Streaming columnist NICK OVERALL wrestles with the concept of “Catch-22”, which has re-emerged in the guise of a TV series.

JOSEPH Heller’s 1961 anti-war novel “Catch-22” is where the term for a paradoxical situation without solution first appeared, and with a modern adaptation streaming on Stan, it once again proves itself as a story for our times.

The plot explores the ever contradictory nature of life through the eyes of Yossarian, a US bombardier desperate to escape the madness of World War II.

The original “catch-22” situation comes from Yossarian’s attempt to plead insanity so that he can escape his horrific flying missions. But, if someone wishes to escape the insanity of war, they must in fact be sane in the first place and therefore cannot plead insanity.

Tad maddening just trying to get one’s head around it.

The novel took its ‘60s audience by storm and is often referred to as one of the greatest books of all time.

For a modern audience, Stan has a six-part mini series that includes talent such as George Clooney, Hugh Laurie and Kyle Chandler in some of the show’s authoritative roles, and up-and-coming Christopher Abbott as Yossarian. 

Equally impressive is the production. With some big-budget, modern effects it’s able to capture the atmosphere of the novel in a realistic and confronting way.

Many may be more familiar with the film version of “Catch-22” from 1970, one I unfortunately couldn’t track down as part of any streaming platform subscription.

But Heller’s novel was always low-hanging fruit for a television adaptation.

The book is an absurd string of stories and characters. One chapter is a breakdown of how a soldier could feasibly be named “Major Major Major Major”, another has Yossarian frazzled as to why millions of people who don’t know him wish to kill him.

That quirky, almost anthological structure lends itself to a television format of storytelling near perfectly.

With six episodes in hand, it offers a chance to explore the vision of the novel in new detail, and while the show might not live up to the cleverness of its source material, it certainly goes a long way.

Heller wrote the book following his own service as a bombardier in World War II, an experience described as leaving him a “tortured, funny, deeply peculiar human being.”

Indeed, the story flicks between the horrific and the hilarious so rapidly that it can be exasperating.

Amongst these horrors of war the characters remark on the irony and senselessness of it all, but embedded in these jokes is a layer of existentialism, a questioning of the absurd nature of the world that puts them in these absurd situations.

It is a hilarious, often ridiculous plot, but through laughter it’s able to paint a more vivid picture of this fractured world they inhabit.

It’s an astute example of the utility of humour in hard times, and one we can think about in our covid era as well.

Whether it be a video of a zoom call gone horribly wrong, reflection on the toilet-paper stampedes, or one of the many cartoons published day in, day out, there’s a fascination with the funny side of our strange situation.

That’s not to call the pandemic a laughing matter or detract from the seriousness of the situation or even to equate it to the extremities of World War II.

Rather, “Catch-22” highlights that our sense of humour is often part of what helps us push through to the other side of a hard situation.

Heller’s satire not only helped him better rationalise the horrors of war, it was able to help a generation better rationalise them, too, and leave them better off for it.

I think it’s something for us to think about in the “Catch-22” of covid we find ourselves in.