>> i think we really want to thank you. thank you. >> thank you for coming and tolerating us. [applause] we are all invited to a reception downstairs and i think both leonard and deepak are willing to stay and continue the conversation with so we invite you all to come downstairs and enjoy refreshments. thank you. [inaudible conversations]

now a panel discussion on joseph heller's novel "catch-22" in recognition of the 50th anniversary of the book's publication. this is about an hour and a half. >> it was love at first sight. the first time he saw the chaplain he fell madly in love. the assyrian was in the hospital with a pain in his liver that fell just short of being john this. the doctors were puzzled by the fact that it wasn't quite john this. if it become jaundiced bigotry to. if it did become jaundiced and went away they could discharge him but just being short of jaundiced all the time confuse them. each morning they came around,

three brisk and serious men with efficient mouth and inefficient eyes accompanied by brisk and serious nurse dockets one of the ward nurses who did not like u.s. area. they read the chart and asked impatiently about the pain. they seemed irritated when do he told them it was exactly the same. still no movement the full colonel commanded. the doctors exchanged a look when he shook his head. give them another pill. nurse duckett made a note to give you another pill in the four fourth and moved along to the next that. that of the nurses liked him. actually the pain in his liver had gone away but he did not say anything and the doctors never suspected. they just suspected he had been moving his and not telling anyone. he had everything you he wanted in the hospital. the food wasn't too bad and his meals were brought to him in

bed. their works to rations of fresh meat and during the hot part of the afternoon he and the others were served chilled fruit juice or chocolate not. part from the doctors and nurses no know whenever disturbed him. were a little while in the morning he had to censor letters but he was free after that to spend the rest of each day lying around with a clear conscience. he was comfortable in the hospital and it was easy to stay him because he always ran a temperature of 101. he was even more kinds -- comfortable than dunbar that had to keep falling down on his face to get his meals brought to him in bed. after he made up his mind, yosarian wrote letters to everyone in his saying he was in the hospital but never mentioning why. one day he had a better idea. everybody knew he wrote that he was going on a very dangerous mission. they asked for volunteers. is very dangerous but someone has to do it. i will write you when i get

back. and he had not written anyone since. all the officer patients in the ward were forced to censor letters written by the enlisted men patients were kept in residence in wards of their own. it was a monotonous job and yosarian was disappointed to learn that the lives of enlisted men were only slightly more interesting than the lives of officers. after the first day he had no curiosity at all. to break the monotony he invaded games, death to all modifiers he declared one day and out of every letter that passed through his hands went every adverb but every adjective. the next day he made articles. he reached a much higher plane of creativity the following day when he blacked out everything in the letters but a, and and be. that erected a more dynamic interlinear tension he felt and in just about every case left a message far more universal. sinuous prescribing parts of

salutations in signatures and leading the text untouched. one time he blacked out all the salutation dear mary from a letter and at the bottom the road, i yearn for you tragically, 18 chapman, chaplain, u.s. army. 80 chapman was the group chaplain's name. when he had exhausted all possibilities in the letters he began attacking the names and addresses on the envelopes obliterate a whole homes and streets, night waiting entire metropolises with careless flicks of his wrist as though he were god. "catch-22" required that each centered letter bear this censoring officer's name. most letters he didn't read at all. on those he didn't read at all he wrote his own name. on those he did read he wrote washington irving. [laughter] wynette grew monotonous he wrote irving washington. censoring the envelopes had serious repercussions and produced a ripple of anxiety on

some military echelon that floated a cid man back to the ward posing as a patient. they all knew he was a cid man because it kept inquiring about any of officer named irving or washington and because after his first day there he wouldn't censor letters. who had been shot into the adriatic sea in midwinter and had not even caught cold. now the summer was upon them and the captain had not been shut down and he said he had the grip. in the bed on yosarian's right still lying amherst glee on his belly was a startled captain with malaria and his blood and a mosquito bite. across the aisle from the assyrian -- yosarian was dunbar and the artillery captain with yosarian had stopped playing

chess. the captain was a good chess player in the games were always interesting. yosarian stop playing chess with him because the games were so interesting they were foolish. then there was the educated texan from texas who looked like someone in technicolor bethel patriotically that people of means, decent folk should be given more votes than drifters, criminals, degenerates, atheists and in decent folk. people without means. yosarian was, yosarian was on springing rhythms and the letters the day they brought the texan in. it was another quiet, hot untroubled day. the heat pressed heavily on the roof stifling sound. dunbar was lying motionless on his back again with his eyes staring up at the ceiling like a doll. he was working hard increasing his lifespan. he did it by cultivating boredom. dunbar was working so hard and

increasing his lifespan that yosarian thought he was dead. they put the texan in a bed in the middle of the ward. it wasn't long before he donated his views. dunbar set up like a shot. that's it. there was something missing. all the time i knew there was something missing and now i know what it is. he banged his fist down into his palm. no patriotism he declared. you are right yosarian shouted back. you are right, you are right, you are right. the hot dogs, the brooklyn dodgers, mom's apple pie, that's what everyone is fighting for but who is fighting for the decent folks? who is fighting for mold folks for the decent folks? there is no patriotism. that's what it is in no and no major it isn't either. the warrant officer on yosarian left unimpressed. who cares he asked and turned over to his side to fall asleep.

the texan turned out to be good-natured, generous and likable. in three days no one could stand him. he sent shudders of annoyance scampering up ticklish vibes and everybody fled from him. everybody but the soldier and wide who had no choice. the soldier and wide was engaged from head to toe in plaster and cost. he had to useless legs into youthful storms. he had been smuggled into the war during the night and the men had no idea he was among them until they woke in the morning and saw two strange legs host -- hoisted in the two strange arms anchor perpendicularly all four limbs pinioned by lead weight suspended darkly about him that never moved. sewn into the bandages over the insides of both elbows were zippered lips through which he was fed clear fluid from a clear jar, a silent pipe rose from the cement and was coupled to a slim

rubber hose they carried waste from his kidneys and drifted efficiently into a clear stopper jar on the floor. when the jar in the floor was full, the jar feeding the oboe was empty and the two were switched quickly so stuff good trip back into him. all they ever really saw the soldier and white was a frayed black hole over his mouth. the soldier and wide headband filed next to the texan in in the texan sat sideways on his own bed and talk to him throughout the morning, afternoon and evening and a pleasant sympathetic drawl. the texan never minded that he got no reply. temperatures were taken twice a day in the ward. early each morning and late each afternoon, nurse kramer entered with a jar full of thermometers and worked her way up one side of the ward and down the other, distributing a thermometer to each patient. she managed the soldier and white by inserting a thermometer into the hole over his mouth and leaving a balance there on the lower room.

when she returned to the mat in the first that she took his thermometer and recorded a temperature than that onto the next bed and continued around the ward again. one afternoon when she completed her first circuit of the ward there came a second time to the soldier and and and wide and she read his temperature and discovered that he was dead. murderer dunbar said quietly. the text and looked at him with an uncertain grand. killer, yosarian said. what are you talking about the texan asked nervously. you murdered him said dunbar. you killed him said to yosarian. the texan shrank back. you fellows are crazy. i didn't even touch him. you murdered him said dunbar. i heard you kill him said yosarian. you killed him because he was a -- dunbar said. you fellows are crazy the texan cry. they don't allow them in here. they have a special place for

them. the sergeant smuggled him and dunbar said. the communist sergeant said yosarian and you knew it. the warrant officer unnecessary and flap was unimpressed by the soldier and wide. the warrant officer was unimpressed by everything and never spoke at all unless it was a show of irritation. the day before yosarian match the chaplain, a stove exploded in the mess hall and set fire to one side of the kitchen. in intense heat flash to the area. even in yosarian's warred almost 300 could hear the roar of the blaze and the sharp cracks a flaming timber. smoke sped past the orange tinted windows and in about 15 minutes the crash tracks from the airfield arrived to fight the fire. for a frantic half-hour it was touch and go and then the firemen began to get the other hand.

suddenly there was the monotonous olds ron of bombers returning from a mission and the firemen had to roll up their hoses in speed back to the field in case one of the planes crashed and caught by her. the planes landed safely. as as in this last one was down, the firemen who build their trucks around and raise back up the hill to resume their fight at the hospital. when they got their the blaze that out. it died of its own accord expired quickly without even amber to be watered down. there was nothing for the disappointed firemen to do but drink coffee and hang around trying to screw the nurses. the chaplain arrived the day after the fire. yosarian was busy extricating all the romance works from the letters when the chaplain set down in a chair between the beds and asked him how he was feeling. he had placed himself a bit to one side and the captains bars on the tab of the shirt caller were all the insignia of

yosarian could see. yosarian had no idea who he was and just take took it for granted that he was either another doctor or another -- oh pretty good he answered. i have a slight pain in my liver and i haven't been the most regular of fellows i guess but all in all i must admit i feel pretty good. that's good said the chaplain. yes said yosarian. yes, that is good. i meant to come around sooner the chaplain said but i really haven't been well. that's too bad yosarian said. just a head cold the chaplain added quickly. i've got a fever of 101 yosarian added just as quickly. that's too bad so the chaplain. yes, and yosarian agrees, yes that is too bad. the chaplain fidgeted. is there anything i can do for you? after a while? no, no yosarian said.

the doctors are doing all that is humanly possible i suppose. no, no, the chaplain said lamely i didn't mean anything like that. i met cigarettes, veaux or toys. no, no, yosarian said. thank you. i have everything i need. i suppose, everything but good health. that's too bad. yes yosarian said, yes that is too bad. the chaplain stirred again. he looked from side to side a few times and then gazed up at the ceiling and then down to the floor. he drew a deep rest. lieutenant nae police sent his regards he said. yosarian was sorry to hear they had a mutual friend. seemed there was a basis for their conversation after all. do you know the lieutenant he asked? yes, i know him quite well.

he is a bit loony, isn't he? the chaplain smiled was embarrassed. i'm afraid i couldn't say. i don't think i know him that well. you could take my word for its yosarian said. he is as goofy as they come. the chaplain waived a sigh heavily and shattered with an abrupt question. you are captain yosarian aren't you? he had a bad start. we came from a good family. please excuse me the chaplain persisted timorous lay. i may be committing a very great error. are you captain yosarian? yes captain yosarian confess. i am captain yosarian of the 256 squadron, the fighting 256 quadra and yosarian replied. i didn't know there were any other captain gives syrian's. as far as i know i'm the only captain yosarian that i know but that is only as far as i know. i see the chaplain said

unhappily. that's to do the fighting eighth power yosarian pointed out if you are thinking of writing a symbolic home without our squadron. no mumbled the chaplain. and not thinking of writing a symbolic poem about your squadron. yosarian straighten sharply when he spied the tiny silver cross on the other side of the chaplain's caller. he was thoroughly astonished for he had never really talked with the chaplain before. you are a chaplain he explained ecstatically. i didn't know you were a chaplain. yes the chaplain answered. didn't you know i was a chaplain? wino, didn't know you were a chaplain. yosarian stared at him with a big fascinated grin. i have never really seen a chaplain before. the chaplain flushed again and gazed down at his hands. he was a slight band of about 32 with 10 hair and around diffident eyes. his face was narrowing rather

pale. in and innocent nest of temple bricks lay in the basement of each cheek. yosarian wanted to help him. can i do anything at all to help you the chaplain asked. yosarian shook his head still grinning. no, i have everything i need and i'm quite comfortable. in fact, i'm i am not even sick. [applause] >> that was wonderful. [applause] >> that just proves that we never stop loving the red tube. so, as i heard the story, joseph heller wrote, catch 18 and he wanted to get this published, this catch 18 but they came out

with me the 18 ends the story goes don't tell me if there's anything wrong in the telling of the story because it's too good. so far, so mila 18 comes out by leon harris and the powers that be at simon & shuster decide, we cannot have two novels come out of the same time with the number 18 written by two jewish writers. it cannot be, so they called and they say, they say, have to change the number. he doesn't want to change the number and they say, what is 14? catch 14. he says, 14 isn't funny. and so, the bickering commenced and went on and then in the end, as it turned out, 22 is a very funny number.

it ended up 22 and i think it is a very funny number, don't you? [applause] i'm going to start with robert gottlieb on our panel who as has we no edited "catch-22". as the story goes on that front, it was a real collaboration that is the story went goes, you got the pages in various versions and spend quite a long time with joseph heller, taking these pages and putting them together as a puzzle. is that true? what was the project of putting the book together. three questions for you, three-part or. what was that collaboration like? what was he like as a writer to work with? was a difficult? did he give you a hard time? and as the pages came into you, really any serial way, what did you think this book was about? as it emerged, three-part.

>> three parts come in that order? >> any order you choose. >> first of all, he was an extraordinary writer to work with. some writers are anxious, some are negative, some are overeager, some are over grateful although that's not easy to be with an editor. [laughter] he was like no one i have ever worked with. i have worked with hundreds of writers. he saw his own were completely objectively. he was disinterested. it was somebody else's work we were working with, so we would have a chapter in front of us. i would say, i don't think this is working, this paragraph. it's too dull or too long. he said yeah, what if we do this? i would say okay, that way. he said great we will put this word pair and i always describe it is to surgeons working on the same patient together. there wasn't a patient and a doctor or a doctor and a patient.

there was a problem and he recognized that i recognized it and whoever came up with the best solution -- he was completely -- you don't want easy writers. he understood the problems because he had the mind of an editor more than any other writer i've ever worked with so it was like two editors working on the same thing. there was never in the many books i worked with of his, there was never a bad moment. so that is that. >> that had to be incredibly unusual for a writer. >> he was very unusual. >> very proprietary overby were. >> and very sensitive and he may have been more sensitive than i knew but he certainly wasn't going to show it because that wouldn't get us anywhere. he just wanted to be as good as it could be. >> as the pages were coming in, what did you think the book was really about? >> i didn't ask myself that because it was about what it was. the point is that it was wonderful and it was funny.

i never saw it as a particularly funny book. i sighed as he and angry book, but of course it was very -- the stories about how we worked dissecting this thing with nine different versions, i don't know where all that came from. i think michael korda in his memoirs. i think he invented that. michael was the younger editor, very close friend, and he is a wonderful writer but he is a -- so there was a great deal of exaggeration and after the book came out in the happen to review what he called in the me the next day and said, how could i have said those things? and i said because you didn't check anything. you just had a great story to tell. >> as you know in history, we are going to pick the best version. >> course. that's what we look for his publishers. but it was a process. it was a very calm process.

i don't remember nine different versions. joe wrote, he prepared for writing on cards, file cards ante up thousands and thousands of them in a stack that. he would move them around, but he already had a structure of the book in his head and nobody really talks about what a brilliant structure it is, how things come in a little and then a little more and a little more. the main example of that is the death of snowed in which is referred to constantly and you get closer and closer. then at the very end of the book, there is the horrible horrible story. he knew just what he was doing and on top of that he knew how good it was. >> he also, in the new version you see this, incredible revisions and revisions and revisions. there is a full page of reprinted, his handwriting and he crossed out everything but

three or four words. >> he was a good self censor but he liked editing. he liked editing himself. he liked being edited. it was just a totally happy experience. i hadn't read the books book since i sent it to press and i thought since i'm going to do the thing i had better take a look and see if i still like it. and i'm happy to report i love it. although somewhat differently from what i did before. my problem now is that although i don't do this with ordinary books that i read, i kept wanting to add it to its. and i was thinking, how did i let this go by? but too late. the book is out there. [laughter] he is gone, so that i'm very proud of it and most important with me, it was all that he hoped for and really knew it. he never doubted it.

>> wow am i love that. that is a wonderful introduction. we will delve into the book a little bit after we do a round. let's go to chris buckley next, who was a very close friend of joe heller's later in life and as i understand it, i understand actually from you that the two of you exchanged hundreds of letters on top of having many meetings in person. so tell us about joseph heller's, the guy's guy, and in. i would love to know he was funny in person. >> well we didn't go to girlie clubs together. valerie heller is with us in the audience, but i didn't just say that for her benefit. we are coming together, which is odd for this reason. i reviewed for "the new yorker" the sql to "catch-22", a book

called closing time, which is a sort of mad, jumbled novel and it is used to -- yosarian 40 odd years later. i couldn't resist quoting the line that sequels weren't necessarily equal. i'm a great admirer of "catch-22" but it was by no means all that admiring. i was very surprised when about a week later, a handwritten letter arrived and i looked at the upper left hand corner and saw the name joe heller and i thought oh my god. i actually delayed opening it

for a few hours. i got it open and it said joe heller and it was one of the sweetest letters i have ever had. he said you know i think you understand my book better than i did and my wife was in tears when she read the last paragraph. so how could i not write back? i did and very shortly, remember fax machines? this was in the day of the fax. i was very glad the course bonds didn't take place in the age of e-mail because these were letters. we would type them in print them and fax them. but by the time he died four years later, i went to the file and there were three or 400 letters they are, strangely. you know, this was not a particularly easy time of his

life as some of you probably know. it was in the early '80s i think that he was stricken with something called keon beret syndrome, which none of us want to get. it was actually an amusing exchange in the literature somewhere where a friend of his named george mandel calls mario caputo, who was a great friend of joe's and said, have you heard about joe? mario puzo says no, well he has got keon beret. buzo goes, that's great. and he says no, no, no, it's a disease. he goes oh, that's terrible. he said -- puzo says you know if they named it after two people it's got to be really terrible. [laughter] joe was, he was a day very kindly guy and certainly in my

dealings with him, but he was also, you know he had a steel trap mind, a switchblade like intelligence and what hemingway called the most necessary thing for a writer, a first-class bull detector. he was this combination of the warm and fuzzy with the inner steel, but he for me he was very easy to love. we have sort of a mutual despairing society, and at one point i got a very mixed review from one of my folks from publishers weekly, so i faxed it to him, and he crossed out all the mixed stuff and faxed it back to me and wrote at the bottom, he said now it's a total raised.

[laughter] .. while. [laughter] >> tours fired. >> all-white god. >> good thing you're not in the audience. [laughter] >> i forgot everything i was

saying. [laughter] what is the book? he was working for this unfortunate person in california making not good movies but he was in hollywood and he said to be right after their graduates and said if i bought "catch-22" would you make it? i settled think so. it is too hard. i don't know how to make a huge is realistic movie that is madness. think of the weapons, the planes. i don't want to do that. he kept coming at me and i loved the book and we kept going at it. then buck henry and have the

screenplay for the graduates from the book and i started to talk about catch 22. something we did in their graduate that it took us for ever but we were rather satisfied from going from place to place as it was all in one moment. he opens the door then he is in the hotel and they start to make love then he is watching television and now he is in his bedroom and so forth. we thought that really told the story of the obsession very well in he said let me try something and it is circular with the spiral in

the middle. we started to play with exactly that going around and around until it began to seem like a movie you could run in your head. is somehow more than any movie i have feathered done -- ever have done i never decided to do it. but a little further than talking about who would play it and tony perkins was a friend and he was i deal. little by little we were making it and i was never happy are comfortable. i was always worried i never thought it would work midday don't think that it did. it is a very mixed and strange movie.

as the years go buy i like it a more. i like the scary parts more than the funny parts because of what we've talked about mash, light on his feet contemporary and it made us look like what we were. [laughter] and the harder parts but it as i was listening to it, as i do some movies of mind, anyway we decided that would be the one we would go see to get there. we had a wonderful time but it says -- is as much as it could be but we did our best.

i think it is okay. i think that aspect that is there. >> now to bring it to bob, the borderline between the humor and go for that you dealt with i thought extremely well in the movie and talk about how it is supposed to be funny but then a grotesque and how you think joe did in the book? >> you may did he survive in the movie? >> how difficult is it for a director? to balance the humor with the violence and the difficulty. >> all too many movies based

on books the hardest thing is dealing with the book of real quality because what makes it real quality is the uniqueness of the voice if you have the second level you can extract the setting and you have the book. you cannot do that with "catch-22" very easily i am currently thinking of the latest version has every big hong except what it was about it is a story of close [laughter] >> isn't there an industry saying that bad books make good movies and good books make bad movies? >> i think that is not untrue that whatchamacallit last night i dreamed i went

back to rebecca. [laughter] i think it is popular, entertainment, and it was said great movie lore as good as a movie as the book. there is the joseph conrad movies the certain directors made out of great books it could be done. for instance to be famous the cinematic everybody who writes about dickens says the same boring thing but when you read it you can see it as a movie and then the are wonderful but. >> here is what i thought. it took me 30 years to realize the graduate was

staged just like it took us a long time just like the "wizard of oz." >> i still had not realized that. [laughter] >> they always have the same ending. i finally almost dead from the task and the wise man says the same thing. you already know it. no place like home. that is the search of knowledge or of the education. >> i think there are myths that keep coming back. coming back in the red and the black, other books the

devil and the flesh i think i will forget that it is a little close to home. here it is again. i will not think about that. but when it comes around again is always close to home but in some weird way, "catch-22" is related to the horrifying books what is it called? all quiet on the western front of the great war novels have a connection with the loss of plain reality and forgetting why you are there. the least of all with the

second world war, but these something's lend themselves for reasons unknown i think catch-22 is in the middle. >> now we get into what the book is about. so let's do around you tell us what he thought it was about it if you changed your mind with the new edition of. >> is a world war ii book coming out 19 and 61 just as we were getting involved in the great adventure called vietnam's i will answer your question and elliptically. >> you told me yesterday.

but joe heller he came out of world war ii justifiably proud of his service he flew 60 combat missions over italy it was the korean war and the madness of the cold war so it caught the wave bided time the movie came out 1970, vietnam was very much a lost cause. the book was bracketed by

the still if this is what you want me to get to, as high have reread it to i wonder if it is seeking to make coward is a virtue i well reduce a couple of sentences from this handsomely reissued book with an absolutely sterling introduction. [laughter] the appendix in the back has fascinating excerpts about catch-22 arnold toynbee and it says is catch-22 has any continuous game it lies in the tireless efforts of the

assyrian and american hero to a vague combat duties it is pointed out that the brave almost always involve others in their senseless and unfeeling cooperation with the forces of war. the man who has courage of his physical cowardice is the only kind of man who will eventually make war possible by refusing to play any part in it at all pro i think it is possible remember the famous character whose line was i preferred not to? >> host: do think the book is really about cowardice?

is it anti-war? >> but just to comment it occurred to me their real model is odysseus the greatest book ever written except for catch-22 the story of a meeting this war for no reason and the survivor is the way of the caduceus as he is referred. and he gets away. >> host: did joe heller have that in his mind? >> i haven't the faintest idea. [laughter] but i think it is on the same subject as the next book of an office and the family as opposed to a war and that's the objective is flooded dominated his

psychic life which was things and 80. he was scared. he was nervous something was going to happen and in a one book the metaphor is a normal man working life but the tone of what they are about is exactly the same he knows something terrible will happen. and catch-22 is to make sure it does not have been. and knowing that it will have been but that is his subject and he found the brilliant metaphors. but it is these internal pressures. >> do you think this is his

best book? >> something i love as much, something developed over the years, i cannot forget something have been and cannot get over him in his little girl. i cannot even talk about that. is very different but they have some things in common. 2.5 children. one of them is disturbed. he is a point* on a graph as well as a human being. when you think the plays were about the kings and queens and being feel the resources of the family and when they invented the trade about adultery because you could go to the next town and nobody would know it.

this is not official but then the novel became about the little guy. f. anything of catch-22 is the hatred of the authority the most hated people and it started to work on us. those who played the officers found themselves sitting at different tables and not invited and we hated them. they were officers that i think if you think joe did catch-22 and something happened, it is the opposite of what he appeared to be. he was an elegant man

masquerading and they thought he found the manuscript of a dead soldier peak says they could not see the person who had written the book but over time there was only that person. >> he was different things at different times, three years before the book was finished and published and he is not a guy from the first of all, he was the man just after that book came out. his hair was short and he was correct. he was not overflowing. he was nervous.

this was his first book. i am talking about with me and my colleagues, he was dealing with them and it took a little while before them became us. of course, you could not be the proper editorial relationship unless it is us. but he was like a guy in something happened. we know he was in the air force but it was very true to him when the catch was published and hailed by those who became more and more of a set -- success i have never known anyone who took more simple and wonderful joy to be a success. he was not embarrassed about showing it.

>> there is an anecdote i cannot read this -- resist and it was published one month ago called just one catch. it inevitably have still have the word catch but the reach of the novel is true the universal even though it did not hit in the year times best-seller list until mike nichols made into a movie nine years later at which point* it sold 1 million copies in six weeks. but among his many admirers was bertrand russell the british philosopher, i am

for peace type of guy. soto is visiting england and corresponding with the russell and he said by all means you must come out to visit me. geo arias and knocks on the door to announce to himself word -- whereas russell flies into a red-faced raging and began screaming at him saying get at -- go way, i get out of here, horrible man, i get away so he fled and he was in the car looking for did your shift when bertrand russell butler came running out no, no, no. is okay he said you were edward teller.

[laughter] >> host: perfect. we will turn the questions to the audience in one minute. i have a final question from me. when joe heller wrote to "catch-22" one flew over the cuckoo's next was being written and also on the road and curbs on again was readying cat's cradle. what was said that produced the year reverence? eisenhower was president. we were the silent generation. something was troubling. >> allot had to do with the war. >> host: which one? corley and? >> rolled or to and the holocaust.

how to cope with it? it was in the air we remember black comedy and there were many books in this vein in joe's was probably preeminent. >> host: do you think his fear in anxiety came out of the holocaust? >> no. they came out of him. we are not neurotic. [laughter] we aren't just accurate accurate -- are just acura. [laughter] >> host: don't you want to see the audience?

we would like to invite you if you would like to shout out as loudly as you can. >> guy read the playboy interview with heller and the interviewer said something about it realizing the last name meant shithead he said that is one of two things that he slept in their but what is the other? >> i have no idea. >> could you tell some stories about alan arkin on

sat? >> he was always unhappy. [laughter] he was an actor. but we had a very difficult schedule because we depended entirely on backlight. we had a genius to rector of and he decided we would always only shoot into the light that meant should be between two and 4:30 p.m. every day. if we had the signature look the me was between 2:00 p.m. in 4:30 p.m.. it cost $11 million for the movie. that was expensive in those days. but that meant we were in

mexico which seem to like four years. no actor could go away because we did not know when the weather would be just right to do his or her scene. so some people stay there four months' waiting for their scene. and alan arkin and stayed there always because he was a in every scene and he did nothing but bitch of. [laughter] i said you have no idea how good you are. >> you are right. i don't. >> i said you are great. he wrote me a nice letter afterwards and it was so

whole thing. >> host: how did you get that cast? settled think there was a terrific actor alive at that point*. >> everybody wanted to be in it. everybody loved it "catch-22" because of the graduate and they were the 15 minutes we started to cast "catch-22" i remember a strange little guy who came to audition it was hard to hear him but i thought as the red wonder two characters when he was through i said actually, you can have been a part that you want. it was al pacino. [laughter] he said i would affect owe

you he never got back to me. he could have been a star. [laughter] it is that little twist of fate for i asked him many years later i said why? he said i never could have done a party in that too which is exactly what marlon brando said. what did you feel like? he said how do i know? i spent my time trying not to go crazy. and the one of the actors became a dear friend. we all stayed friends for the rest of our lives it is like being in camp together. >> host: prison camp. [laughter]

>> i have been thinking of the kaleidoscopic structure of the book and the cyclical and thinking how it is like the psyche of a person at war and after reading about jim webb talking about how the book affected him how the soldiers were reading it i wondered if any soldiers reach out to joe heller for capturing that psychological experience? >> i will interject one thing. amateur it is required reading but it is on the reading list of the air force academy. >> did he ever talk to you about that? >> no.

he did not. but may i gloss a little bit of this horrible reintroduction. [laughter] i remember reading a few-- later an appreciation of joe heller shortly after he died written by jim webb now the u.s. senator who virginia the two most highly decorated platoon leader's word jim webb and oliver north. and jim wrote a novel that is still thought of as one of the great war novels of very different cup of tea.

and jim wrote to ms. appreciation and he recounts relieve the ninth circle of hell and as his platoon had been taking terrible casualties the insides were crawling with the bad water we had been drinking. in the midst of the misery and death, he hears someone shouting from the foxhole saying you have to read this. and it is a tattered copy of "catch-22". webb had read the book of growing up but he said he

devoured it. saying it did not matter to me at all i was reading a book that these are his words, protesting the very war i was fighting. but what mattered is i had found a soul mate. someone who understood. jim webb is a very, very tough customer but a book that can reach jim webb and bertrand russell that may explain why it sold 10 million copies since 1961

although he will never take credit for at least 1 billion of them. >> but to add one thing to our discussion, we all talk about it as if the enemy in the war but also remember is a very serious anti-capitalist book and a lot of the satire this is not about war but the system no question. [applause] >> a little anecdote about joe heller. >> most -- .

[inaudible] >> i think to talk about the jewish -- ? i met joe heller one day at fire island. i commented i have read his book and he said could you help me? by the lead never realized he paid to doctors because he was this screwed up by a doctor. and he said my wife has a scheme -- skin lesion on her breast could you examine it? four people held up their beach towels to make an alcove so i examined her left breast which had

ringworm and i prescribe the appropriate treatment than the next day he appeared with a copy of catch-22. it is inscribed for medical services rendered. [laughter] i still have a copy of the book presently at my daughter's home. second, i am responsible partly for him meeting his second wife because she was a nurse who took care of him when he was paralyzed and then one morning could not tie his shoes or talk or swallow. he had never seen a case before and called the neurologist and was admitted

and it is a long story but i that i would tell you how i met to joe heller. [applause] >> were you friends with him when he was suffering from his diseased? >> no. salary could tell us. she was there. i was there when he was suffering through life. [laughter] what was extraordinary to me is here is a guy who was knows dreaded -- stranger to tragedy talking about how he lost his father, another death perhaps a beloved sibling, he flew 60 combat

missions in world war ii he saw his friends get killed. >> host: he knew that things would happen and evade did. >> derail this it was not clear if he would survive but he had been hired long been this was a man who knew that winston churchill said keep going. he kept going and what is surprising to me what a joy is personality he was he loved life food and drink especially when you paid for it too. [laughter] he had a lot of joy for a man who had seen all of this

tough. >> this is probably a question for robert gottlieb or anybody who has an opinion by why do you think there was such a famously long period of time after publishing "catch-22" before something happened or the next book came out then it seemed like he was bringing out books with some frequency. >> there is a lot of answers first of all, have been too much fun being the author of "catch-22". he is not one of those people who was unhappy if he was not working. [laughter] having a great time but this

is very painful material. it took him that long and they helped him move beyond his anxiety and among his others they could get out of him. >> don't forget he was working during the day but he had to make money.

what to say i cannot do it again. but then his books became notional. he got a notion and filled it. >> and how "catch-22" and came to him. >> he wrote it one night the key he was in bet dreaming and the first paragraph came to him and by the next morning the book was mapped out in his head. >> we did not talk about things like that were saying let's put

it there. it was not conceptual. >> you talk about said jim webb response about six weeks before my 17th birthday about three days afterwards i enlisted and i volunteered for aviation and flew combat missions in vietnam and i had been dark view of the war at the same time i was motivated and when i look back on it now i find myself puzzling how what was that motivated me to serve at the same time i was so profoundly skeptical. for what was the under current of heroism and to

address the question, let me ask you, the people that you served with, was this a book making the rounds? it was certainly adopted by the anti-war movement back here. was it the being read?

>> can i interrupt? i must say you have said the things that surprised me the most. i don't understand why the book would motivate anybody to go into the service. [laughter] >> any psychiatrist here? [laughter] it is called being human. if you really want to understand it best of my go back everything is there. has a matter of fact i remember having this discussion the iliad was his favorite book and he read it by age 10 and i had

forgotten. he was a teacher. but to talk about the the 25 but to go from one end to the other that we were cut and bruised and battered simply from trying to get around nothing soft and no around the edges. and they were shooting at them. you had to be dead goddamn hero to fly and the at the very top of your life. of these guys are athletes and he rose.

i barely made it one end to the other five times. at the same time we have to hang algebra or all and helicopters and were comfortable and were always injured when we did the flying scenes. it was a monstrous weapon and a monstrous same to operate. so they were like baseball players. >> one of the essays of the book say a lot of people think the book is about humor but this person thought it was about violence and a feeling of soldiers and four being buried alive. i thought you captured some of that in the movie actually. >> we spent a lot of time thinking about it.

for the actual hell of it. it was the big stone farmhouse and we blew it up and you had to be alert we had dozens of carries they had it every night over and over the harrah with some he was a hero. as he rose as said disillusioned hero. domain to a writers' conference just about everyone on the panel was a combat veteran and he was

under the dismissive of his own hair was some. and robert stone and staring at him to say he flew 60 combat missions in world war ii. if the guy is on the ground war that ad battle of the bulge and it five years of lynch's kumbaya drinks, dinners, i don't think joe brought up world or to one's. but there was that generations one of the reasons they are called the greatest generation in.

they did not talk about it but wrote a book about it. >> host: we will run at a time. these are the last three. >> to the end of the book when he is walking around from with the realization what a lousy harris this not just the war but the whole world and horrible things can happen to lose somebody anywhere pratt the end of the book he escapes but we don't know what happens to him it just and said he is off in the movie the ndp is perplexing that he is in a tiny little lifeboat the camera pans out there is music playing will he make it or isn't he? and what is the tone of the

end of the book and the end of the movie? [laughter] >> let's see you in a tidy life raft. [laughter] >> lead to. [laughter] eighty the images speaks for itself to either suggests something more it doesn't. but i do want to tell the true story of joe heller somebody was sitting near him at a party in everybody else was out of talk and he said still you have never written anything as good as "catch-22" and joe heller said who has her? [laughter]

>> host: perfection. >> on that point* what do you think about the last novel? one of the things i thought was most poignant is the notion of a novelist struggling with the fact the first novel may have been his best. [laughter] that is not fair. i was no way an admirer of his last novel. i was not the editor or the publisher but i did not think he should publishes but he needed to which i totally understood. >> host: trollop one said, one of the great misfortunes that can happen to somebody with success especially if that happens early.

>> he knew everything. he was unbelievably shrewd, all bases covered, and he knew he was at the end of his talent but yet he needed to publish the book for various reasons. and there it was. it did not have to be explicit. i thought it was unfortunate but his life, his career, his but it is not for us to say don't do this. >> can you name me three artists, writers, anybody who just got better and better? >> yes, yes, yes. >> first of all, they have to live a long time. second, we have to be a true genius. >> shakespeare. >> please. [laughter] >> too easy. >> that is the point*.

the 10 days the geniuses continue to live on and those people have so much balancing common not in my world but they could do 40 more masterpieces hot if they only had a the time. >> host: only one per generation if that. >> for a century. that is the point* the greatest genius is continue to revolve and the others have their thing to do then they have done it. as wonderful a writer of joseph conrad his last book is terrible. that is the way it is. >> host: and but to talk about the unconscious creative mess in scientist has well where it percolates innie the unconscious and

sometimes pops out uninformed and it can take years and years and you if you are a established writer you feel the compulsion to write without that. >> that is what you do. we keep going. >> host: final question. >> the academic take on "catch-22" is whenever it says about war of our capitalism that is of parable of the loss of faith of god. does this academic conceit have any basis in reality for your knowledge? [laughter] >> i have been to have wrote down my favorite passage in

the book that goes to that point*. i think it is an answer to your question. >> good god how much reverence can we have for a supreme being who finds it necessary to include such phenomenon as tooth decay in his defined system of creation? [laughter] i will go on. i think that answers your question. what in the world is running through the warped, evil mind of his when he robs older people the power to control their bowel movements? wife in the world did he ever create pain? day remember when he wrote that? this has been a spectacular night how lucky have we been?

[applause] >> what role did the church play in the alabama christian movement for human-rights? >> guest: that is just one movement. this is where it began. this is the church, members of this church were 100% behind everything that he did. his office was in the upper room. the church secretary worked for him. they came here and all members were behind

everything that happened with the birmingham movement. and the church that was involved in the '50s and '60s challenging segregation was subject to be and the members intimidated and harassed. that's all. [laughter] it was bombed three times the parsonage was bombed christmas night 1956 and bell down on top of the reverend who walked out on unscathed and that is the moment at which seven the congregation said the or save to the reverend to lead the movement. it was bombed again that was on the side of the church and thought to and attempt to destroy the base here. i am not sure why they bombed the third time but

they did. but the bombing of the churches where the movement met for intimidation of the members was a regular occurrence. the movement, which was organized when the state and banned the naacp from operating in alabama comment that to every monday night in a network of churches 60 church is scattered across the working-class areas of birmingham. it met in these churches so that it could tell the story to people, a share what was going on with the legal challenges come and raise money to help finance a legal challenges against segregated lot. the early churches could hold maybe 300 or 400 regulars, but as the movement progress to comment

by a 1962 meeting in churches that were 600 and 900 large in the spring of 1963 hipaa then it took place in a large city center churches. beginning in the '90s to start researching churches as mass meeting areas involved in the civil-rights struggle and the city. and bethel rose to the top of those important churches and then campaigned on a national historic landmarks. to obtain the landmark status that was successful 2005. then interesting the wind wind-- when they