A darkly comic and ambitious sequel to the American classic Catch-22 .
In Closing Time, Joseph Heller returns to the characters of Catch-22, now coming to the end of their lives and the century, as is the entire generation that fought in World War II: Yossarian and Milo Minderbinder, the chaplain, and such newcomers as little Sammy Singer and giant Lew, all linked, in an uneasy peace and old age, fighting not the Germans this time, but The End. Closing Time deftly satirizes the realities and the myths of America in the half century since WWII: the absurdity of our politics, the decline of our society and our great cities, the greed and hypocrisy of our business and culture -- with the same ferocious humor as Catch-22.
Closing Time is outrageously funny and totally serious, and as brilliant and successful as Catch-22 itself, a fun-house mirror that captures, at once grotesquely and accurately, the truth about ourselves.

lgli/R:\0day\eng\2015-05-03\Joseph Heller - [Catch-22 02] - Closing Time (retail) (epub).epub

lgli/Joseph Heller - [Catch-22 02] - Closing Time (retail) (epub)

Closing Time (Catch-22, #2)

Simon & Schuster Children's Publishing

Simon & Schuster, Incorporated

First Simon & Schuster paperbacks edition, New York, New York, 2004

1st Simon & Schuster paperbacks ed, New York, 2004

Scribner paperback fiction, New York, ©1994

First Printing, First Edition, US, 1995

United States, United States of America

Simon & Schuster, [N.p.], 2010

September 15, 1995

5, 2010

lg_fict_id_1307340

<p>In a novel as darkly comic and audaciously ambitious as was <i>Catch-22</i>, Joseph Heller has dared to write the sequel to his American classic, using many of <i>Catch-22</i>'s characters, now older if not wiser, to deftly satirize the realities and the myths of America in the half century since they fought World War II. In 1961, Joseph Heller's remarkable first novel made its way immediately into the American psyche and came to symbolize the absurdity of war and of life. <i>Catch-22</i> was recognized overnight as a classic and has sold nearly ten million copies in the United States alone. It remains perhaps the funniest&#151;and the most serious&#151;novel ever written about war, "an apocalyptic masterpiece," in the words of one reviewer. Now, thirty-three years later, Joseph Heller has written the sequel. You don't have to have read <i>Catch-22</i> (But then, who on earth hasn't?) to enjoy <i>Closing Time</i>, which is a fully independent companion work, a comic masterpiece in its own right, in which Heller spears the inflated balloons of our national consciousness&#151;the absurdity of our politics, the decline of society and our great cities, the greed and hypocrisy of our business and culture&#151;with the same ferocious humor that he used against the conventional view of warfare. His characters are those of <i>Catch-22</i>, coming to the end of their lives and the century, as is the entire generation that fought in World War II: Yossarian, and Milo Minderbinder, the chaplain, and such newcomers as little Sammy Singer and giant Lew, all linked, this time in uneasy peace and old age, fighting, not the Germans this time, but The End. <i>Closing Time</i> is outrageously funny and totally serious, and as brilliant and successful as <i>Catch-22</i> itself, a fun-house mirror that captures, at once grotesquely and accurately, the truth about ourselves.</p><h3>Publishers Weekly</h3><p>Worked on for many years and long anticipated (and perhaps dreaded) by admirers of the incomparable original, Heller's ``sequel'' shares with his great WWII saga a surreal sense of the absurd and of the fatuity of most human institutions. But it is hard to avoid a sense of keen disappointment, nonetheless. The satirizing of American contemporary life has been done so frequently-and often successfully-since the 1961 Catch-22, which helped make so much of that satirizing possible, that Heller is in effect competing with himself, and failing. Here again are John Yossarian, Milo Minderbinder, Sammy Singer, Chaplain Albert Tappman, and the giant Lew. Newcomers include Washington finagler G. Noodles Cook and the mysterious and ubiquitous know-it-all Jerry Gaffney. The wartime buddies are old men now, worried about their health, their sex lives and their children, but they find 1990s civilian life as corruptly absurd as the old Air Force days. There are flashbacks to the war, some of which recall the power of Heller's original inspiration; there are nostalgic passages about Coney Island, long Jewish dialogues that could have been penned by a whacked-out Neil Simon, bravura passages (notably, a magnificent wedding reception held at New York's Port Authority Bus Terminal) and hare-brained Pentagon meetings to discuss the new Shhhh super-quiet warplane. There are patches of vaudeville, dreamscapes, far too much sophomoric doodling, and longueurs when Heller seems simply to be filling pages. In the end, despite flashes of the old wit and fire, this is a tired, dispirited and dispiriting novel. 200,000 first printing; first serial to Playboy. (Oct.)</p>

In a novel as darkly comic and audaciously ambitious as was Catch-22, Joseph Heller has dared to write the sequel to his American classic, using many of Catch-22's characters, now older if not wiser, to deftly satirize the realities and the myths of America in the half century since they fought World War II.
In 1961, Joseph Heller's remarkable first novel made its way immediately into the American psyche and came to symbolize the absurdity of war and of life. Catch-22 was recognized overnight as a classic and has sold nearly ten million copies in the United States alone. It remains perhaps the funniest - and the most serious - novel ever written about war, "an apocalyptic masterpiece," in the words of one reviewer.
Now, thirty-three years later, Joseph Heller has written the sequel.
You don't have to have read Catch-22 (But then, who on earth hasn't?) to enjoy Closing Time, which is a fully independent companion work, a comic masterpiece in its own right, in which Heller spears the inflated balloons of our national consciousness - the absurdity of our politics, the decline of society and our great cities, the greed and hypocrisy of our business and culture - with the same ferocious humor that he used against the conventional view of warfare.
His characters are those of Catch-22, coming to the end of their lives and the century, as is the entire generation that fought in World War II: Yossarian, and Milo Minderbinder, the chaplain, and such newcomers as little Sammy Singer and giant Lew, all linked, this time in uneasy peace and old age, fighting, not the Germans this time, but The End.
Closing Time is outrageously funny and totally serious, and as brilliant and successful as Catch-22 itself, a fun-house mirror that captures, at once grotesquely and accurately, the truth about ourselves.

A sequel to Catch-22, the 1961 humorous bestseller about a group of American airmen during World War II. The novel follows many of the same characters in their current escapades--mainly to do with selling defense equipment to the Pentagon. In addition, there are their views on the decline of America

2015-12-07