Closing Time: The Sequel to Catch-22 | Joseph Heller

Closing Time: The Sequel to Catch-22 | Joseph Heller | I'll miss the work of America's greatest satirist

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Closing Time: The ...

	Closing Time: The Sequel to Catch-22 Joseph Heller Simon & Schuster, 1995 - 464 pages average customer review:based on 51 reviews view larger image
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Not really a sequal

Every other review of this book, either good or bad, starts this way, so I feel that there's no reason mine should be any different....I'm a huge fan of "Catch-22".

Let's face it, if "Closing Time" lived up to the original novel, people would start their reviews with "I was a hug fan of 'Closing Time.'" That they don't, even if they are saying something positive about it, says something very bad about the book.

There is no question that Joseph Heller was coasting on his reputation when he wrote this. My personal belief is that this is why this novel is billed as a sequal to "Catch-22" when it really has little to do with it.

This being said, "Closing Time" is really a very good book. It is surreal, and unsettling, and, at times, quite funny. Clearly Heller was concerned about his health when he wrote it (in one of the most clever surrealist touches, one of the characters even refers to Heller's health problems). That makes the book a little gloomy, maudlin, and yes, at times heavy handed as well. Nevertheless, Heller proves that he can still create strong, realistic characters, and that he is still the master of vicious social satire.

If you read it as a sequal to "Catch-22" you will be disappointed. If you read it as a new and original work, though, you will be pleasently surprised.

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I'll miss the work of America's greatest satirist

It was never going to be an easy task to write a sequel that would equal the creative scope and comedic precision of Catch 22, and it seems that Joseph Heller realised this when he penned Closing Time. Whereas the bleak satire and dehumanising insanity of the world of Catch 22 was almost relentless in its delivery, Heller has refined the level of black humour in the sequel and tempered it with heartfelt monologues, gentle reminiscences and altogether more subtle and moving moments.
This is not to say Heller or his characters have grown overly sentimental. The author's trademark biting sarcasm, so deftly delivered in Catch 22, still retains its sharp edge in the sequel. Instead of Pianosa in World War II, the setting is New York City in 1994 on the brink of an impending World War III. And whereas in Catch 22 the reader was bombarded with a veritable universe of strange and crazy characters, in Closing Time Heller has chosen to select a comparative handful of the originals and plumb the depths of their humanity with a far more personal intensity. We are reintroduced to the Chaplain, Milo Minderbinder and Yossarian, now in their sixties, bemused and confounded by a society that is outgrowing and overtaking them, trying to come to terms with the rigours and burdens of old age, and, ironically, harking back to the war and immediate post-war years, reminiscences which seem to evoke an era altogether less complex and dangerous.
Sammy Singer and Lew Rabinowitz lend a nostalgic charm to the book with their often lengthy monologues on growing up in New York in the 40s and 50s. Their memories of chasing girls at dances, collecting junk for a few dollars a week and soaking up the boundless youthful pleasures of post-war America are set against the ever-present backdrop of Coney Island, a metaphor that persists throughout the book not only as a symbol of carefree frivolity, but also, with typical Heller irony, as a vehicle for the descent into hell.
Heller bombards the reader with brilliant juxtapositions of the simple and the profound in this book: the doorway to the afterlife being located in the back of a locker in New York's Port Authority Bus Station; a president whose entire view of world policy can only be communicated through the latest shoot-em-up video games; Milo's M&M Enterprises formulating and designing the deadliest fighter jet in military history on the premise that it will never have to be built. The intertwining plots are simultaneously hilarious, terrifying and senseless: the Government's internment and dissection of the Chaplain for his ability to urinate heavy water and thus possibly provide an alternate and cheap source of nuclear power being perhaps the cleverest.
It's a great book - not as laugh out loud as say, Good as Gold, and not quite as viciously satirical as Catch 22, but an immensely worthy sequel.

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tragic critique of the land of (pl)empty

yes it is the sequel to catch-22, and yes catch-22 was one of the best novels of the last century. nevertheless closing time stamds up admirably. it may not have the consistent satire of its famous predecessor, but it is as rife with humanity as the original and sometimes tearjerkingly so.

to have yossarian to grow old in your hands is thoroughly difficult given his assertion in catch-22 to 'live forever or die trying'. again we become aware of the finitude of humanity, forever 'inches from death.' the character of sammy singer - the tail gunner who kept fainting at the sight of snowden - is a great addition, to have another perspective upon the fragility of the human condition is somewhat pleasing. i thoroughly enjoyed his character.

again one is confronted with an indictment of capitalism through a trashy bourgeois wedding in the bus terminal, this alludes to the waste and excess of modern life. in a place rife with poverty and subsistence level living the nouveau riche congregate, what is more the pimps, prostitues and beggars are exchanged for actors.

the flagrant disregard for the human other is another consistent motif; which is sending each and every one to a communion with the devil.

this is a wonderful novel which is maintained with heller's eliptical precision. once one gets over the fact that it is not catch-22 it becomes excellent. i would recommend this to anyone, especially in the current climate and have a think about how the country and president views each and every person which such a painful dirsregard.

enjoy.

8/1/03

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Ho hum

With the possible exception of the movie Aliens, sequels are almost never as good as the original. Anyone who really enjoyed Catch-22 - which is almost everyone who's ever read it - will fetch a yawn at Heller's attempt to carry on the story of Yossarian. The book's got a decent theme. It retains the brilliant temporal hackjob that would make perfect sense if you read the book twice, or backwards, like reconstructing a murder mystery. Yet it lacked an interesting plot; it seemed like nothing new was added and nothing unexpected occurred. Predictably enough, Milo Minderbinder and Ex. PFC Wintergreen ultimately put their differences aside to form a major corporate alliance. Yossarian plans a party in the subway system. Not nearly as visceral a venue as WWII. I shrugged and didn't have the heart to finish it. It's a shame, and pretty disappointing, because I had begun to think Heller was quite the genius after I downed Catch 22 and God Knows.

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reviews: 1, 2, 3, page 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11

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