I made the mistake of following my reading of Catch-22, by Joseph Heller, with The Sirens of Titan, by Kurt Vonnegut. I am usually quite conscious of the order in which I read my books - I like to follow heavy with light, fantasy with drama, character-focused with plot-driven - but this time I wasn't paying attention, and I followed a tongue-in-cheek war satire, with a tongue-in-cheek science fiction war satire, both about life and death and the men who control us along the way.
It took me a good while to really appreciate Catch-22. I loved the wit and the tone at the beginning, but only because I thought he would eventually settle into the story. When that just never happened, I got frustrated for a good chunk of it, and it wasn't until the last fifty pages or so that I could truly appreciate what he was trying to do with this novel. I was supposed to be that frustrated, and if that's the case, then I can see how this novel has become the success that so many say it is.
Unfortunately, my appreciation didn't last long, since within ten pages of the Vonnegut, he had made me think and feel almost everything it took Heller 450 pages to do (with over twice as many words per page!). Even when later in The Sirens of Titan Vonnegut borrowed material from one of his own short stories, I couldn't quite knock him for that, since he kept blowing my mind every few pages.
So, if you love M*A*S*H, and you want to read a novel version of it, go ahead and take the time to read Catch-22, but otherwise, go with The Sirens of Titan or Slaughter-House-Five. Vonnegut always wins.
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