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Jewish World Review Feb. 16, 2000/ 11 Adar I, 5760
Robert Leiter
So, it shouldn't be surprising that several months after Heller's demise, an
alternate view has appeared from none other than Norman Podhoretz.
One forgets that the former editor-in-chief of Commentary magazine began his
career as a literary critic -- that is, until you are immersed in one of his
critical essays and recall how good he was, and still is, at it. (Examples
of this early work are gathered in his first book, Doings and Undoings,
which is still very much worth a look.) In fact, there are many people who
wish Podhoretz had stayed in the literary arena and had never wandered into
political commentary. But those people have an axe to grind.
As for his Heller piece, titled "Looking Back at Catch-22," it appears in
the February 2000 issue of Commentary and makes it clear right from the
start that in the bad old 1960s, when the counterculture had just begun to
rear its ugly head, Podhoretz, who was then on the left, praised Heller's
novel, with certain reservations, as an accurate portrait of the madness of
American society in the mid-20th century.
He's changed his mind, of course, as anyone who has followed his political
career since the 1960s might imagine. Where earlier he thought highly of the
book, he now has reassessed his position. He still thinks the novel works as
art, though even 40 years ago he never was convinced that its "greatness was
beyond dispute" or that it "would live forever," as other critics had raved. What he worries about now is the effect the novel's philosophy has had on
several generations of Americans. Podhoretz rarely agrees with E.L. Doctorow
these days, but he has to admit that the popular novelist accurately
summarized Catch-22's appeal.
"When Catch-22 came out," Doctorow noted in a tribute to Heller, "people
were saying, ŚWell, World War II wasn't like this.' But when we got tangled
up in Vietnam, it became a sort of text for the consciousness of that time.
They say fiction can't change anything, but it can certainly organize a
generation's consciousness."
Podhoretz agrees that Catch-22 as a work of art had the power to change
people's minds, but what he wonders now is "whether the literary achievement
was worth the harm -- the moral, spiritual and intellectual harm" the novel
has done to the "consciousness" of several generations.
The influence of Heller's vision, according to Podhoretz, "lingers on in a
gutted American military and in a culture that puts the avoidance of
casualties above all other considerations. (How often have we been told that
the only military engagements the American people will tolerate are those
that do not result in the shipping-home of any body bags'?) Of course,
Heller cannot be given all the credit' for this situation. [But] he did
as much as anyone to resurrect the pacifist ideas that had become prevalent
after World War I and had then been discredited by World War II: that war is
simply a means by which cynical people commit legalized murder in pursuit of
power and profits; that patriotism is a fraud; and that nothing is worth
dying for (this last sentiment, according to Nietzsche, being a mark of the
Heller's Legacy Poses a Catch-22
http://www.jewishworldreview.com --
THE RECENT DEATH of novelist Joseph Heller, author of the contemporary
classic Catch-22, was the occasion for an outpouring of affection for the
man and praise for his gifts as an artist. There was little dissent from the
prevailing view that he had written at least one work of genius, his first --
his send-up of war and the military, that gave the language the term
Catch-22.
JWR contributor Robert Leiter is Literary Editor of the Philadelphia Jewish Exponent. Let him know what you think by clicking here.
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