"The war parts, anyway, are pretty much true": negotiating the reality of World War II in Slaughterhouse-Five and Catch-22

Slaughterhouse-Five (1969) and Catch-22 are both frequently referred to as “war” or “anti-war” novels. Both texts engage, often on a personal level, with the affects and after-effects of war on the individual. In this chapter I will argue that Lance Rubin’s proposal that a sense of incongruity “lies at the heart of American experience” (109) is of central importance to understanding the comparable satirical impulses behind both Vonnegut’s and Heller’s novels. The chapter will move beyond nihilistic readings of each text to argue for a rereading that situates the two author's works as suggesting humanist alternatives for dealing with the dehumanising experience of war.