Germaine Greer explains the impact of the publication of Joseph Heller's Catch 22 during the Vietnam War:I think there was a really important moment when we realised that the effort in Vietnam was doomed. Partly because it was completely corrupt. That it wasn’t a proper war, and it wasn’t being properly fought and the kids were all on smack and nightmare… That actually the great myth we all grew up on was that the right side won the second world war. That people still believe it. They still believe for example that the Battle of Britain was fought by the British when it was actually fought by the commonwealth air brigade who came from all over the place. So the most famous aces were South African and New Zealanders. But we did really believe that when you went to war, you did things by the book and you shot the enemy, rather than each other. So, and we were hearing all the time about fragging, about using grenades to blow up your commanding officer. Because you hated his guts. You hated him more than the enemy. And this was such a dreadful revelation to the children of returned service men, and in a way for my generation we realised why our fathers couldn’t talk to us. Because they had this huge burden of guilt, and they knew that the war was a fuck up and that you could never present it that way when we were at school. At no way in the world. So for them, it was a huge liberation to have somebody write a book about a war, which just showed how to survive it really, and what a shambles the whole thing was.

But it wasn’t just that, we began to understand that Catch 22 operated all over the place. That you couldn’t have anything you wanted. You can only have things you already had. You wouldn’t get jobs you really cared about. You’d only get jobs you didn’t care about. That Catch 22 was everywhere. And Catch 22 is the way that most of us would be frustrated. And it’s probably still in the language but at that time it was everywhere.

Taken from 'Reading The Decades'

Content last updated: 27/05/2004

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