This is a story compromised by paradox. To be a story it needs to flow. It can't flow because it's about paradox. Without the paradox it wouldn't be a story.
The catch is, "To fight in a war, you have to be mad. But if you're mad, then you are exempt from fighting. If you are not mad, you have to fight."
But what about Luciana's rebutle to Yossarian's advances? "I can't marry you because you would have to be mad to want to marry a prostitute."
And...
"It is safer to be in hospital where fewer people die. People who are perfectly well and dying in their droves outside in grotesque ways ."
Orr is annoying Yossarian again by holding two horse chestnuts in his two cheeks. Yossarian makes him take them out. Orr says "Will you let me put them back in my mouth if I tell you why that hoare was hitting me over the head with her stiletto healed shoe?" Yossarian, intrigued, agrees. Orr puts the chestnuts back in his mouth and explains the reason, but Yossarian can make nothing out because Orr has two chestnuts in his mouth.
A conversation between Yossarian, our cowardly hero, and his lieutenant's wife, whilst in a hotel bed together.
Lieutenant Scheisskopf ’s wife had turned ashen in disbelief and was ogling him with alarm. 'You’ d better not talk that way about Him, honey,’ she warned him reprovingly in a low and hostile voice. 'He might punish you.’ 'Isn’t He punishing me enough?’ Yossarian snorted resentfully. 'You know, we mustn’t let Him get away with it. Oh, no, we certainly mustn’t let Him get away scot free for all the sorrow He’s caused us. Someday I’m going to make Him pay. I know when. On the Judgment Day. Yes, That’s the day I’ll be close enough to reach out and grab that little yokel by His neck and -’ 'Stop it ! Stop it !’ Lieutenant Scheisskopf ’s wife screamed suddenly, and began beating him ineffectually about the head with both fists. 'Stop it!’ Yossarian ducked behind his arm for protection while she slammed away at him in feminine fury for a few seconds, and then he caught her determinedly by the wrists and forced her gently back down on the bed. 'What the hell are you getting so upset about?’ he asked her bewilderedly in a tone of contrite amusement. 'I thought you didn’t believe in God.’ 'I don’t,’ she sobbed, bursting violently into tears. 'But the God I don’t believe in is a good God, a just God, a merciful God. He’s not the mean and stupid God you make Him out to be.’ Yossarian laughed and turned her arms loose. 'Let’s have a little more religious freedom between us,’ he proposed obligingly. 'You don’t believe in the God you want to, and I won’t believe in the God I want to. Is that a deal?' That was the most illogical Thanksgiving he could ever remember spending, and his thoughts returned wishfully to his halcyon fourteen-day quarantine in the hospital the year before; but even that idyll had ended on a tragic note; he was still in good health when the quarantine period was over, and they told him again that he had to get out and go to war.
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| Triangular Lodge Rushton- with thanks to aerialengland.co.uk |
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