Editing Catch-22 (section)

== Literary allusions ==
''Catch-22'' contains allusions to many works of literature. [[Howard Jacobson]], in his 2004 introduction to the Vintage Classics publication, wrote that the novel was "positioned teasingly&nbsp;... between literature and literature's opposites&nbsp;– between [[Shakespeare]] and [[Rabelais]] and [[Dickens]] and [[Dostoevsky]] and [[Gogol]] and [[Louis-Ferdinand Céline|Céline]] and the [[Absurdism|Absurdists]] and of course [[Kafka]] on the one hand, and on the other [[vaudeville]] and [[slapstick]] and [[The Phil Silvers Show|Bilko]] and [[Abbott and Costello]] and [[Tom and Jerry]] and [[the Goons]] (if Heller had ever heard of the Goons)."<ref>[[Random House]] {{ISBN|978-0-09-947046-5}} [http://www.randomhouse.co.uk/vintage/classics/home.htm Vintage Classics]</ref>
One critic argues that it is Kafka's influence that can be seen most strongly in the novel:  "Like Kafka's heroes, Yossarian is riddled with anxiety and caught in an inexorable nightmare – in his case created by Colonel Cathcart and the inevitability of his raising the number of missions he has to fly."<ref>[http://www.humanities-ebooks.co.uk/book/Reading_Catch-22 McDonald, Paul. ''Reading Catch-22''. Humanities E-Books]</ref>