There was a time when reading Joseph Heller"s classic satire on the murderous insanity of war was nothing less than a rite of passage. Echoes of Yossarian, the wise-ass bombardier who was too smart to die but not smart enough to find a way out of his predicament, could be heard throughout the counterculture. As a result, it"s impossible not to consider Catch-22 to be something of a period piece. But 40 years on, the novel"s undiminished strength is its looking-glass logic. Again and again, Heller"s characters demonstrate that what is commonly held to be good, is bad; what is sensible, is nonsense.