Catch-22 is one of those books which you’ve either been meaning to read for ages, or which you read as a teenager and never got over and then kept re-reading every few years because the language is sheer poetry and also it turns out you’ve become the sort of writer who, much like Joseph Heller, simply loves to write unnecessarily long sentences for comedic reasons as much as anything and it’s therefore the only way that you can feel validated in your professional and literary choices.
See what we did there?
The short synopsis – a World War II Air Force bombardier would rather not be killed in action, thanks – doesn’t exactly do it justice, but there’s every chance that the upcoming Hulu adaptation will.
Oh, it looks good.
For a start, that cast! Oh, that cast!
George Clooney is getting the headlines as the name (and director, and producer) behind the adaptation, in what we should assume is probably a somewhat expanded role for the smallish part of Lieutenant Scheisskopf, with his wife played by Better Call Saul/Preacher alumnus Julie Ann Emery.
Also, Kyle Chandler – yes, as in Coach Taylor from Friday Night Lights – is the blustering Colonel Cathcart, while Hugh Laurie is playing the haughty Major De Coverley.
Yes. Yes, he does.
Those are most of the “names”, because the show has made the decision – unlike the 1970 film adaptation – to cast largely-unknown young actors playing the actual airmen. And thus Christopher Abbott, who has few screen credits to his name so far, is playing the key lead role as Yossarian.
And that’s going to be perfect for a story where whipsmart dialogue and slow-burning absurdity is combined with the tragedy of sending a bunch of near-children on what seems to many of them to be a wild adventure, from which many of them will not return.
It hits screens in May, which gives you a few months to read the book. Come on, let’s do it together: “It was love at first sight. The first time Yossarian saw the chaplain, he fell madly in love with him…”