Catch-22
Yossarian is a bombardier fighting in World War II for the US Army but his one wish is to stop fighting as a bombardier, in fact, to stop fighting completely in WWII for the US Army - especially as everybody is already out to kill him - or so he thinks. In trying to escape the rigours of military life, Yossarian begins to realise that madness may be bad but sanity, it seems, is even worse. ... No Laughing Matter
Successful novelist Joseph Heller was 58 and separated from his wife when the mysterious illness known as Guillain-Barre Syndrome struck him down. Suddenly paralyzed over most of his body, unable even to swallow food, Heller was rushed into hospital care and given lots of neurological tests. Among his visitors were a can-do Dustin Hoffman, expert hypochondriac Mel Brooks, and terrified Mario Puzo. G-B is a strange and incurable disease that kills some, g... Now and Then
Heller looks back on his life -- mostly, his childhood in the Coney Island neighborhood of Brooklyn among a melange of other ethnic immigrants and religions. Although the film touches on his work as a blacksmith assistant in the Navy Yards in Virginia, then service in World War II, and some lessons of psychotheraphy, this memoir is mostly about his family and youth: calm, accepting, and generous.... Portrait of an Artist, as an Old Man
Eugene Pota, an aging writer, would like to publish one last great novel before he dies. He had overwhelming success with his first book but his later novels didn't do so well, and now he is all but blocked. He starts a novel about Tom Sawyer trying to meet Mark Twain, one about a man who turns into a cockroach in downtown Manhattan, sex novels about a modern wife or about Hera and Zeus, but nothing catches fire. He also fends off polite inquiries and of...
