Read: Catch-22, by Joseph Heller

These guys are crazy. I mean it.

When I heard about this book I expected a cruel depiction of what happens in war. Fear, brutality, insanity, butchery. And fear, brutality, insanity, butchery it was. But very different than how I expected it. The book begins in a style that reminded me of M.A.S.H. (the movie and TV serials, I did not read the book). The absurdness of war is wrapped in sarcastic humour; the characters, whose names also serve as title headings, dominate the semi-linear narrative in a cranky way, but mostly generating sympathy from the reader, concerning the insane environment the people had been thrown into.

But advancing, the book turns darker and more depressing. I got the impression that Heller could have been heavily influenced by Kafka, when he lets the main protagonist Yossarian, or the unit's chaplain, wrestle with big brass and police. In those situation it gets increasingly harder to smirk. Furthermore, it gets bloody and murderous — and fun drains out of the world of this book.
Well, the ending came as kind of surprise to me; I consider it rather American.

Throughout the book I was constantly reminded on other works of U.S. anti-war art, mostly movies, because I did not read very much on that topic. M.A.S.H., as already mentioned, but also Full Metal Jacket or Apocalypse Now. Maybe it's just coincidence based on the common topic, but this is a reason that I see that this book is a classic.