example from ancient Greece , philosopher Plato , when asked by a friend for a book to understand Athenian society, referred him to the plays of Aristophanes . Historically, satire has satisfied the popular need to debunk and ridicule the leading figures in politics, economy, religion and other prominent realms of power . Satire confronts public discourse and the collective imaginary , playing as

2340-621: A prominent role in Indian and Hindi literature , and is counted as one of the " ras " of literature in ancient books. With the commencement of printing of books in local language in the nineteenth century and especially after India's freedom, this grew. Many of the works of Tulsi Das , Kabir , Munshi Premchand , village minstrels, Hari katha singers, poets, Dalit singers and current day stand up Indian comedians incorporate satire, usually ridiculing authoritarians, fundamentalists and incompetent people in power. In India, it has usually been used as

2470-511: A public opinion counterweight to power (be it political, economic, religious, symbolic, or otherwise), by challenging leaders and authorities. For instance, it forces administrations to clarify, amend or establish their policies. Satire's job is to expose problems and contradictions, and it is not obligated to solve them. Karl Kraus set in the history of satire a prominent example of a satirist role as confronting public discourse. For its nature and social role, satire has enjoyed in many societies

2600-532: A smile, "Who has?" Catch-22 has landed on the list of the American Library Association 's banned and challenged classics. In 1972, the school board in Strongsville , Ohio, removed Catch-22 , as well as two books by Kurt Vonnegut , from school libraries and the curriculum. Five families sued the school board. The Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals rejected the claim, stating that school boards had

2730-399: A special freedom license to mock prominent individuals and institutions. The satiric impulse, and its ritualized expressions, carry out the function of resolving social tension. Institutions like the ritual clowns , by giving expression to the antisocial tendencies , represent a safety valve which re-establishes equilibrium and health in the collective imaginary , which are jeopardized by

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2860-486: A tent with Yossarian, and is very mechanically adept, as he manages to make for them the most luxurious tent in the squadron. When working on small pieces for an oven stove in the tent, Yossarian sees his work as arduous and highly unnecessary as the pieces are too small for anything of real concern, yet at the end while using his stove, he realizes the intricate simplicity of improving the stove's performance. Although this tinkering drives Yossarian mad, any idea of harming Orr

2990-424: Is a satire in hexameter verses, was a literary genre of wholly Roman origin ( satura tota nostra est ). He was aware of and commented on Greek satire, but at the time did not label it as such, although today the origin of satire is considered to be Aristophanes' Old Comedy . The first critic to use the term satire in the modern broader sense was Apuleius . To Quintilian, the satire was a strict literary form, but

3120-415: Is an apotropaic rite in which the sin-eater (also called filth-eater), by ingesting the food provided, takes "upon himself the sins of the departed". Satire about death overlaps with black humor and gallows humor . Another classification by topics is the distinction between political satire, religious satire and satire of manners. Political satire is sometimes called topical satire, satire of manners

3250-592: Is an enclave in which satire can be introduced into mass media , challenging mainstream discourse. Comedy roasts , mock festivals, and stand-up comedians in nightclubs and concerts are the modern forms of ancient satiric rituals. One of the earliest examples of what might be called satire, The Satire of the Trades , is in Egyptian writing from the beginning of the 2nd millennium BC. The text's apparent readers are students, tired of studying. It argues that their lot as scribes

3380-462: Is analogous to other absurd and ambiguous conversations in the novel, which are circular and end up having little or no significance. He uses this behaviour to draw Yossarian into circular arguments that never seem to be resolved and serve to only frustrate Yossarian (which amuses Orr who generally chortles at his cleverness). An incident with an unnamed prostitute in a hotel in Rome is a puzzling event in

3510-469: Is dead. Only later does Yossarian realize it was all part of a grand plan to escape the war to Sweden, which Orr was trying to encourage Yossarian to be a part of. Apart from a brief explanation that Orr is "from the wilderness outside New York City", there is no real detail of Orr's past. We also do not learn his first name in the novel; in the mini-series , however, Milo Minderbinder introduces him as "Ivor Orr" (which sounds like "either or"). Orr shares

3640-501: Is epitomized in the single appearance of German personnel in the novel, who act as pilots employed by the squadron's mess officer, Milo Minderbinder , to bomb the American encampment on Pianosa. This predicament indicates a tension between traditional motives for violence and the modern economic machine, which seems to generate violence simply as another means to profit, quite independent of geographical or ideological constraints which creates

3770-433: Is held by Brandeis University . Satirical Satire is a genre of the visual , literary , and performing arts , usually in the form of fiction and less frequently non-fiction , in which vices, follies, abuses, and shortcomings are held up to ridicule, often with the intent of exposing or shaming the perceived flaws of individuals, corporations, government, or society itself into improvement. Although satire

3900-595: Is introduced in the setting of a military hospital where he has retreated under the guise of a chronic liver condition to avoid flying further combat missions since he has grown disillusioned with the war effort and distrustful of his commanding officers. Throughout the novel, the commanding officers show extreme disregard for the lives of their troops and are all too willing to sacrifice their men to further their own ends. Especially, Colonel Cathcart volunteers his unit to fly dangerous missions and forces his men to fly more combat missions than any other unit, constantly raising

4030-602: Is not crazy. As a result, one must continue flying, either not applying to be excused, or applying and being refused. The narrator explains: There was only one catch and that was Catch-22, which specified that a concern for one's safety in the face of dangers that were real and immediate was the process of a rational mind. Orr was crazy and could be grounded. All he had to do was ask; and as soon as he did, he would no longer be crazy and would have to fly more missions. Orr would be crazy to fly more missions and sane if he didn't, but if he were sane he had to fly them. If he flew them he

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4160-406: Is not only useful, but far superior to that of the ordinary man. Scholars such as Helck think that the context was meant to be serious. The Papyrus Anastasi I (late 2nd millennium BC) contains a satirical letter which first praises the virtues of its recipient, but then mocks the reader's meagre knowledge and achievements. The Greeks had no word for what later would be called "satire", although

4290-453: Is often pessimistic, characterized by the use of irony, sarcasm, moral indignation and personal invective, with less emphasis on humor. Strongly polarized political satire can often be classified as Juvenalian. A Juvenal satirist's goal is generally to provoke some sort of political or societal change because he sees his opponent or object as evil or harmful. A Juvenal satirist mocks "societal structure, power, and civilization" by exaggerating

4420-533: Is one of the book's primary motifs. The motif of bureaucratic absurdity is further explored in 1994's Closing Time , Heller's sequel to Catch-22 . This darker, slower-paced, apocalyptic novel explores the pre- and post-war lives of some of the major characters in Catch-22 , with particular emphasis on the relationship between Yossarian and tail gunner Sammy Singer. Catch-22 contains allusions to many works of literature. Howard Jacobson , in his 2004 introduction to

4550-480: Is sent to the hospital for a condition that is almost jaundice . In Yossarian's words: The enemy is anybody who's going to get you killed, no matter which side he's on, and that includes Colonel Cathcart. And don't you forget that, because the longer you remember it, the longer you might live. Much of the farce in the novel is fueled by intentional and unintentional miscommunication, occasionally leading to tragic consequences. For example, Cathcart's desire to become

4680-399: Is so absurd that Yossarian can't follow through with it. Orr has a bucktoothed smile and frequently puts crabapples or horse chestnuts in his cheeks and rubber balls in his hands. He constantly teases Yossarian asking him if he wants to know why, to which Yossarian invariably says "yes". Orr never gives any straightforward explanation for this other than he wants big cheeks and to detract from

4810-460: Is sometimes called satire of everyday life, and religious satire is sometimes called philosophical satire. Comedy of manners , sometimes also called satire of manners, criticizes mode of life of common people; political satire aims at behavior, manners of politicians, and vices of political systems. Historically, comedy of manners, which first appeared in British theater in 1620, has uncritically accepted

4940-552: Is the reactionary side of the comic ; it limits itself to a shallow parody of physical appearance. The side-effect of teasing is that it humanizes and draws sympathy for the powerful individual towards which it is directed. Satire instead uses the comic to go against power and its oppressions, has a subversive character, and a moral dimension which draws judgement against its targets. Fo formulated an operational criterion to tell real satire from sfottò , saying that real satire arouses an outraged and violent reaction, and that

5070-668: Is the first instance in the novel of Yossarian's protectiveness of Orr. The next day, Orr informs Yossarian that Appleby has "flies in his eyes": "Oh, they're there, all right," Orr had assured him about the flies in Appleby's eyes after Yossarian's fist fight with Appleby in the officers' club, "although he probably doesn’t even know it. That's why he can’t see things as they really are." "How come he doesn't know it?’ inquired Yossarian. "Because he’s got flies in his eyes," Orr explained with exaggerated patience. "How can he see he's got flies in his eyes if he's got flies in his eyes?" Everyone in

5200-574: Is the first to define this concept of Yuyan. During the Qin and Han dynasty, however, the concept of yuyan mostly died out through their heavy persecution of dissent and literary circles, especially by Qin Shi Huang and Han Wudi . The first Roman to discuss satire critically was Quintilian , who invented the term to describe the writings of Gaius Lucilius . The two most prominent and influential ancient Roman satirists are Horace and Juvenal , who wrote during

5330-489: Is to escape the squadron and the war. He is also known for being very mechanically adept and uses his skills to make his and Yossarian's tent as comfortable as possible. This is because Yossarian is his friend, and although it is Orr's intent to escape, he wants to make the tent comfortable for Yossarian. Orr attempts to escape the war in two main ways. His first goal is to get a prostitute to knock him unconscious, so that he can be grounded. When this fails, Orr plans to ditch in

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5460-420: Is too short because none of its many interesting characters and actions is given enough play to become a controlling interest"). One commentator of Catch-22 recognized that "many early audiences liked the book for just the same reasons that caused others to hate it". The book eventually gained a cult following, especially among teenagers and college students. Heller later remarked that in 1962, after appearing on

5590-574: Is usually meant to be humorous, its greater purpose is often constructive social criticism , using wit to draw attention to both particular and wider issues in society. A prominent feature of satire is strong irony or sarcasm —"in satire, irony is militant ", according to literary critic Northrop Frye — but parody , burlesque , exaggeration , juxtaposition , comparison, analogy, and double entendre are all frequently used in satirical speech and writing. This "militant" irony or sarcasm often professes to approve of (or at least accept as natural)

5720-612: The Early Middle Ages , examples of satire were the songs by Goliards or vagants now best known as an anthology called Carmina Burana and made famous as texts of a composition by the 20th-century composer Carl Orff . Satirical poetry is believed to have been popular, although little has survived. With the advent of the High Middle Ages and the birth of modern vernacular literature in the 12th century, it began to be used again, most notably by Chaucer . The disrespectful manner

5850-565: The Ig Nobel Prize describe this as "first make people laugh, and then make them think". Satire and irony in some cases have been regarded as the most effective source to understand a society, the oldest form of social study. They provide the keenest insights into a group's collective psyche , reveal its deepest values and tastes, and the society's structures of power. Some authors have regarded satire as superior to non-comic and non-artistic disciplines like history or anthropology . In

5980-734: The Renaissance were Giovanni Boccaccio and François Rabelais . Other examples of Renaissance satire include Till Eulenspiegel , Reynard the Fox , Sebastian Brant 's Narrenschiff (1494), Erasmus 's Moriae Encomium (1509), Thomas More 's Utopia (1516), and Carajicomedia (1519). The Elizabethan (i.e. 16th-century English) writers thought of satire as related to the notoriously rude, coarse and sharp satyr play. Elizabethan "satire" (typically in pamphlet form) therefore contains more straightforward abuse than subtle irony. The French Huguenot Isaac Casaubon pointed out in 1605 that satire in

6110-556: The Resaleh-ye Delgosha , as well as Akhlaq al-Ashraf ("Ethics of the Aristocracy") and the famous humorous fable Masnavi Mush-O-Gorbeh (Mouse and Cat), which was a political satire. His non-satirical serious classical verses have also been regarded as very well written, in league with the other great works of Persian literature . Between 1905 and 1911, Bibi Khatoon Astarabadi and other Iranian writers wrote notable satires. In

6240-663: The Sharia " and later Arabic poets in turn using the term "Farazdaq-like" as a form of political satire. The terms " comedy " and "satire" became synonymous after Aristotle 's Poetics was translated into Arabic in the medieval Islamic world , where it was elaborated upon by Islamic philosophers and writers, such as Abu Bischr, his pupil Al-Farabi , Avicenna , and Averroes . Due to cultural differences, they disassociated comedy from Greek dramatic representation and instead identified it with Arabic poetic themes and forms, such as hija (satirical poetry). They viewed comedy as simply

6370-504: The Today show he went out drinking with the host at the time, John Chancellor , who handed him stickers that Chancellor had got privately printed reading "YOSSARIAN LIVES". Heller also said that Chancellor had been secretly putting them on the walls of the corridors and executive bathrooms in the NBC building. Although the novel won no awards upon release, it has remained in print and is seen as one of

6500-460: The absurdity of war and military life through the experiences of Yossarian and his cohorts, who attempt to maintain their sanity while fulfilling their service requirements so that they may return home. The book was made into a film adaptation in 1970, directed by Mike Nichols , and a Hulu miniseries in 2019, produced by George Clooney . In 1994, Heller published a sequel to the novel entitled Closing Time . The main character, Yossarian,

6630-435: The chaplain ), disappearance in combat ( Orr and Clevinger), disappearance caused by the army (Dunbar) and death of most of Yossarian's friends ( Nately , McWatt, Kid Sampson, Dobbs, Chief White Halfoat and Hungry Joe), culminating in the horrors of Chapter 39, in particular Aarfy's rape and murder of the innocent young woman Michaela. In Chapter 41 the full details of the death of Snowden are finally revealed. Nevertheless,

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6760-517: The repressive aspects of society . The state of political satire in a given society reflects the tolerance or intolerance that characterizes it, and the state of civil liberties and human rights . Under totalitarian regimes any criticism of a political system, and especially satire, is suppressed. A typical example is the Soviet Union where the dissidents , such as Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn and Andrei Sakharov were under strong pressure from

6890-671: The "art of reprehension", and made no reference to light and cheerful events, or troubled beginnings and happy endings, associated with classical Greek comedy. After the Latin translations of the 12th century , the term "comedy" thus gained a new semantic meaning in Medieval literature . Ubayd Zakani introduced satire in Persian literature during the 14th century. His work is noted for its satire and obscene verses, often political or bawdy, and often cited in debates involving homosexual practices. He wrote

7020-450: The 9th century. While dealing with serious topics in what are now known as anthropology , sociology and psychology , he introduced a satirical approach, "based on the premise that, however serious the subject under review, it could be made more interesting and thus achieve greater effect, if only one leavened the lump of solemnity by the insertion of a few amusing anecdotes or by the throwing out of some witty or paradoxical observations. He

7150-620: The East Coast. The book never established itself nationally until it was published in paperback for 75 cents. Upon publication in Great Britain, the book became the No. 1 best-seller. Don Fine of Dell Paperbacks bought the paperback reprint rights to Catch-22 for $ 32,000. Between the paperback's release in September 1962 and April 1963, it sold 1.1 million copies. In August 1962, Donadio brokered

7280-475: The Germans attempting to shoot him down and he feels that "they" are "out to get him." The reason Yossarian fears his commanders more than the enemy is that as he flies more missions, Colonel Cathcart increases the number of required combat missions before a soldier may return home; he reaches the magic number only to have it retroactively raised. He comes to despair of ever getting home and is greatly relieved when he

7410-445: The God he doesn't believe in", this version of God having created Hitler, the war, and all the failures of human life and society, as exemplified in the following passage: "And don't tell me God works in mysterious ways ", Yossarian continued, hurtling over her objections. "There's nothing so mysterious about it. He's not working at all. He's playing or else He's forgotten all about us. That's

7540-632: The Goons (if Heller had ever heard of the Goons)." One critic argues that it is Kafka's influence that can be seen most strongly in the novel: "Like Kafka's heroes, Yossarian is riddled with anxiety and caught in an inexorable nightmare – in his case created by Colonel Cathcart and the inevitability of his raising the number of missions he has to fly." The idea for Catch-22 was based on Joseph Heller's personal experience in World War II. The feelings that Yossarian and

7670-510: The Latin satura; but "satirize", "satiric", etc., are of Greek origin. By about the 4th century AD the writer of satires came to be known as satyricus; St. Jerome, for example, was called by one of his enemies 'a satirist in prose' ('satyricus scriptor in prosa'). Subsequent orthographic modifications obscured the Latin origin of the word satire: satura becomes satyra, and in England, by the 16th century, it

7800-468: The Roman fashion was something altogether more civilised. Casaubon discovered and published Quintilian's writing and presented the original meaning of the term (satira, not satyr), and the sense of wittiness (reflecting the "dishfull of fruits") became more important again. Seventeenth-century English satire once again aimed at the "amendment of vices" ( Dryden ). In the 1590s a new wave of verse satire broke with

7930-436: The Roman satirist Horace (65–8 BCE), playfully criticizes some social vice through gentle, mild, and light-hearted humour. Horace (Quintus Horatius Flaccus) wrote Satires to gently ridicule the dominant opinions and "philosophical beliefs of ancient Rome and Greece". Rather than writing in harsh or accusing tones, he addressed issues with humor and clever mockery. Horatian satire follows this same pattern of "gently [ridiculing]

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8060-455: The Simon & Schuster editor, Robert Gottlieb, was the person who came up with the number 22, and Gottlieb himself stated that he did in the documentary Turn Every Page: The Adventures of Robert Caro and Robert Gottlieb . Parallels among a number of character exchanges in the novel suggested the doubled-one title of Catch-11 , but the 1960 release of Ocean's Eleven eliminated that. Catch-17

8190-520: The United States. On October 26, 1986, professor and author John W. Aldridge wrote a piece in The New York Times celebrating the 25th anniversary of the publishing of Catch-22 . He commented that Heller's book presaged the chaos in the world that was to come: The comic fable that ends in horror has become more and more clearly a reflection of the altogether uncomic and horrifying realities of

8320-514: The Vintage Classics publication, wrote that the novel was "positioned teasingly ... between literature and literature's opposites – between Shakespeare and Rabelais and Dickens and Dostoevsky and Gogol and Céline and the Absurdists and of course Kafka on the one hand, and on the other vaudeville and slapstick and Bilko and Abbott and Costello and Tom and Jerry and

8450-433: The absurdities and follies of human beings". It directs wit, exaggeration, and self-deprecating humour toward what it identifies as folly, rather than evil. Horatian satire's sympathetic tone is common in modern society. A Horatian satirist's goal is to heal the situation with smiles, rather than by anger. Horatian satire is a gentle reminder to take life less seriously and evokes a wry smile. Juvenalian satire, named for

8580-520: The accused violator is accused of violating." Another character explains: "Catch-22 says they have a right to do anything we can't stop them from doing ." Yossarian comes to realize that Catch-22 does not actually exist, but because the powers that be claim it does, and the world believes it does, it nevertheless has potent effects. Indeed, because it does not exist, there is no way it can be repealed, undone, overthrown, or denounced. The combination of force with specious and spurious legalistic justification

8710-450: The aim of humanizing his image. Types of satire can also be classified according to the topics it deals with. From the earliest times, at least since the plays of Aristophanes , the primary topics of literary satire have been politics , religion and sex . This is partly because these are the most pressing problems that affect anybody living in a society, and partly because these topics are usually taboo . Among these, politics in

8840-459: The authors' experiences, both having served as U.S. Army Air Forces aircrew in Italy in World War II. However, their themes and styles are different. A " Catch-22 " is "a problem for which the only solution is denied by a circumstance inherent in the problem or by a rule". For example, losing something is typically a conventional problem; to solve it, one looks for the lost item until one finds it. But if

8970-501: The book refers to some women as "whores", it was challenged at the Dallas, Texas, Independent School District (1974) and Snoqualmie, Washington (1979). This list covers the first and most recent printed publications by the original publisher Simon & Schuster as well as all other formats. Other print publishers include Dell , Corgi , Vintage , Black Swan , Éditions Grasset , and Wahlström & Widstrand . The original manuscript

9100-416: The broader sense is considered the pre-eminent topic of satire. Satire which targets the clergy is a type of political satire , while religious satire is that which targets religious beliefs . Satire on sex may overlap with blue comedy , off-color humor and dick jokes . Scatology has a long literary association with satire, as it is a classical mode of the grotesque , the grotesque body and

9230-440: The course of the novel, totaling seventy-one by the end. As the novel progresses, Yossarian's moral character and courage emerge more clearly, in contrast to his seeming selfishness and cowardice when first introduced. He is shown to be an honest, loyal, and able flyer who has been pushed to desperation by the selfishness and cowardice of the authorities responsible for him, especially doctors and military leaders. The development of

9360-467: The crashes as practice for ocean survival techniques, as is evident when he and his crew members are in a life raft. He learns not only the physical but mental aspects as well, keeping himself jocular and humorous while on the seas to keep from getting bored or going mad. The news of this escape eventually reaches Yossarian while he is in hospital, causing him to undergo a revelation as to Orr's motives about his actions and re-energizes him to keep on "fighting

9490-516: The early days of the Roman Empire . Other important satirists in ancient Latin are Gaius Lucilius and Persius . Satire in their work is much wider than in the modern sense of the word, including fantastic and highly coloured humorous writing with little or no real mocking intent. When Horace criticized Augustus , he used veiled ironic terms. In contrast, Pliny reports that the 6th-century-BC poet Hipponax wrote satirae that were so cruel that

9620-483: The early modern period. The dutch translation Van den vos Reynaerde is considered a major medieval dutch literary work. In the dutch version De Vries argues that the animal characters represent barons who conspired against the Count of Flanders. Direct social commentary via satire returned in the 16th century, when texts such as the works of François Rabelais tackled more serious issues. Two major satirists of Europe in

9750-423: The expression lanx satura literally means "a full dish of various kinds of fruits". The use of the word lanx in this phrase, however, is disputed by B.L. Ullman. The word satura as used by Quintilian , however, was used to denote only Roman verse satire, a strict genre that imposed hexameter form, a narrower genre than what would be later intended as satire . Quintilian famously said that satura, that

9880-510: The fashion was brought to an abrupt stop by censorship. Another satiric genre to emerge around this time was the satirical almanac , with François Rabelais 's work Pantagrueline Prognostication (1532), which mocked astrological predictions. The strategies François utilized within this work were employed by later satirical almanacs, such as the Poor Robin series that spanned the 17th to 19th centuries. Satire ( Kataksh or Vyang ) has played

10010-596: The government. While satire of everyday life in the USSR was allowed, the most prominent satirist being Arkady Raikin , political satire existed in the form of anecdotes that made fun of Soviet political leaders, especially Brezhnev , famous for his narrow-mindedness and love for awards and decorations. Satire is a diverse genre which is complex to classify and define, with a wide range of satiric "modes". Satirical literature can commonly be categorized as either Horatian, Juvenalian, or Menippean . Horatian satire, named for

10140-530: The hardcover sold for $ 5.95. The book was not a best-seller in hardcover in the United States. Though twelve thousand copies were sold by Thanksgiving , it never entered The New York Times Best Seller list . It received good notices and was nominated for the National Book Award in March 1962, though Walker Percy 's The Moviegoer won. Catch-22 went through four printings in hardcover but sold well on only

10270-445: The kind of God you people talk about – a country bumpkin, a clumsy, bungling, brainless, conceited, uncouth hayseed. Good God, how much reverence can you have for a Supreme Being who finds it necessary to include such phenomena as phlegm and tooth decay in His divine system of creation? What in the world was running through that warped, evil, scatological mind of His when He robbed old people of

10400-598: The larger community the self identifies with. The audience's understanding of the context of reflexive humour is important for its receptivity and success. Satire is found not only in written literary forms. In preliterate cultures it manifests itself in ritual and folk forms, as well as in trickster tales and oral poetry . It appears also in graphic arts, music, sculpture, dance, cartoon strips , and graffiti . Examples are Dada sculptures, Pop Art works, music of Gilbert and Sullivan and Erik Satie , punk and rock music . In modern media culture , stand-up comedy

10530-450: The marketing of the book. Gottlieb was a strong advocate for the book along with Peter Schwed and Justin Kaplan . Henry Simon, a vice president at Simon & Schuster, found it repetitive and offensive. The editorial board decided to contract the book when Heller agreed to revisions; he signed for US$ 1,500 (equivalent to about $ 15,300 in 2023). Officially published on October 10, 1961,

10660-725: The more they try to stop you, the better is the job you are doing. Fo contends that, historically, people in positions of power have welcomed and encouraged good-humoured buffoonery, while modern day people in positions of power have tried to censor, ostracize and repress satire. Teasing ( sfottò ) is an ancient form of simple buffoonery , a form of comedy without satire's subversive edge. Teasing includes light and affectionate parody, good-humoured mockery, simple one-dimensional poking fun, and benign spoofs. Teasing typically consists of an impersonation of someone monkeying around with his exterior attributes, tics , physical blemishes, voice and mannerisms, quirks, way of dressing and walking, and/or

10790-503: The most significant American novels of the 20th century. Scholar and fellow World War II veteran Hugh Nibley said it was the most accurate book he ever read about the military. As of 2016 over ten million copies have been sold. Although he continued writing, including a sequel novel Closing Time , Heller's later works were inevitably overshadowed by the success of Catch-22 . When asked by critics why he had never managed to write another novel as good as his first, Heller would retort with

10920-459: The novel can be split into segments: For most of the book, the reader is cushioned from directly experiencing the full horror of war, but the existence of these horrors is implied by the extreme trauma and fear that afflicts the airmen. In the final section, these events are laid bare. The horror begins with a pointless attack on the undefended Italian mountain village, with the succeeding chapters incorporating depictions of despair ( Doc Daneeka and

11050-471: The novel ends on an upbeat note with Yossarian learning of Orr's miraculous escape to Sweden and Yossarian's pledge to follow him there. Many events in the book are repeatedly described from differing points of view, so the reader learns more about each event from each iteration , with the new information often completing a joke, the setup of which was told several chapters previously. The narrative's events are out of sequence, but events are referred to as if

11180-504: The novel is ostensibly set in World War II, Heller intentionally included anachronisms like loyalty oaths and computers ( IBM machines) to situate the novel in the context of the 1950s. Many of the characters are based on or connected to individuals from the 1950s: Czech writer Arnošt Lustig recounts in his book 3x18 that Joseph Heller told him that he would never have written Catch-22 had he not first read The Good Soldier Švejk by Jaroslav Hašek . In 1998, some critics raised

11310-473: The novel, and is only explained to the reader at the end of the novel. The whole apartment watches as the prostitute jumps up and down naked, and hits a giggling, equally naked Orr on the head with her heeled shoes. Each time she jumps and hit him, Orr giggles louder, making her even more angry. She then would jump even higher and hit him harder, causing him to giggle even more. The vicious cycle ends after fifteen to twenty minutes when she knocks him out cold with

11440-497: The novel, many chapters may appear to be a disjointed series of events with little or no connection with each other. However, individual chapters often deal with thematically unique ideas, such as Chapter 11 (“Captain Black”) which parodies Red Scare -era McCarthyism , and Chapter 18 (“The Soldier Who Saw Everything Twice”) which explores theological concepts of mortality. Yossarian comes to fear his commanding officers more than he fears

11570-447: The novel, reflecting the underlying commentary that war has no heroes, only victims. Although its nonchronological structure may at first seem random, Catch-22 is highly structured. It is founded on a structure of free association ; ideas run into one another through seemingly random connections. For example, Chapter 1, titled "The Texan", ends with "everybody but the CID man , who had caught

11700-479: The number of missions necessary to complete a tour of duty so that the men can never return home, because he wishes to be seen as brave by his superiors even though he has only ever flown a single combat mission. After flying forty-four combat missions, Yossarian has become traumatized by aerial combat and witnessing the deaths of his friends; he is terrified of being killed in action during each combat mission, but still succeeds in flying twenty-seven more missions over

11830-410: The offended hanged themselves. In the 2nd century AD, Lucian wrote True History , a book satirizing the clearly unrealistic travelogues/adventures written by Ctesias , Iambulus , and Homer . He states that he was surprised they expected people to believe their lies, and stating that he, like them, has no actual knowledge or experience, but shall now tell lies as if he did. He goes on to describe

11960-409: The other bomber crew felt were taken directly from problems he suffered while on duty. Heller flew 60 bombing missions from May to October in 1944. Heller was able to make it out of the war, but it took until 1953 before he could start writing about it. For this reason, the book contains references to post World War II phenomena like IBM computers and loyalty oaths . The war experience turned Heller into

12090-410: The other. Max Eastman defined the spectrum of satire in terms of "degrees of biting", as ranging from satire proper at the hot-end, and "kidding" at the violet-end; Eastman adopted the term kidding to denote what is just satirical in form, but is not really firing at the target. Nobel laureate satirical playwright Dario Fo pointed out the difference between satire and teasing ( sfottò ). Teasing

12220-517: The peculiarity of this he keeps rubber balls in his hands. As he explains the latter, "Every time someone asked me why I was walking around with crab apples in my cheeks, I'd just open my hands and show them it was rubber balls I was walking around with, not crab apples, and that they were in my hands, not my cheeks. It was a good story. But I never knew if it got across or not, since it's pretty tough to make people understand you when you're talking to them with two crab apples in your cheeks." This oddity

12350-477: The phrases he typically repeats. By contrast, teasing never touches on the core issue, never makes a serious criticism judging the target with irony ; it never harms the target's conduct, ideology and position of power; it never undermines the perception of his morality and cultural dimension. Sfottò directed towards a powerful individual makes him appear more human and draws sympathy towards him. Hermann Göring propagated jests and jokes against himself, with

12480-424: The possibility that Heller's book had questionable similarities to Louis Falstein 's 1950 novel, Face of a Hero . Falstein never raised the issue between Catch-22 's publication and his death in 1995 and Heller claimed never to have been aware of the obscure novel. Heller said that the novel had been influenced by Céline , Waugh and Nabokov . Many of the similarities have been stated to be attributable to

12610-436: The power to control their bowel movements? Why in the world did he ever create pain? … Oh, He was really being charitable to us when He gave us pain! [to warn us of danger] Why couldn't He have used a doorbell instead to notify us, or one of His celestial choirs? Or a system of blue-and-red neon tubes right in the middle of each person's forehead. Any jukebox manufacturer worth his salt could have done that. Why couldn't He? … What

12740-440: The prosecutor. Lieutenant Scheisskopf was also the prosecutor. Clevinger had an officer defending him. The officer defending him was Lieutenant Scheisskopf." While a few characters are most prominent, especially Yossarian and the Chaplain, the majority of named characters are described in detail with fleshed out or multidimensional personas to the extent that there are few if any "minor characters". There are no traditional heroes in

12870-399: The prostitute that kept hitting him over the head. He tries to encourage Yossarian to fly with him, intimating that it would be to his advantage, but Yossarian refuses as he is scared of being shot down. It is not until Orr escapes to Sweden that Yossarian realises that Orr was trying to offer him an escape out of the war with him. Orr seems to take offense at Appleby , who is patriotic and

13000-593: The publication of Hall 's Virgidemiarum , six books of verse satires targeting everything from literary fads to corrupt noblemen. Although Donne had already circulated satires in manuscript, Hall's was the first real attempt in English at verse satire on the Juvenalian model. The success of his work combined with a national mood of disillusion in the last years of Elizabeth's reign triggered an avalanche of satire—much of it less conscious of classical models than Hall's — until

13130-603: The reader is already familiar with them so that the reader must ultimately piece together a timeline of events. Specific words, phrases, and questions are also repeated frequently, generally to comic effect. Much of Heller's prose in Catch-22 is circular and repetitive, exemplifying in its form the structure of a Catch-22 . Circular reasoning is widely used by some characters to justify their actions and opinions. Heller revels in paradox . For example: " The Texan turned out to be good-natured, generous and likable. In three days no one could stand him," and "The case against Clevinger

13260-498: The right to control the curriculum. The decision was overturned on appeal in 1976. The court wrote, "A library is a storehouse of knowledge. Here we are concerned with the right of students to receive information which they and their teachers desire them to have." In 1982, the U.S. Supreme Court employed a similar rationale in its decision in Island Trees School District v. Pico on the removal of library books. Because

13390-435: The risks of continuing to fly. The “Catch-22” is that you can only be grounded if you are insane. But you must request it, and by requesting it you are considered sane. In a conversation with Yossarian in their tent, Orr tries to hint at his reasons for being so obscure, why the prostitute was hitting him over the head and why Yossarian should fly with Orr. In the next mission Orr is lost at sea, and Yossarian believes that he

13520-476: The sale of movie rights to Columbia Pictures for $ 100,000 plus $ 25,000 to write a treatment or a first draft of a screenplay. The initial reviews of the book ranged from very positive to very negative. There were positive reviews from The Nation ("the best novel to come out in years"), the New York Herald Tribune ("A wild, moving, shocking, hilarious, raging, exhilarating, giant roller-coaster of

13650-492: The satiric grotesque. Shit plays a fundamental role in satire because it symbolizes death , the turd being "the ultimate dead object". The satirical comparison of individuals or institutions with human excrement , exposes their "inherent inertness, corruption and dead-likeness". The ritual clowns of clown societies , like among the Pueblo Indians , have ceremonies with filth-eating . In other cultures, sin-eating

13780-501: The sea and make his way to a neutral country where he can wait out the war. Orr practices this second goal by getting shot down every mission he flies, and so becomes an expert in ditching, without losing a single crewman. Orr also has a goal of making his and Yossarian's tent as comfortable as possible e.g. by installing a heating system for the tent in time for winter. Orr is good friends with Yossarian and enjoys winding him up with his stories of crabapples and horse-chestnuts or about

13910-489: The social code of the upper classes. Comedy in general accepts the rules of the social game, while satire subverts them. Another analysis of satire is the spectrum of his possible tones : wit , ridicule , irony , sarcasm , cynicism , the sardonic and invective . The type of humour that deals with creating laughter at the expense of the person telling the joke is called reflexive humour. Reflexive humour can take place at dual levels of directing humour at self or at

14040-575: The squadron presumes that Orr is a simpleton, as evidenced by his optimism, despite the increasing numbers of missions, and the fact that when he crashes his plane into the sea, M&M Enterprises has stolen the CO 2 cylinders from the life jackets: "Orr hasn’t got brains enough to be unhappy." Yossarian says. However, he is eventually revealed to have had the clearest view of the absurdities of their situation through his carefully planned escape to Sweden. Although he has been shot down more times than anyone else in

14170-477: The term soon escaped from the original narrow definition. Robert Elliott writes: As soon as a noun enters the domain of metaphor, as one modern scholar has pointed out, it clamours for extension; and satura (which had had no verbal, adverbial, or adjectival forms) was immediately broadened by appropriation from the Greek word for "satyr" (satyros) and its derivatives. The odd result is that the English "satire" comes from

14300-557: The terms cynicism and parody were used. Modern critics call the Greek playwright Aristophanes one of the best known early satirists: his plays are known for their critical political and societal commentary , particularly for the political satire by which he criticized the powerful Cleon (as in The Knights ). He is also notable for the persecution he underwent. Aristophanes' plays turned upon images of filth and disease. His bawdy style

14430-535: The thing lost is one's glasses, one cannot see to look for them – a Catch-22. The term "Catch-22" is also used more broadly to mean a tricky problem or a no-win or absurd situation. In the book, Catch-22 is a military rule typifying bureaucratic operation and reasoning. The rule is not stated in a precise form, but the principal example in the book fits the definition above: If one is crazy, one does not have to fly missions; and one must be crazy to fly. But one has to apply to be excused, and applying demonstrates that one

14560-834: The timeline develops along with the plot. The novel is set during World War II , from 1942 to 1944. It mainly follows the life of antihero Captain John Yossarian , a U.S. Army Air Forces B-25 bombardier . Most of the events in the book occur while the fictional 256th US Army Air Squadron is based on the island of Pianosa , in the Mediterranean Sea west of the Italian mainland, although it also includes episodes from basic training at Lowry Field in Colorado and Air Corps training at Santa Ana Army Air Base in California. The novel examines

14690-514: The title, to avert its confusion with Leon Uris 's recently published Mila 18 . A reference was made to this nomenclatural history in the 2023 Netflix show Beef . The implications in Judaism of the number 18 – which refers to chai , meaning "alive", in Gematria – were relevant to Heller's somewhat greater emphasis on Jewish themes in early drafts of his novel. Heller's daughter Erica wrote that

14820-462: The unit (17), he continues to fly and does not appear afraid of the missions, and he is therefore assumed to be crazy. They do not know that this is part of his plan to escape the war. Doc Daneeka uses Orr as an example, when explaining the grounding of the insane and “Catch-22.” Orr is insane for not requesting to be grounded, even though he is shot down every mission he flies. If he did request to be grounded he would be considered sane for realising

14950-427: The very things the satirist wishes to question. Satire is found in many artistic forms of expression, including internet memes, literature, plays, commentary, music , film and television shows, and media such as lyrics. The word satire comes from the Latin word satur and the subsequent phrase lanx satura . Satur meant "full", but the juxtaposition with lanx shifted the meaning to "miscellany or medley":

15080-534: The way it is called in Chinese, goes back at least to Confucius , being mentioned in the Book of Odes (Shijing 詩經). It meant "to criticize by means of an ode". In the pre-Qin era it was also common for schools of thought to clarify their views through the use of short explanatory anecdotes, also called yuyan (寓言), translated as "entrusted words". These yuyan usually were brimming with satirical content. The Daoist text Zhuangzi

15210-461: The words or position of his opponent in order to jeopardize their opponent's reputation and/or power. Jonathan Swift has been established as an author who "borrowed heavily from Juvenal's techniques in [his critique] of contemporary English society". In the history of theatre there has always been a conflict between engagement and disengagement on politics and relevant issue, between satire and grotesque on one side, and jest with teasing on

15340-406: The work Reynard the Fox , written by Willem die Madoc maecte, and its translations were a popular work that satirized the class system at the time. Representing the various classes as certain anthropomorphic animals. As example, the lion in the story represents the nobility, which is portrayed as being weak and without character, but very greedy. Versions of Reynard the Fox were also popular well into

15470-509: The world in which we live and hope to survive. The title refers to a fictional bureaucratic stipulation that embodies illogical and immoral reasoning. The idea being that if one pleas insanity to stop flying life-threatening missions with a high mortality rate, one is in fact sane; however, one must be insane to keep flying those exact missions. The opening chapter of the novel was first published, in 1955, by New World Writing as Catch-18 , but Heller's agent, Candida Donadio, asked him to change

15600-417: The world, like a psychiatrist through a ward full of nuts, like a victim through a prison full of thieves. What a welcome sight a leper must have been. At the next corner a man was beating a small boy brutally in the midst of an immobile crowd of adult spectators who made no effort to intervene ..." While the military's enemies are Germans, none appear in the story as enemy combatants. This ironic situation

15730-891: The writings of the Roman satirist Juvenal (late first century – early second century AD), is more contemptuous and abrasive than the Horatian. Juvenal disagreed with the opinions of the public figures and institutions of the Republic and actively attacked them through his literature. "He utilized the satirical tools of exaggeration and parody to make his targets appear monstrous and incompetent". Juvenal's satire follows this same pattern of abrasively ridiculing societal structures. Juvenal also, unlike Horace, attacked public officials and governmental organizations through his satires, regarding their opinions as not just wrong, but evil. Following in this tradition, Juvenalian satire addresses perceived social evil through scorn, outrage, and savage ridicule. This form

15860-561: Was adopted by Greek dramatist-comedian Menander . His early play Drunkenness contains an attack on the politician Callimedon . The oldest form of satire still in use is the Menippean satire by Menippus of Gadara . His own writings are lost. Examples from his admirers and imitators mix seriousness and mockery in dialogues and present parodies before a background of diatribe . As in the case of Aristophanes plays, menippean satire turned upon images of filth and disease. Satire, or fengci (諷刺)

15990-605: Was an Arabian Nights tale called "Ali with the Large Member". In the 10th century, the writer Tha'alibi recorded satirical poetry written by the Arabic poets As-Salami and Abu Dulaf, with As-Salami praising Abu Dulaf's wide breadth of knowledge and then mocking his ability in all these subjects, and with Abu Dulaf responding back and satirizing As-Salami in return. An example of Arabic political satire included another 10th-century poet Jarir satirizing Farazdaq as "a transgressor of

16120-453: Was considered "unchristian" and ignored, except for the moral satire , which mocked misbehaviour in Christian terms. Examples are Livre des Manières by Étienne de Fougères  [ fr ] (~1178), and some of Chaucer's Canterbury Tales . Sometimes epic poetry (epos) was mocked, and even feudal society, but there was hardly a general interest in the genre. In the High Middle Ages

16250-587: Was crazy and didn't have to, but if he didn't want to he was sane and had to. Yossarian was moved very deeply by the absolute simplicity of this clause of Catch-22 and let out a respectful whistle. (p. 56, ch. 5) Other forms of Catch-22 are invoked throughout the novel to justify various bureaucratic actions. At one point, victims of harassment by military police quote the MPs' explanation of one of Catch-22's provisions: "Catch-22 states that agents enforcing Catch-22 need not prove that Catch-22 actually contains whatever provision

16380-471: Was open and shut. The only thing missing was something to charge him with." This atmosphere of apparently logical irrationality pervades the book. This style is also recognizable regarding how exactly Clevinger's trial would be executed by Lieutenant Scheisskopf: "As a member of the Action Board, Lieutenant Scheisskopf was one of the judges who would weigh the merits of the case against Clevenger as presented by

16510-505: Was rejected so as not to be confused with the World War II film Stalag 17 , as was Catch-14 , apparently because the publisher did not believe that 14 was a "funny number". Eventually, the title came to be Catch-22 , which, like 11, has a duplicated digit, with the 2 also referring to a number of déjà vu -like events common in the novel. Catch-22 was sold to Simon & Schuster , where it had been championed by editor Robert Gottlieb , who, along with Nina Bourne , edited and oversaw

16640-470: Was simply another of Orr's plans to escape from the war. Orr (like Yossarian) has a firm grasp of his situation in the war effort. As the story unfolds between harrowing war scenes and more personable ones such as Orr and Yossarian meeting prostitutes in Rome, Orr more and more enunciates his guile and clever techniques to move toward his freedom from war. At first, his frequent airplane crashes seems to hint toward

16770-443: Was well aware that, in treating of new themes in his prose works, he would have to employ a vocabulary of a nature more familiar in hija , satirical poetry." For example, in one of his zoological works, he satirized the preference for longer human penis size , writing: "If the length of the penis were a sign of honor, then the mule would belong to the (honorable tribe of) Quraysh ". Another satirical story based on this preference

16900-456: Was written 'satyre.' The word satire derives from satura , and its origin was not influenced by the Greek mythological figure of the satyr . In the 17th century, philologist Isaac Casaubon was the first to dispute the etymology of satire from satyr, contrary to the belief up to that time. The rules of satire are such that it must do more than make you laugh. No matter how amusing it is, it doesn't count unless you find yourself wincing

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