“Okay, let me see if I've got this straight. In order to be grounded, I've got to be crazy, and I must be crazy to be flying, but if I ask to be grounded, that means I'm not crazy anymore and have to keep flying.”
— Yossarian, Catch-22
About 700 USC freshmen will fly into the wild blue yonder of satire and dark humor Aug. 18 when they discuss Joseph Heller’s Catch-22, this year’s selection for the First-Year Reading Experience.
Faculty and staff, including President Sorensen, will lead small group discussions of the novel, which was selected last fall. All Honors College freshmen and a select group of other University freshmen will be invited to the morning-long event, which immediately precedes the beginning of the academic year.
Novelist Tim O’Brien, best known for his National Book Award-winning Going After Cacciato, will deliver a morning lecture about Heller and Catch-22 in the Russell House Ballroom.
First published in 1961, Catch-22 focuses on Yossarian, a World War II bombardier caught between the terror of war and the mindless power of bureaucracy. The novel’s title quickly became a popular expression for being trapped between two disagreeably absurd alternatives.
“Students are often taken with the absurdity with which Heller sees the war. Until they read the book, many don’t realize it was Heller who coined the phrase catch-22,” said Don Greiner, associate provost and dean for undergraduate affairs. “They intuitively understand the entangling bureaucracy that the novel brilliantly satirizes.”
USC’s Thomas Cooper Library has the premier Heller papers collection in the United States. Heller visited the University campus twice, including participation in a 1995 panel discussion on World War II with the late James Dickey, William Styron, William Price Fox, Mary Lou Settle, and other writers whose experiences were shaped by the war.
A poster for this year’s First-Year Reading Experience will feature art created by Enrique Vazquez, a graphic design major graduating this month. Vazquez’s poster and the Catch-22 posters created by other students in art professor Peyton Rowe’s graphic design course will be on display in August in McKissick Museum. The exhibit also will include winning posters from previous First-Year Reading Experience novels.
The Office of the Provost, Honors College, University 101, Thomas Cooper Library, and the Department of English will sponsor this year’s First-Year Reading Experience.
04/03
