Yossarian is the central character of Joseph Heller’s Catch-22, one of the most famous anti-war novels in American literature. Captain John Yossarian is a B-25 bombardier stationed on the Mediterranean island of Pianosa during World War II. He is terrified of being killed and fixated on the ever-increasing number of missions required before he can be sent home.
Yossarian’s struggle against the absurd military bureaucracy that keeps raising the mission requirement gives the novel its satirical force. He is sane in an insane system, and his attempts to be grounded for mental unfitness run headlong into the circular logic of Catch-22: anyone who wants to get out of combat duty is clearly sane enough to keep flying. Heller brought Yossarian back as an older man in the 1994 sequel Closing Time.
Reading Order
See the complete Catch 22 reading order for all books in the series.