Heller, Joseph. Catch-22 (1961). New York: Simon & Schuster, 2003.

Some favorite paradoxes, brought back to memory and found mostly online in the wake of reading this novel and needing something smart and important to talk about in front of a roomful of 31 undergraduates, trusting me, I hope, on this one:

• Zeno's Paradox argues that in a race between fleet-footed Achilles and the slow-as-hell Tortoise, one in which the former sportingly gives the latter a 100-yard head start, Achilles can never overtake the Tortoise and win the race. No matter how fast he runs, first he must get to the halfway point between him and the Tortoise. So, 50 yards. In the time he takes to get 50 yards, the Tortoise has advanced a little bit. Then A has to get halfway to that new point, which gives T some more advancing room. And so on, and so on. He's faster than the Tortoise, but he'll never win. But of course he'll win, but it's logically impossible for him to win.
• The Liar's Paradox asks whether the statement, "I am lying," is true or false. If it's true, then the speaker is in fact lying, and therefore what he says cannot be true. If it's false, then the speaker must be lying, but because that's what he's claiming to do, his claim is true.
• The Barber's Paradox is complicated, and I think my explanation of the thing in class the other night was flawed and missing some vital step. Go Wikipedia it or something.
• Whether or not it's called The Omnipotence Paradox, this one asks the question, "Can an omnipotent being create a stone too heavy for it (that being) to lift?" If the answer is yes, it can of course create such a stone, then lifting it becomes something the omnipotent being cannot do, which means its not omnipotent. If the answer is no, it could create no such stone, then not being able to create the stone becomes something the omnipotent being cannot do.

It seems I may have learned nothing from this book. Paradoxes, especially those settled down in fun little hypothetical logic puzzles, are the domain of socially inept little boys (mostly) who were given books about Mensa as gifts from distant relatives who had no other clues about what sorts of presents would be well received. In Heller's novel, they're the domain of such boys all grown up, now finding themselves through some connection or another running a war in the Mediterranean. Colonel Cathcart, Colonel Korn, General Dreedle, et al., are the bad guys in this war novel, not solely because they're in charge (though this surely is a lot of it in such an anti-establishment novel as this one), but because they revel in the niggling little paradox games they come up with to avoid any direct responsibility.

For a while they're funny. Major Major Major Major (oh, the hilarity) realizes that if he makes a rule wherein the only time people can see him in his office is when he's not in, he never has to face a single problem. Colonel Korn can avoid the tough questions by making rules that the only people who are allowed at the education sessions to ask questions are those who never ask questions.

But then Aarfy comes in—Aarfy, you may remember, is the guy who rapes that Italian woman because he proudly never pays for sex, and then throws her out the window, killing her, because he can't have her going around saying terrible things about him. Aarfy's not an uppity-up, he's a regular army guy going on all these missions with the rest of them. He's also, as one of my students said, "A total douchebag":

"Back in school we were always doing things like that. I remember one day we tricked these two dumb high-school girls from town into the fraternity house and made them put out for all the fellows there who wanted them by threatening to call up their parents and say they were putting out for us. We kept them trapped in bed there for more than ten hours. We even smacked their faces a little when they started to complain. Then we took away their nickels and dimes and chewing gum and threw them out." (251)

This novel is one where so many good people die, and though Yossarian lives, Aarfy does, too.

In comedy writing, injustice is funny. I read that somewhere recently.

The following story is true. One Thanksgiving in my folks' new house, my dad saved the turkey's wishbone and gave it to me and my sister, who historically, as the youngest of three kids, got to pull on it each year. We hadn't done it in ages. I grabbed one end and my sister grabbed another, and I made a quick and deplorable decision. We yanked and I came out with the larger piece. "What did you wish for?" my sister asked.

"The smaller piece," I said, all proud of myself.