Re: Books reading recommendation request

Peter Moylan wrote:
    When I first read Catch-22, probably about 40 years ago,
    I ranked it as one of the best books I'd ever read.
    The film of the book was also good. (And from me,
    that's high praise. Usually I hate films based on books
    I've liked.) About two years ago I read the book again,
    and that time I found it pretty good, but not really
    laugh-inducing. Perhaps you had to read it in the right era.


A factor in making the era right was that there was nothing
like it in the decade before, just hundreds of stories about
heroic efforts [1].  Afterwards there were hundreds of books
and movies treating the dark comedy insanities of war and 
bad leader****p.  When the book came out all that was
a big surprise, which helps in the inducing of laughs.
As with many wonderful things, it would be hard for
someone encountering them decades later to appreciate
that pre-nothingness.

It is funny how 90% of the humor in previous eras,
those more than 70 years ago, is not funny anymore.


[1] Although it would not totally surprise me if
someone in aue names some relevant books.

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Richard Maurer              To reply, remove half
Sunnyvale, California       of a homonym of a synonym for also.
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