Abstract：Abstract: Realistic writing is the basic feature of war novels, but influenced by the historical background it has changed greatly in different literary trends. By comparing the evolution of American war novels in different literary trends, especially comparing the features of postmodernist writer Heller’s Catch 22 with those of the previous war novels, this paper aims to investigate that the postmodern war novels have deconstructed the traditional greatness and sublime in the war novels of realism. The study shows that Heller has constructed the realistic writing strategy for postmodernist war novels with indeterminacy as its main postmodernist feature, and language game derived from the linguistic turn as its means. It is, therefore, maintained that the realistic writing strategy created by Heller has paved a new way for the canonization of the war novels in the context of mass culture.
Key words: war novel; realistic tradition; deconstruction; reconstruction; canonization
