Pre-"Catch 22"

[Headtime]

Prior to Joseph Heller's book, was there a term for the situation a "Catch 22" refers to?

[bernardo]

dilemma

[joko]

vicious circle?

[Quizmonster]

On a hiding to nothing.

[Ducati]

Changing the subject slightly..................has anybody managed to get through the whole book? I like to think I'm a voracious reader, but I've attempted this book three times, and have yet to finish it!

[mrs.pudding]

Caught between a rock and a hard place?

In a cleft stick?

No, never could finish it - nor, to my shame, Captain Corelli's Mandolin!

[Quizmonster]

I've read and enjoyed both in toto.

[kick3m0n]

we read it in secondary school.  Soem did find ti very hard going, but the teacher helped by showing us the film after a few days.  This meant that those who were really struggling with the book had a better idea what was going on -  it made the flashbacks etc easier to follow.  Also, I know some of us who had read it thru started again, so we could enjoy it more second time round.  Good Luck.  The book I struggle with is The English Patient.  Have given up now...I just can't seem to get into it at all.

[Headtime]

Many thanks to you all. Give yourselves 3 stars! I think I'm gonna go for joko's vicious circle.

[rojash]

Joseph Heller didn't invent the term, he merely used it. So prior to his book, the term for Catch 22 was... Catch 22

[THECORBYLOON]

Rojash, Heller originally used the term "Catch-18" but the publishers thought there would be confusion with another book called "Mila-18" so Heller changed it to "Catch-22." 

[rojash]

Thanks for the correction THECORBYLOON, I learn something new everyday on this site!

Erm... so prior to Heller's book the term for Catch 22 was Catch 18 :-)

[THECORBYLOON]

No, there was no Catch-18 before Heller thought of it.

[Octavius]

The term referred originally to a military rule whose provisions are mutually frustrating.  Much like a bureaucratic process.  It might have related to a particular cluase in some military hand book, who knows.  I don't think there was anything 'vicious' about it, it was just a pain in the bottom.  Prior to this, you might have:

caught between a rock and a hard place, a bind, contradiction, dilemma, Gordian knot, in a pickle, lose-lose situation, no-win situation, paradox, predicament, quagmire, spot