a comic but serious US novel (1961) about the madness of war. It was written by Joseph Heller (1923-1999), and a film version was made in 1970. The story is about a US Air Force pilot during World War II. He hates the war and tries to avoid having to fly planes. The book was a great success with US students in the 1960s. The expression Catch-22 has now entered the English language, meaning an unpleasant situation from which you cannot escape because you need to do one thing before doing a second, but you need to do the second thing before doing the first: We're in a Catch-22 situation.
موقعیت تناقضآمیز, شرایط پیچیده, وضعیت بیراهحل