>> but this just being short of jaundice all the time confused them. each morning they came around, three brisk and serious men with efficient mouths and inefficient eyes, accompanied by brisk and serious nurse duck debt, one of the ward nurses. they read the chart at the foot of the bed and asked impatiently about the pain. they seemed irritated when he told them it was exactly the same. still no movement, the full colonel demanded. the doctors exchanged a look when he shook his head. give him another pill. the nurse made a note to give him another pill, and the four moved along to the next bed. actually, the pain in his liver had gone away, but he didn't say anything, and the doctors never suspected. [laughter] they just suspected that he had been moving his bowels and not telling anyone.

he had everything he wanted in the hospital. the food wasn't too bad, and his meals were brought to him in bed. there were extra rations of fresh meat, and during the hot part of the afternoon he and the others were served chilled fruit juice or chocolate milk. apart from the theres and for thes -- doctors and nurses, no one ever disturbed him. for a little while in the morning he had to censor letters, but the rest of the time he was allowed to sit around idly with a clear copps. he always ran a temperature of 101. he was even more comfortable than dunbar who had to keep falling on his face in order to get his meals brought to him in bed. after he made up his mind to spend the rest of the war in the hospital, he wrote letters to everyone he knew saying that he was in the hospital but never mentioning why. one day he had a better idea. to everybody he knew he wrote that he was going on a very dangerous mission.

they asked for volunteers. it's very dangerous, but someone has to do it. i'll write you the instant i get back. and he had not written anyone since. [laughter] all the officer patients in the ward were forced to censor letters written by all the enlisted men patients who were kept in wards of their own. it was a monotonous job, and he 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 invented games. death to all modifiers, and out of every letter that passed through his hands went every adverb and adjective. the next day he made war on articles. he reached a much higher plane of creativity when he blacked everything in the letters but a, an and the. [laughter] that erected a more dynamic interlinear tension, he felt,

and in just about every case left a message far for universal. [laughter] soon, he was prescribing parts of salutations and signatures and leaving the text untouched. one time he blacked out all but the salutation dear mary, from a letter, and at the bottom he wrote, i yearn for you tragically, a.t. taplan, u.s. army. when he had exhausted all possibilities in the letters, he began attacking the names and addresses on the envelopes, obliterating whole homes and streets, annihilating metropolises with flicks of his wrist as though he were god. catch-32 required that each letter bear the 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]

when that grew monotonous, he you irving washington. produced a ripple of anxiety on some ethereal military echelon that floated a cid man back to the ward posing as a patient. they all knew he was a cid man because he kept inquiring about an officer named irving or washington, and because after his first day there, he wouldn't censor letters. he found them too monotonous. it was a good ward this time, one of the best he and dunbar had ever enjoyed. with them this time was the 24-year-old fighter pilot captain who had been shot into the adriatic sea in mid winter and not even caught a cold. now the summer was upon them, the captain had not been shot down, and he said he had the grip. in the bed on his right, still lying amorously on his belly, was the startled captain with malaria in his blood and a mosquito bite on his ass. across the aisle was dunbar, and

next to dunbar was the artillery captain with whom he had stopped playing chess. the captain was a good chess player, and the games were always interesting. he had stopped 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 techny color and felt that people of means, decent folk, should be given more votes than drifters, whores, criminals, degenerates, atheists and indecent folk. people without means. he was unspringing rhythms in 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's. he was working hard at

increasing his life span. he did it by cultivating boredom. dunbar was working so hard at increasing his life span, that owe share yang thought he was dead. they put the texan in the middle of the ward, and it wasn't long before he donated his views. dunbar shot up like a shot. that's it, he cried excitedly. there was something missing all the time. now i know what it is. he banged his fist down into his palm. no patriotism, he declared. you're right, you're right, you're right! you're right! the hot dog, the brooklyn dodgers, mom's apple pie, that's what everyone's fighting for. but who's fighting for the decent folk? who's fighting for more votes for the decent folk? there's no patriotism, that's what it is. and no matriatism either.

the warrant officer on his left was unimpressed. who gives a shit, he asked tiredly. the texan turned out to be good-natured, generous and likable. in the three days -- in three days no one could stand him. [laughter] he sent shudders of annoyance scampering up tick establish spines, and -- ticklish spines, and everybody fled from him. the soldier in white was end cased from head to toe in gauze. he had two useless legs and two useless arms. he had been smuggled into the ward during the night, and the men had no idea he was among them until they awoke in the morning and saw the two strange legs hoisted from the hips, the two strange arms anchored upper pen dick particularly, all four limbs suspended darkly above him that never moved. sewn into the weather channels over the inside of -- bandages of both elbows were zippered

lips through which he was fed clear fluid from a clear jar. a pipe was coupled to a slim rubber hose that carried waist from his kidneys and dip -- dripped it efficiently to the jar on the floor. the two were simply switched quickly so stuff could drip back into it. [laughter] all they ever really saw of the soldier in white was a frayed black hole over his mouth. the soldier in white had been filed next to the texan, and the texan sat sideways on his own bed and talked to him throughout the morning, afternoon and evening in 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 patient in white by inserting a thermometer into the hole in his mouth. when she returned to the first man, she recorded his temperature and then continued around the ward again. one afternoon when she had completed her first circuit and came a second time to the soldier in white, she read his temperature and discovered that he was dead. murderer, dunbar said quietly. killer. what are you talking about, the texan asked nervously. you murdered him, said dunbar. you killed him. the texan shrank back. you fellas are crazy. i didn't even touch him. you murdered him, said dunbar. i heard you kill him. you killed him because he was a

nigger, dunbar said. you fellas are crazy, the texan cried. they don't allow niggers in here. they got a special place for niggers. the sergeant smuggled him in, dunbar said. the communist sergeant. and you knew it. the warrant officer on the left was unimpressed by the entire incident of the soldier in white. the warrant officer was unimpressed by everything and never spoke at all unless it was to show irritation. the day before owe share yang met the chaplain a stow exploded and set fire to the kitchen. an intense heat flashed through the area. even in the ward almost 300 feet away, they could hear the roar of the blaze and the sharp cracks of flaming timber. smoke sped past the orange-tinted windows. in about 15 minutes, the crash trucks from the airfield arrived to fight the fire.

for a frantic half hour, it was touch and go, then the firemen began to get the upper hand. suddenly, there was the monotonous, old drone of bombers rushing from a mission, and the firemen had to roll up their hoses and speed back to the field in case one of the planes crashed and caught fire. the planes landed safely. as soon as the last one was down, the firemen wheeled their trucks around and raced back up the hill to resume their fight with the fire at the hospital. when they got this, the blaze was out. it had died of its own accord, expired completely without even an ember to be watered down. and there was nothing for the disappointed firemen to do but drink tepid coffee and hang around trying to screw the nurses. the chaplain arrived the day after the fire. yosarian was busy when the chaplain sat 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 captain's bars

on the tab of his shirt collar were all the insignia yosarian could see. he had no idea who he was and just took it for granted that he was either another doctor or mad match. oh, pretty good, he answered. i've got a slight pain in my liver, and i vice president been the most -- i haven't been the most regular of fellas, but all in all, i must anytime that 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 vice president been well. 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, said the chaplain. yes, yes, that is too bad. the chaplain, is there anything

i can do for you, he asked around a while? no, no, yosarian sighed. the doctors are doing all that's humanly possible, i suppose. no, no, the chaplain colored faintly, i didn't mean anything like that. i meant cigarettes or books or toys. no, no, yosarian said. thank you. i have everything everything i i suppose, everything but good health. that's too bad. yes. yes, that is too bad. the chaplain stirred again. he looked from side to side a few times, then gazed up at the ceiling, then down at the floor. he drew a deep breath. lieutenant nately sends his regards. yosarian was sorry to hear they had a mutual friend. it seemed there was a basis to their conversation after all.

you know lieutenant nately, he asked regretfully? yes, i know lieutenant nately quite well. he's a boot loony -- bit loony, isn't he? the chaplain's smile was embarrassed. i'm afraid i couldn't say, i don't think i know him that well. you can take my word for him, he's as goofy as they come. the chaplain weighed the next silence heavily and then shattered it with an abrupt question. you are captain yosarian, aren't you? nately had a bad start. he came from a good family. please, excuse me, the chaplain persisted, i may be committing a very grave error. are you captain yosarian? yes, he confessed. i am captain yosarian of the 256th squadron of the fighting 256th squadron. i didn't know there were any other captain yosarians.

i'm the only one i know, but that's only as far as i know. i see, the chaplain said unhappily. that's two to the fighting eighth power, yosarian pointed out, if you're thinking of writing a symbolic poem about our squadron. no, mumbled the chaplain, i'm not thinking about writing a symbolic poem about your sad on. he spied the tiny silver cross on the other side of the chaplain's collar. he had never really talked with a chaplain before. you're a chaplain, he exclaimed ec statically. i didn't know you were a chaplain. why, yes, the chaplain answered. didn't you know i was a chaplain? why, no, i didn't know you were a chaplain, yosarian stared at him with a big, fascinated grin. i've never really seen a chaplain before. the chaplain flushed again and gazed down at his hands. he was a slight man of about 32

with tan hair and brown eyes. his face was narrow and rather pale. an innocent nest of ancient pimple pricks lay in the basin 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'm sorry. i have everything i need, and i'm quite comfortable. in fact, i'm not even sick. [applause] >> that was wonderful. that just proves that we never stop loving to be read to. [laughter] so as i heard the story, joseph heller wrote catch-18.

and he wanted to get this published as catch had-18, but leon -- [inaudible] came out with -- [inaudible] and the story goes -- >> [inaudible] >> so far. mila-18 comes out, and, oops, the powers that be at simon & schuster decide we cannot have two novels come out at the same time with the number 18 written by two jewish writers. [laughter] cannot be. so they call heller, and they say -- they say -- have to change the number. and he doesn't want to change the number. and they say, well, 14. catch-14. he says 14 isn't funny. [laughter] and so the bickering commenced. and went on. and then in the end as it turned

out,22 is a very funny number. don't tell me, that's the story. so it ended up 22, and i think it's very funny, don't you? yes. [applause] so i'm going to start with robert gottlieb on our panel who, as we know, edited "catch-22." as the story goes on that front, it was a real collaboration, that as the story went goes you got the pages in various versions and spent 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 like the collaboration? i have three questions for you. it's a three-parter. so what was that collaboration like? what was he like as a writer to work with? was he definitely? did he give -- was he difficult? did he give you a hard time? and as the pages came in to you

really in an ethereal way, what did you think this book was about as it emerged? three parts? >> three parts, in that order? >> any order you choose. >> well, first of all, he was an extraordinary writer to work with. you know, some writers a anxious, some are rebellious, some are negative, some are overeager, some are overgrateful although i don't know -- that's not easy to be with an editor. [laughter] he was like no one i've ever worked with, and i've worked with hundreds of writers which is that he saw his own work completely objectively. it was somebody else's work we were working with. so we would have a chapter in front of us, and i would say i don't think this is working, this paragraph is dull, or it's too long, or it's this or that. he said, yeah, what if we do? and i would say, okay, but that way. and he'd say, great, we'll put this word there. and i always describe it as two surgeons working on the same

patient together. there wasn't a patient and the doctor or a doctor and a patient, there was a problem, he recognized it, i recognized it, and whoever came up with the best solution -- it was always like that with him. he was completely not even easy. you don't want easy writers. he understood the problem because he had the mind of an editor, so it was like two editors working on the same thing. there was never, in the many books i worked on of his, there was never a bad moment. so that's that. >> that has to be incredibly unusual for a writer. >> it was very unusual. >> proprietary over every -- >> and sensitive. and he may have been more sensitive than i knew, but he certainly wasn't going to show it because that wasn't going to get us anywhere. now, what was part one? >> so as the pages were coming in, what did you think the book was really about? >> well, i didn't ask myself

that because it was about what it was. the point is that it was wonderful. and it was funny, and then it stopped being very funny. i never saw it as particularly a funny book. i saw it as a sad and angry and upset book. but, of course, it was hilarious too. um, the stories about how we worked dissecting this thing with nine different versions, i don't know where all that came from. i think it came, 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's -- [inaudible] there was a great deal of exaggeration. in fact, after the book came out and i happened to review it, he called me the next day, and he 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. >> but as you know, in the history, we're going to pick the best version. >> of course.

that's what we look for as publishers. but it was a process. it was a very calm process. i can't remember nine different versions. joe wrote, he prepared for writing on cards, and he had thousands and thousands of them, and they stacked up, and he would move them around. but he already had the structure of the book in his head. nobody ever talks about how brilliantly structured it is, now things come in a little and then a little more and a little more. the main example of that, i guess s the death of snowden which is referred to constantly, and you get closer and closer and closer to it. and 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. so -- >> he also, in the new version you see this, increz bl revisions and revisions and

revisions. there's a full page -- >> yes. >> -- of, reprinted of his handwriting, and he crossed out everything but three or four years. >> 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. and i hadn't read the book in the 50 years since i've sent it to press, and i thought since i'm going to do this thing, i better take a look and see if i still like it. and i'm happy to report i love it, although somewhat differently than i did before. my problem now is i kept wanting to edit it. [laughter] and i was thinking, how did i let this go by? [laughter] you know? but it's too late. the book is out there, he's gone, so -- but i'm very proud of it x most important for --

and most important for me, it was all the success, finally, that he hoped for and really knew it was going to have. he never doubted its genius. >> wow, i lo that. okay, that's a wonderful introduction, and we'll 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 it, 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, the guy's guy, the man's man. >> well, we didn't go to girly clubs together or anything. valerie heller, his widow, is in the audience, so -- but i didn't want just say that for her benefit. [laughter] we our coming together was odd

for one reason, i reviewed for the new yorker the sequel called "closing time" which is sort of a mad jumble of a novel, and it's yo, and aria -- yosarian 40-odd years later. and it was -- i couldn't resist in the opening sentence quoting the old line that sequels respect necessarily equals. it was, i wrote a respectful review because i'm a great admirer of "catch-22," but it wasn't all that admiring, and i was surprised when about a week

later a letter arrived, and i looked at the upper corner it said joe heller. i thought, oh, my god. i actually delayed opening it for a few hours. gotta open it, it's from joe heller. and it's one of the sweetest letters that i've ever had. and it said i think you understand my book more than i did, and my wire was in tears, so how could i not write back? remember the fax machine? i'm very glad this correspondence didn't take place in the age of e-mail, you know? because these were letters. we would type them and print them and fax them. when he, by the time he died four years later, i went to the file, and there were three or four hundred letters there, exchanges. and he was, you know, this was

not a particularly easy time of his life. as some of you probably know in the, it was in the early '80s, i think, he was stricken with something called gee yam baa raisin dream. there's actually an amusing exchange in the literature somewhere where a friend of his named george calls mario puzzo who was a great friend of joe's and said, have you heard about joe? and mario pusso -- puzzo says, no. and he says, well, he's gotgy yam bar ray, and he says, well, that's great. and he says, no, it's a disease. and he says, oh, that's terrible. puzzo says if they named it after two people, it's got to be really terrible. [laughter] joe was a, he was a very kindly

guy, certainly in my dealings with him, but he was also, had a, 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 bullshit detector. >> and let you know it, i assume. >> so he was this combination of the warm and fuzzy and the, with the inner steel. but he was, for me, he was very easy to love. we, we had sort of a mutual dispairing -- despairing society, and at one point i got a very mixed review for one of my books from publishers weekly, you know, 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 rave. [laughter] >> that is totally sweet. that is sweet. okay, mike nichols, the movie. we all want to know did he come to you and say, i want you to do the movie? did you go to him? how did the movie come about? >> we had nothing to do with each other at that point. movies are made and decided by people in california that none of us knows. [laughter] in this case those we don't know were infiltrated by a very close friend of mine whom i'd known in new york when my partner and i were comedians and who my grated to -- migrated to california roughly around -- [laughter] you're fired. >> oh, my god.

>> thank god you weren't in the audience. >> oh, my god. go ahead. >> nicely handled. >> i'm sorry. >> no, i've forgotten everything i was saying. >> john talley. >> joe heller, what's that book? something happened, right. >> so tell us how the movie got made. >> so he was working for this unfortunate person in california, and they were making not good movies. but he was in hollywood, this old pal of mine, and he came, and he said for me it was right after my second movie, it was after "the graduate." and he said if i bought "catch-22" for you, would you make it? i said i don't think so. you know, it's too hard. i don't know how to make a huge, surrealistic movie that says war is madness, you know? and think of the weapons, the planes. i don't want to do that. and he kept coming at me, and i

loved the book, of course. and we kept going at it. and then buck henry, who had written the screenplay for "the graduate" from a book, um, and i started talking about "catch-22." and there was something we did in "the graduate" that took us forever, but we were rather satisfied with it which was sort of going from place to place as though it were all in one moment. he gets out of the pool, he opens the door, and he's in the hotel, and mrs. robinson is waiting for him, and they start to make love, and then he's watching television, she's brushing her hair, she leaves, and in the same place we've seen him, he's now in his bedroom and so forth. and we were, we thought that really told the story of an obsession very well, and it was kind of suicide. and, um, buck went off, he said, let me try something. and he played a little bit, and he founded, of course, as you

were saying, catch is circular. catch-22 is circular with the snowden, the spiral in the middle. and we started to play with exactly that spiral going around and around and around. and always circling back to snowden until it began to seem like a movie you could run in your head. and then somehow more than any movie i ever have done, it sort of decided -- i never decided to do it. but we went a little further, and then we were talking about who would play it, and then tony perkins was a friend, and he was such an ideal tapman, and little by little we were making it. and i was never happy or comfortable. i was always worried. i never thought it would work. and many don't think it did

work. it's a very mixed, strange movie. as the years go by, i like it more. i like the scary parts more than the funny parts. because also that thing we talked about which is the good -- [inaudible] came along with m.a.s.h., light on its feet, improvised, contemporary just when internship hauling this -- when we were hauling this thing around, and it made us look like we were, like a big thing. [laughter] and there were these harder parts, but as i was listening to it and i went back to see it, there was a thing, that moment where they did some movies of mine, and i can't -- anyway, buck and i decided that's the one we would go to see together with people, and we had a wonderful time. i really -- it's not bad, i like it. [laughter] and, also, that it is as much as the poor thing could be as close

to the book as a movie can be which is not all that close, but we did our best. and i think it's okay. i think the joe aspect of it is really there -- >> you know what? can we talk, can you talk about and then bring it to bob this space, a borderline between the humor and the horror that you dealt with, i thought, extremely well in the movie, and why don't you talk about how, you know, it's supposed to be funny, and then it's grotesque, how you balanced that and how you think joe did in the book. because the book and the movie are both things. >> you mean, did joe survive in the movie? [laughter] >> did joe survive in the movie? i mean how difficult it is for a director or anybody conceiving a book like this to balance the humor with the violence, the difficulty?

>> to me who has seen, obviously, many, many movies based on books and all too many movies based on books are edited and presumably knew pretty well, the hardest thing is dealing with a book of real quality. because what makes it of real quality is the uniqueness of its voice whereas if you have a second level, let's be perfectly good or wonderful, you can extract its plot, extract its characters and its setting, and you have the book. you can't do that with catch-22 very easily or currently thinking this latest version of jane eyre has everything but what charlotte baron today was about. >> isn't there a industry saying that bad books make good movies and good books make bad movies? >> i think it's a not untrue

saying. i don't mean that what cha ma call it, last night i dreamed i went back to -- rebecca. i don't think it's a bad book, but i think it's a popular book. it's entertainment, and god knows it made a great movie. made almost a better -- well, as good a movie as the book, let's say. and then there's the kind of, there's the joseph conrad movies that certain directors made into great movies out of great books. it can be done. i think every book is different, and every writer is different. for instance, dickens is famously cinematic, and everyone who writes about dickens says the same boring thing, and i'm now saying it now. but when you read a dickens novel, you can see it as a movie. and many of the movies are wonderful. like "great expectations." >> here's what i thought just to slip sideways for a minute. it took me 30 years to realize

that "the graduate" was e polltous just like it took all of us a long time to realize that the wizard of oz is ulysses -- >> i still hadn't realized that. [laughter] >> well, think of -- >> i like it. >> they always have the same ending. you bring me the head of frey doe garcia or the grail or the witch's broom stick. finally, almost dead from making the task, doing it, and the wise man always says the same thing, you already know it. there's no place like home. that is the story of the search for knowledge or, also, of an education, of course, that leading out from what you already know. and i think that there are myths that keep coming back that make fantastic movies. it's in the red and the black,

it's in other movies -- other books. it's in the devil in the flesh. every time it comes back, wow, oh boy, i think i'll forget that. it's a little close to home. oh, here it is again. hmm. i'm not going to think about that. and when it comes around again, it's always very compelling because it's very close to home. in some weird way "catch-22 "is related to all the horrifying books like what's it in english? [speaking in native tongue] what's it called? >> quiet on the western front? >> all's quiet on the western front. that all the, all the great war novels, even "from here to eternity," that they have a connection in the loss of just plain reality and things are all turned upside down and

forgetting why you're there. least of all with the second world war because it was the last war with good guys and bad guys or so we thought. but these, some things lend themselves to movies, and some don't. i think "catch-22" came right in the middle. >> now we're getting into what the book was about. chris. you and i had a conversation about what you thought the book was really about, so let's fool around. you start it, and all three of you tell us about when you first read it, what you thought it was about, and if you've changed your mind as the new edition has come out. chris, you first. >> well, it's a world war ii book that came out in 1961 just as we were getting involved in that great adventure called vietnam. joe was, i'm going to sort of answer your question

elliptically because -- >> i but i know what i'm looking for because you told me yesterday. so i'm going to pull it out of you. >> yeah. i'm going to do that. joe heller was not a, he was not a -- i mean, he came out of world war ii justifiably proud of what, of his service. he flew 60 combat missions over italy. and he was in the thick of it. it was the korean war and the, and the madness, if you will, of the cold war that informed "catch-22." so he -- coming out when it did, it sort of caught this wave. and by the time mike nichols' movie came out in 1970, vietnam was very much a lost cause.

so the book was bracketed by these two dates. i, if this is what you wanted me to get to, leslie, as i reread it, i wondered if book is seeking in a way to make cowardice a virtue. now, i'm going to e deuce a couple of sentences from this handsomely-reissued book, and i must say with an absolutely sterling introduction. [laughter] but there's an appendix in the back with some fascinating excerpts from essays and reviews about "catch-22," and this is one by phillip toinby, who -- an englishman, apparently. and it says if "catch-22 "has

any continuous theme, it lies in the tireless efforts of yosaria, the american hero, to evade combat duties. the book defends the right, indeed, almost the moral obligation of men to be physical cowards. 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 the courage of his physical cowardice is the only kind of man who will eventually make war impossible by refusing to play any part in it at all. i think it's sort of possible to look at yosarian as a kind of bart lby, the scrivener. you remember melville's famous character whose line was i prefer not to. >> looking at the wall.

bob, do you think that the book is really about cowardice? is it about violence? is it just totally anti-war? >> it's about a lot of things, like all good books. just to comment on what you said, chris, it occurred to me when you were speaking that the real model is o disyus. and the iliad which is the greatest book ever written except for "catch-22," is this story. it's the story of a meaningless war fought for no reason, and the survivor is the wily odysseus as he is always referred. and he gets away. but what do i think it's about? >> did joseph heller have that in his mind? >> i vice president the faintest. >> oh, okay. tell us are what you think it's about. >> i think it's on the same book as his next book, "something

happened," which is set in an office and a family. and that subject is, i think, what dominated joe's psychic life which is anxiety. see, he was scared, he was nervous, and something was going to happen. and in the one book the metaphor is war, and in the other book the metaphor is normal man's working life and home life. but the tone, what they're about, is exactly the same. he knows something terrible is going to happen. something is going to happen. and "catch-22" is about making sure or trying to make sure it doesn't happen. and something happened is about knowing it's going to happen, and then it happens. but that is his subject as far as i'm concerned, and he found these brilliant, brilliant metaphors. and i don't mean this was conscious on his part, but i think these were the internal pressures on him that led to

these two books. >> mike, do you think this is his best book? >> for me, it's about each with "something happened" which i loved as much. that's something that's developed over the years. i can't forget "something happened," i can't get over that scene with him and his little girl. i can't even talk about it. and it, they're very different, but they have some things in common. for instance, he has 2.5 children. you know, one of them is disturbed. his a point on a graph as well as a human being. that's one of the things i was thinking when you said about what's "catch-22" about. when you think plays were about kings and queens and then novels were about peddling the only resource families had which is their pretty girls, and then when they invented the train,

novels were about adultery because you could go to the next town and have an affair, and nobody would know it. and then i think -- this is not an official thing. i'm saying then novels became about the little guy. and if anything is one of the many themes of "catch-22," it's the hatred of authority and officers are the bastards, the most-hated people in the book. and it weirdly started to work on us. they were all our pals, but the guys playing the officers, they found themselves sitting at different tables. >> [inaudible] >> not invited to things. yeah. [laughter] we hated them. they were officers. >> that's so great. >> but i think that joe when you think that he did both "catch-22" and "something happened," that he was the opposite of what he appeared to

be. he was a complex, sophisticated, elegant man masquerading as an ordinary guy. in fact, the joke about him was they thought he'd found the manuscript on a dead soldier because he didn't -- they couldn't see the person who had written the book. but over time, of course, he was the only person who'd written the book. >> he was different things at different times. i met him in 1958 which was three and a half years before the book was finished and published, and he was not the guy you met or each the guy you met. he, first of all, he was working as an ad man. >> like. >> he was a man in the gray suit before that book or just after that book came out a few years after. his hair was short, he wore a three-piece suit, and he was correct.

he wasn't overflowing with fun. and he was nervous. this was his first book. now, this is -- i'm talking about, with me and my colleagues. he was dealing with them. it took a little while before them became us. and, of course, you can't be in a proper editorial relationship unless the two of you end up as an us. but he was like the guy in "something happened." that's true too. we all realized he was in the air force, but he was in "something happened" too. and the change came when catch was published and became more and more of a success. and he blossomed. i've never known anyone, writer or not, who took more simple and wonderful joy in being a success.

he just loved it, and he wasn't embarrassed about showing it. i'm the writer of "catch-22." look. [laughter] >> there's a anecdote that i can't resist telling, and it's from tracy daugherty's very fine biography that was published about a month ago called just one catch. i think anything written about joe heller inevitably has to have the word "catch" in it. but joe had a -- the reach of this novel was, you know, truly universal. even though it never hit, it didn't hit "the new york times" bestseller list until mike nichols made it into a movie nine years later at which point it sold one million copies in six weeks. but one of -- among his many admirers was bertrand russell,

the british philosopher and the ultimate, you know, i'm for peace guy. better red than dead, wasn't it? so joe is visiting england and has been corps responding with -- core responding with russell, and russell said by all means, you must come out and visit me. and joe arrives and knocks on the door and announces himself whereupon bertrand russell flies into a red-faced rage and begins screaming at him saying go away, get out of here, you horrible man! get away! and joe, you know, fled. [laughter] and he was in the car sort of trembling and looking for the gear shift when bertrand russell -- bertrand russell was somewhat elderly at this point when bertrand was l's butler

came running out and said, oh, no, no, it's okay, he thought you were edward teller. [laughter] >> oh, perfect. we're going the turn the questions to the audience in one minute. i have a final question from me, and that is when joe heller wrote "catch 22," i think this is correct, ken ceez si was writing the cook dc you can key's nest. and kurt von galt was writing "cat's cradle. it was this was in the '50s. eisenhower was president. that helped produce it. we were the silent generation, we didn't protest, but something was bubbling. what was -- bob, you tell us. >> a lot of it had to do with the war. >> but which war? here, take mine. you mean the korean war? >> no.

i think it had to do with the experience of world war ii and the holocaust, you know? how do you deal with all this stuff? how do you cope with it, and one jewish way is through humor. not that they were all jewish. we remember black comedy, that was the style at the time, and there were many books in this vein, and joe's was probably preeminent among them, but they've all lasted. >> but do you think that his fear and his anxieties and what you were describing before came out of the holocaust? >> no. i think they came out of him. and his childhood and his life. >> jewish neuroses. >> we're not neurotic, leslie. [laughter] we're in just accurate. [laughter] [applause] >> all right. you know what?

don't you want to see the audience? >> i do. can we have some lights so we can see how beautiful everybody is? >> wow. >> so we'd like to invite you, if you'd like to, to raise your hand and shout out as loudly as you can because it's hard to hear. >> [inaudible] >> you have a mic there. >> the up withs behind you. -- ones behind you. >> how's this? >> i read the playboy interview with heller, i don't know when it came out, and the interviewer said something about realizing that the lieutenant's last name in german was shithead, and heller said, oh, yeah, that's one of two things that i kind of slipped in there. what's the ore -- other one? >> don't ask me, and i wouldn't buy that at face value. >> i bought it do you. >> don't believe everything you

read. do you want to step up to mic? >> mr. nichols, i was just wondering if you could tell some stories about working with alan arkin on set. >> arkin was always unhappy. [laughter] he was an actor. i could have just said that. [laughter] but we had a very difficult schedule because we depended entirely on back light. we had a genius dp, director of photography, david watkins, and he decided that we would always only shoot into the light which meant, basically, that we could shoot from 2 to 4:30 every day. we could get ready, but if we were going to have our signature look, we couldn't shoot anytime except 2:to 4:30. this was in the days, of course, it was a very, very expensive movie, it cost $11 million.

>> how much? >> 11 million. that's what was expensive in those days. but which meant that we were in mexico for what seemed like years. and no actor could go away because we didn't know when the weather would be just right to do his or her scene. so some people stayed there for months waiting for their scene, and arkin always stayed this because he was -- stayed there because he was in every scene. and he did nothing but bitch. [laughter] but he was -- and he thought he was terrible. at this -- i wrote him a letter, and i said, you know, you have no idea how good you are in this. he said, i know. [laughter] i said, well, let me send it to you. there's a new dvd. look at it, for christ's sake, you're great.

and he wrote me a very nice letter afterwards and said he couldn't quite see himself the way i do, but he sees what i mean about the whole thing. >> how did you get that cast? i don't think there was a terrific actor alive that wasn't in that movie at that point. >> well, it was weird. they all wanted to be in it. everybody loved "catch-32." -- catch 22. buck and i were hot, and we were it for those 15 minutes. [laughter] and they were the 15 minutes in which we started casting "catch-22." i remember there was this sort of strange little guy who came to audition, and i'd seen him in one play, and it was a little hard to hear him, but i thought as he read one or two characters, i thought, oh, this is interesting, we have a great actor here. and when he was through, it said, well, actually, you can have any part you want. you want to be yosarian, you want to be -- it was al pacino.

[laughter] and he said, oh, that's wonderful, let me get back to you. [laughter] never got back. he could have been a star. [laughter] exactly. it's that little twist of fate. >> i asked him many years later, we did, like, a ten-year movie together. seemed like. and i said why, why didn't you -- he said, oh, i was so busy trying not to go crazy, he said, i could never have done a part in "catch-22" which, by the way, is exactly what marlon brando said. i spent all my time trying not to go crazy. and there it is. every one of the actors became a dear friend. perkins was a dear friend, richard benjamin was a -- we all stayed friends for the rest of our lives. it was sort of like being in camp. well, camp together.

>> prison camp together. >> prison camp. >> prison camp. >> hi. um, i have been thinking about the sort of kaleidoscopic structure of -- >> can you get a little closer to the mic? >> i'm sorry. i've been thinking about the kaleidoscopic structure of the book and the taunting and thinking about how it is a lot like the psyche of a person at war. and i was wondering after reading some of the back matter in the book about jim webb talking about how the book effected him and the soldiers were reading it in the bunkers, i'm wondering if any soldiers reached out to heller to thank him, perhaps, for capturing that kind of psychological experience? >> i'm going to interject one thing and then maybe you can answer this. do you know that they -- i'm not sure it's required reading, but it's on the reading list at the air force academy. yeah. >> i don't really know. maybe you do, mike.

chris, did he ever talk to you about that? >> no. um, he, he didn't, but let me, may i gloss a little bit on jim webb's in this, in the marvelous introduction to this reissue? [laughter] ..

but still thought of as one of the great war novels come in three different cup of tea and that's quite great expection from transitory. and jim rupe has appreciation in "the wall street journal" unescorted and the introduction of it he recounts being unruly the ninth circle of hope carmi in a sport or not been taking terrible casualty was. he said their insights were crawling with hookworm from badwater we had been drinking. in the midst of this blood and misery and death, when he hears someone showed me in his foxhole and said you've got to read this. and it is a tattered copy of

"catch-22". web had written -- read the book are not as an air force brat at air force base in nebraska but he said he would devour it. his men were passing it around. he said it didn't matter to him at all that i was reading a book -- and these are his words, that was protesting the very war i was fighting. we are now and probably 66, 67. he said, what mattered was that i had found a soulmate, someone who understood. how jim webb is a very, very tough customer, pretty right-wing weather sensitive. a book that can reach jim ladd and bertram russell, maybe that

partly explains why it sold 10 million copies since 1961 and although mike nichols can take credit as we know for at least a million of those. >> you know, i just want to add one thing to our discussions. we'll talk about it is that the enemy is lawyer. but let's also remember that this is a very seriously anti-capitalists book and a lot of this satire -- this is not about war. this is about -- [inaudible] >> canaille total addict code johanna? my name is dr. richard pater and i had the honor to take care --

it is rarely seen by most doctors and is rarely experienced in many patients. first i want to make one comment. i think the tautology and their mark about jewish torah says -- but i met joe heller one day on this unwritten beach in fire island. having met him i commented i read this book and so forth and he said, could you help me? your adapter. by the way, he never realized he had a doctor because his father died of a screwed up operation by dr. he said, my wife has a skin lesion on her, could you examine it and tell me what it is and help me? i said fine. four people got up and held

beach towels, making some sort of a cove where i was able to examine the ringworm and of course i skipped it be appropriate treatment. the next week he appeared on the beach with a copy of "catch-22". because he asked me the day before for a copy of the book. its kind in the book was to talk to richard peter for medical services rendered on such and such a date. [laughter] [laughter] and i have a copy of the book presently. but the second thing is i am responsible partly for admitting his second wife because she was the nurse that took care of him during these tests can believe where he was paralyzed. he was at my brother's apartment one weekend morning unable to bend down and pay issues or practically toppers follow. my brothers video camera

syndrome. he had never seen a case before critical urologist who also said it was a long story. i just thought i would tell you how i met him. [applause] >> chris, reframes with him when he was suffering from deandre? >> no, i wasn't. valerie catullus. she was there. i was with him when he was suffering through life. but he -- what was extraordinary to me was here was a guy who was -- who he was no stranger to tragedy. dr. vader just told us about how he lost his father. there is another attack of a

beloved sibling. q5 60 combat missions in world war ii. and i can do bad things are going to happen and they did. >> is a devastating illness. it was not clear that he would survive this, that he was basically in some kind of iron lung for nearly a year. and many other very anguished and somewhat public divorce. this was a guy who knew -- winston churchill said if you're going through, keep going. joke going what was surprising to me was whether choice personality he was. i mean, he loved life. he loved food and drink,

especially when you are paying for it. [laughter] he had an awful lot of joy and for a guy who has seen all this stuff. >> terrific. next question. >> this is probably a question for mr. gottlieb are a non-us opinion on it, but why do you think it was there a such an almost famously long period of time after publishing "catch-22" before something i i can count the next that came out? and after something i became outcome of seemed like he was bringing up books with some frequency. >> as many possible answers to that. know that i have any definitive ones. he was not one of those people who was unhappy if it was a working. [laughter] i am one side note i'm talking

about. he was having a great time, but more seriously this was very, very, very painful material for him, both of the first two books. and it took him many, many years to write "catch-22" as we know, six or seven years and all and not with him. as i said before, those helped him move beyond his anxieties and 310 to play around. and among his later books, some are better than others, not unusual, but there is no book that took it out of him the way those two did. >> and over again he was working during the day. >> you know, he had to go because he had to make money and

it was the thing he did. i remember him saying to me in coming you want me to write something happen again. i've written them. and then it was a question of his books became what they call notional. he got a notion and he fulfilled it. these two books are not notional. they came up right out of him and it was a struggle. >> any talk for one second about how "catch-22" came to him almost in a vision that had been written about many times. >> i never heard that from him, which doesn't mean it's not true. >> he wrote it one night. he was 19. he was in bed dreaming of her skirt asking them to mena next morning the entire book was not a benefit. >> it had been presumably summary material.

but we'll talk about things like that because we were too busy making jokes about other people for saying this paragraph is in a good. let's put it there. you know, it was hands-on work. it wasn't conceptual. >> and what is more fun? >> nothing. >> mr. buckley come he spoke about jim wants response to written a book while he was in combat. i read it about six weeks before my 17th birthday in about three days afterwards i enlisted and i volunteered for aviation and flew about 70 combat missions in vietnam as a crewman. and i had the dark bitter and despairing view the war at the same time as motivated to be in it. i look at it now, it had myself really puzzling how was that book motivated me to serve at the same time it made me so profoundly skeptical about serving. nobody's talked about what is an

undercurrent in there. we talked about the cowardice, but there's also an undercurrent of service and bravery and heroism that motivated some of us to go to this bizarre thing. i wonder if anyone can unpack that. [applause] >> first of all, thank you for your service to our country. i'm sorry, joe heller. [applause] is not here. only joe could address the question that you have raised. let me ask you. do the country is served with, did they know the book? was this a book that was making the rounds because it was certainly adopted or co-opted

even by the antiwar movement back here. was it being read? [inaudible] >> you know something, can i interrupt for one second? he said the thing that is has been the most tonight because i don't understand why that look would motivate anybody to go into the service. [inaudible] >> are there any psychiatrist here? >> you know, i want to say one thing about that referring to something i said before. if you really want to understand it, go back and reread the iliad. a holier. everything was there. it's like everything is in kenya. >> as a matter of fact, i remember having this discussion

with joe. the iliad was his favorite book and he read it by age 10. >> i had forgotten. >> he was a teacher in my kit. >> this is minor, but let's talk about to be 25 in what was to crawl from one end of it to the other, which is what you had to do to get into your position. never sliding in at a nevermind the battles. we were cut, bruised, battered simply from trying to get around in these metal machines. there were no round edges. we all had cuts on us. and they were shooting at them. you had to be a god hero to fly them to be 25 and you had to be

physically, at the very, very top of your life. these guys are athletes and heroes. 60 missions in one of those things. i barely made it from one end to the other at times. at the same time they have stuff hanging out of them. but we were in helicopters. rural control. they are always injured when we did find scenes. it was a monstrous weapon and a monstrous thing to operate. so these guys were like baseball players. they were athletes and heroes. >> one of the essays in the new addition says a lot of people think the book is really about humor. but this person thought it was about violence and about the feeling of soldiers and were being buried alive.

and i thought you captured some of that in the movie actually. >> which are spent a lot of time thinking about it and about the actual holiday. we actually blew it up that one night. we did it all in one night and he was a big stone farmhouse and we blew it up and you have to be alert and had to repair. we have dozens of cameras. and they hunted every night night over and over. and of course the votes counted. i think they heroism, which is not mentioned very much, they were heroes. he was a hero and he would coat is a disillusioned hero. i want to a writers conference with them in qs and the subject was warm literature and just

about everyone on this panel was a combat veteran. philip caputo, tim o'bryan. and joe is on the panel and he was utterly dismissive of his own heroism. i can't remember his exact words, but he almost disparaged what he did. you had robert stone and philip caputo staring insane, you flew 60 combat missions in world war ii. and joe said you know, the guys on the ground of a much worse. you guys at the battle of the bulge had been driven over by tanks. i was stunned. in five years of lunches, drinks, dinners, i don't think joe brought up world war ii

once. but that was our generation. that's one of the reasons they called the greatest generation. he didn't really talk about it, but he wrote a book about it. >> i'll tell you what. we are going to run out of time, so these will be the last three. we look for one, two, three. towards the end of the book when our parents walking around rome, he has this realization would allow the earth, that it's not any more just, as he said, the word further his treachery in horror, but the whole world and horrible things can happen to someone anywhere. at the end of the book he escapes, but we don't know what happens to him after the escape. just ends that he was off. and the movie's ending is perplexing and ideas in this

tiny lifeboat. the camera panning to the big ocean. there's music playing. is he going to make the recent t.? i wonder what you all think the tone is the end of the book in the end end of the movie. [laughter] >> icu and a tiny liferaft. [laughter] [applause] >> me too. i see me in a tiny liferaft. i have no answer to it. the image speaks for itself. it either suggest something or it doesn't. i can't attack it or defend it. i want to tell the true story of joe is someone who was sitting near him at a party and everybody else was relatively a talk in the guys said still you've never written anything as good as "after "catch-22".

and joe says, who has? [laughter] [applause] >> perfection. let's go here. >> my question is kind of on that point. what do you think about his last novel clicks one of the things that was most poignant is this notion as in i was struggling with the five his first novel may have been his best. [inaudible] >> yes, to mr. gottlieb. >> i have to be heard? i have to say i was in no way and it hirer of his last novel. i wasn't he editor or the publisher that he wanted me to read it and i didn't think he should publish it really any good too,, which i totally understood. but it was very inferior.

>> eloquence at one of the great misfortunes that can happen to someone in success, especially if it happens early. >> he knew. he do everything. he was unbelievably assured. yet all bases covered in the said in the news at hughes at the end of his talent and yet he needed to publish this book for various reasons, including financial ones. and there was. it didn't have to be explicit because we knew each other very well. so i thought it was unfortunate, but also, it's not for us or me or anyone to come along if they don't do this. >> can you name me three artists, writers, anybody who just got better and better? >> yes, yes. first of all they have to live a long time. second of all, they have to be true geniuses. >> name them, name them.

>> william shakespeare. >> please. that's too easy. >> that's the point. the greatest geniuses continue to evolve. and those people have so much that they have it all together they could do 40 more masterpieces if they don't have the time. >> there were two -- one in a generation. >> that's the point. the greatest continue to evolve and other people have their thing to do and it's wonderful and then they've done it any other fate steps in with a slightly eroded because those wonderful writer, has lots folks are terrible. that's the way it is. >> but we talked a little bit about this unconscious creativeness with writers and

actually scientists as well, where percolates someone or in the unconscious and sometimes that pops out uninformed and it can take years and years. and meanwhile if you're an established writer, you feel a compulsion to write without that. >> because it's what you do. the thing is given life were brought to keep going. >> final question. >> said the academic take on "catch-22" is that whatever he says that war, whatever it says about capitalism that it is about in fact a parable about the loss of faith in god. does this academic conceit has any basis in reality to your knowledge?

>> me? no, parable about what? >> i happen to roatan make your passage in the book, which goes to that point which i thought was so terrific. we will sum up this way and i think it's 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 has fallen into decay and its divine system of creation. i'll go on. i think that answers your question though. what in the world was running through that worked evil scatological mind of his new rod told people the power to control their balm of its? why in the world did he ever create pain? remember when he wrote that? okay, what i think this has been

a spectacular night. how lucky i will than to have a panel like this? [applause] thank you. >> you were watching booktv on weekend. the story of the civil rights movement can be sold without birmingham, alabama. this weekend booktv in american history tv look around the scenes at the history and literary life of the southern city. on book tv on c-span 2, september 15, 1963 a bomb rocks

the 16th street baptist church killing four young girls. that story through the eyes of a survivor and friend. he not on your screen is the newest hook by longtime washington foreign correspondent, georgie anne geyer, "predicting the unthinkable, anticipating the impossible."

georgie anne geyer, what is this book about? >> welcome in this book is a scintillation since the first soviet communism. i have thought for many years that what we have to do as those of us in the current field have to anticipate and predict them. and that's what this book is trying to show. >> throughout your years as a foreign correspondent, wherever your travels taking you? order to retrieve the most exciting places you can situation dependent? >> i've been all over the world. egypt, israel, vietnam, cuba was fantastic. and really almost everywhere.

i can't think of places now. >> so people sit down to read "predicting the unthinkable, anticipating the impossible," what will they find in their? what would you like them to take away from the book? >> there is a method of thinking and making anticipate what's coming. we have great diplomats and military men and journalists. but it never a good to the white house and the state department. >> so if you were to travel today, where do you see a future problem or future situation we should be aware of thinking about now? >> well, certainly serious. i think the rest in the middle east, that's the area is such a

violent plays in such a nasty place that it would have to be an all-out revolution to overthrow them. they're not doing much of anything. they depend upon us. and so almost everywhere you look including our own country. >> now, we are here at the national press club and its authors night at the national press club and we are talking with georgie anne geyer, his newest book is on your screen. regular viewers of new shows from cnn, msnbc, c-span, fox, all of them have seen "predicting the unthinkable, anticipating the impossible" on the program commentating. ms. geyer come as something come as something to a bit of a speech impediment. >> i do. four years ago i had