Monday 15 December 2014

"Yossarian recognized the shot"

From Catch 22:

[Yossarian] heard a stealthy rustle of leaves on the other side of the sandbags and fired two quick rounds.

Somebody fired back at him once, and he recognized the shot.

"Dunbar?" he called.


That's the funny thing.

When I read the book, I assumed that this was intended as satire, but now I'm not so sure. If you get bombarded with emails and 'phone calls all day long, then soooner or later, you can guess roughly who is ringing* or who sent you an email/its contents without even looking at the number (which flashes up on our office 'phones) or the email sender. Or if you're over by the filing range, you can tell that it's your 'phone ringing, even though it is set to the same ring tone as everybody else's.

* In the admittedly very broad categories: spam, cold calling, important, nuisance, work-vs-family related; good news-vs-bad news etc. Or perhaps I'm imagining it..?

4 comments:

Lola said...

Catch 22. Brilliant.

Bayard said...

Sometimes when my co-director rings up, I know it's him before I look at the 'phone.

Mark Wadsworth said...

L, the film version was awful though.

B, good, so it's not just me.

Lola said...

MW Agreed.

No, it's not just you. Mrs L can tell it's me when I call her from work by the ring, she says. And vice versa.