Passage Four
When I began reading Catch -22, I thought it was a farcical satire on life in the United States Army Air Force. Later I believed that Mr. Heller’s target was modern war and all those who are responsible for waging it. Still later it seemed that he was attacking social organization and anyone who derives power from it. But by the end of the book it had become plain to me that it is——no other phrase will do——the human condition itself which is the object of Mr. Heller’s outraged fury and disgust.
A reviewer must always keep an anxious eye on the state of his currency. If he announces too many masterpieces he risks inflation (though it is sometimes forgotten by some of us that the cowardice of perpetual crabbing (挑剔) receives its own kind of punishment). It does not seem many weeks since I was proclaiming that Malcolm Lowry’s Under the Volcano is one of the great English novels of the century; and
A. a very great English novel
B. an accurate portrayal of life in wartime
C. an excellent piece of satire
D. the work of a neglected author
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