[인용] Excerpts from 『Catch-22』, Joseph Heller

Excerpts from Catch-22 by Joseph Heller. 

여태껏 읽은 최고의 반전(反戰)·풍자소설이다.

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Pg. 55 

There was only one catch and that was Catch-22, which specified that a concern for one’s own 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 to fly more missions and sane if he didn’t, but if he was sane he had to fly them. If he flew them he 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.

Pg. 67~68

“Catch-22,” Doc Daneeka answered patiently, when Hungry Joe had flown Yossarian back to Pianosa, “says you’ve always got to do what your commanding officer tells you to.”

“But Twenty-seventh Air Force says I can go home with forty-six missions.”

“But they don’t say you have to go home. And regulations do say you have to obey every order. That’s the catch. Even if the colonel were disobeying a Twenty-seventh Air Force order by making you fly more missions, you’d still have to fly them, or you’d be guilty of disobeying an order of his. And then Twenty-seventh Air Forces Headquarters would really jump on you.”

Yossarian slumped with disappointment. “Then I really do have to fly the fifty missions, don’t I?” he grieved.

“The fifty-five,” Doc Daneeka corrected him.

“What fifty-five?”

“The fifty-five mission the colonel now wants all of you to fly.”

Pg. 112~113

“After you.”

They jumped inside the office. Major Major sat down, and Yossarian moved around in front of his desk and told him that he did not want to fly any more combat missions. What could he do? Major Major asked himself. All he could do was what he had been instructed to do by Colonel Korn and hope for the best.

“Why not?” he asked.

“I’m afraid.”

“That’s nothing to be ashamed of,” Major Major counseled him kindly. “We’re all afraid.”

“I’m not ashamed,” Yossarian said. “I’m just afraid.”

“You wouldn’t be normal if you were never afraid. Even the bravest men experience fear. One of the biggest jobs we all face in combat is to overcome our fear.”

“Oh, come on, Major. Can’t we do without that horseshit?”

Major Major lowered his gaze sheepishly and fiddled with his fingers. “What do you want me to tell you?”

“That I’ve flown enough missions and can go home.”

“How many have you flown?”

“Fifty-one.”

“You’ve only got four more to fly.”

“He’ll raise them. Every time I get close he raises them.”

“Perhaps he won’t this time.”

“He never sends anyone home, anyway. He just keeps them around waiting for rotation orders until he doesn’t have enough men left for the crews, and then raises the number of missions and throws them all back on combat status. He’s been doing that ever since he got here.”

“You mustn’t blame Colonel Cathcart for any delay with the orders,” Major Major advised. “It’s Twenty-seventh Air Force’s responsibility to process the orders promptly once they get them from us.”

“He could still ask for replacements and send us home when the orders did come back.

Anyway, I’ve been told that Twenty-seventh Air Force wants only forty missions and that it’s only his own idea to get us to fly fifty-five.”

“I wouldn’t know anything about that,” Major Major answered. “Colonel Cathcart is our commanding officer and we must obey him. Why don’t you fly the four more missions and see what happens?”

“I don’t want to.”

What could you do? Major Major asked himself again. What could you do with a man who looked you squarely in the eye and said he would rather die than be killed in combat, a man who was at least as mature and intelligent as you were and who you had to pretend was not? What could you say to him?

“Suppose we let you pick your missions and fly milk runs,” Major Major said. “That way you can fly the four missions and not run any risks.”

“I don’t want to fly milk runs. I don’t want to be in the war any more.”

“Would you like to see our country lose?” Major Major asked.

“We won’t lose. We”ve got more men, more money and more material. There are ten million men in uniform who could replace me. Some people are getting killed and a lot more are making money and having fun. Let somebody else get killed.”

“But suppose everybody on our side felt that way.”

“Then I’d certainly be a damned fool to feel any other way. Wouldn’t I?”

What could you possibly say to him? Major Major wondered forlornly. One thing he could not say was that there was nothing he could do. To say there was nothing he could do would suggest he would do something if he could and imply the existence of an error of injustice in Colonel Korn’s policy. Colonel Korn had been most explicit about that. He must never say there was nothing he could do.

“I’m sorry,” he said. “But there’s nothing I can do.”

Pg. 119

“If anyone sick walks through my door I’m going to ground him,” Dr. Stubbs vowed. “I don’t give a damn what they say.”

“You can’t ground anyone,” Dunbar reminded. “Don’t you know the orders”

“I’ll knock him flat on his ass with an injection and really ground him.”

Dr. Stubbs laughed with sardonic amusement at the prospect.

“They think they can order sick call out of existence. The bastards. Ooops, there it goes again.”

The rain began falling again, first in the trees, then in the mud puddles, then, faintly, like a soothing murmur, on the tent top. “Everything’s wet,” Dr. Stubbs observed with revulsion. “Even the latrines and urinals are backing up in protest. The whole goddam world smells like a charnel house.”

The silence seemed bottomless when he stopped talking. Night fell. There was a sense of vast isolation.

“Turn on the light,” Dunbar suggested.

“There is no light. I don’t feel like starting my generator. I used to get a big kick out of saving people’s lives. Now I wonder what the hell’s the point, since they all have to die anyway.”

Pg. 133~134

"It doesn’t make a damned bit of difference who wins the war to someone who’s dead."

Pg. 175~176

There was a much lower death rate inside the hospital than outside the hospital, and a much healthier death rate. Few people died unnecessarily. People knew a lot more about dying inside the hospital and made a much neater, more orderly job of it. They couldn't dominate Death inside the hospital, but they certainly made her behave. They had taught her manners.... There was none of that crude, ugly ostentation about dying that was so common outside the hospital. They did not blow up in mid-air like Kraft or the dead man in Yossarian's tent, or freeze to death in the blazing summertime the way Snowden had frozen to death after spilling his secret to Yossarian in the back of the plane.