Although I would not say that this book is entirely on the level of Heller's first three books (all masterpieces), as it does not, perhaps, resonate with the vibrancy and poignancy of everyday life as those works do, God Knows is nevertheless an entertaining, blasphemous, and laugh-out-loud hilarous Bibilical parody. Many an author has turned their skills to the task of setting a famous Bibilical character into the universe of modern literature and re-telling their story that way, but few have done it with the intelligence, wit, and sheer knowledge of Heller. This is the work of a man that, though perhaps a Jewish atheist (I'm not too sure of what Heller's religious views were), nevertheless clearly had a vast and perhaps encyclopedic knowledge of the Bible - or the Old Testament, at any rate. Here, we have the story of King David ("the best story in The Bible", as the narrarator himself repeatedly tells us), told through Heller's first-person satiric lens, casting the famous and mythical character straight into the pantheon of modern literature. Many may well consider this book blasphemous (although I am glad, and pleasantly surprised, indeed, to see in some of the other reviews here that members of the clergy have read and enjoyed it), it is all in good fun, and quite an entertaining read - as well as also hitting home at several points. Although there are several laugh-out-loud segments, Heller, beneath the farce, is also asking existential questions, as well as tackling some complex moral issues: God's apparent inclination towards punishing the innocent for the crimes of the guilty is given a good bit of attention here. Although this book may well have some sort of a built-in audience due to it's Bibilical leanings, it probably does not have a more or less universal audience as his first three books did - being steeped heavily, as it is, in its subject matter. I think that you will enjoy the book a lot more, and will certainly find it funnier, if you are familar with The Bible - or at least the parts that it deals with. Indeed, if you are highly steeped in Bibilical subject matter, you may well consider this Heller's best book. I reccommend it regardles, however: even if you are not knowledgable with its inherent subject matter, you will still find the book enjoyable, especially if you are a fan of Heller's particular style and liked his other writings.

In what can only be called the shear GENIUS of Joseph Heller, God Knows crosses the line between biblical irony and just plain FUN!! As a member of the clergy I found this book a refreshing and oftentimes TOO POIGNANT look at one of the greatest biblical heroes! Heller breathes life and REALITY into a character of mythical proportions. . . just in time to remind us that we are all HUMANS and a part of God's work. I am sorry for those Catch-22 fans that cannot let go of their IDOL WORSHIP for Joseph Heller. They are missing out on good writing and some downhome chuckles. . . GO FIGURE!!

Joseph Heller has once again shown his mastery of irony and the absurd. His portrayal of King David is both hillarious and blasphemes. It is not often that I laugh out loud while reading a book. By breathing life into the Old Testament charachters, Heller is able to add flesh and bones to a somewhat boring Biblical account. But God Knows is something more than just a risque telling of Kings, it is also a story about aging, love and religion. He ponders great questions on the fallacy of a God that allows the innocent to die. All in all, a great read.

Heller's memoir isn't badly written. It's more that his life is rather dull. Most of the book focuses on his childhood in Coney Island, where he has no bad memories and no exciting ones. The Depression didn't affect him. His father's death didn't affect him. Nothing affected him. And not much happened. As a result, the memoir tends to drag out. Chapters 8 and 9, titled 'Peace' and Psychiatry' respectively, were very good. That's the period of the war and afterward. Those are the chapters that get into his writing, and this is where the memoir picks up (though it drags again in the final chapter, when we go back to Coney Island and more discussion on what happened to the people he grew up with--which is to say, nothing interesting). And there is little insight into Catch-22 (and if you are Joseph Heller, Catch-22 is the most important thing you've done, an instant classic, and what everyone knows you for--there should have been more of a focus on it), which is truly a shame.

From the author's point of view the devil's bargain involved in producing a massive, iconic work like Catch 22 precludes literary relaxation. Like it or not, the reader-fanship base will forever be on the lookout for those nuggets of pure genius that enriched, even changed, their lives. But, like it or not, literary relaxation is what Heller delivers in this beautiful, delicate memoir, a book that easily transcends the nostalgic epitaph it might have been and instead, appropriately, resonates like a profound, spiritual coda, inciting the would-be writer. This is mostly about the rites of passage of an average young man, bred averagely in Coney Island in the thirties and forties, growing through the anguish of war to the illuminated empowerment of a life of the imagination. Heller writes with such ease that is surprising to read of his literary failures - and surprising to discover that editor Ron Gottlieb cut 50 pages off the front of Catch 22 before publishing it. There is color and anecdote aplenty, but what prevails is a sense of modesty and curiosity, a delight in humanity and a cast-iron sense of humor. This isn't a "how to" writer's manual, but it has that kind of inspriational energy. It also possesses that leanness of exposition that makes for great American writing - a sinewy, non-adjectival poetry in direct lineage from Mark Twain and far superior to the flowery excesses of comparable contemporary memoirs from the other side of the Atlantic. Poetry it is. Heller's descriptions of Coney Island and New York in the middle century have a creamy, dreamy impact that lingers long after the book is done with. Philosophical musings and self-analysis, scattered like fairy dust, heighten the experience. This is among the best of Heller, written "on spec" (as opposed to by publisher's decree), and vastly the better for that. How beautifully and simply and honestly he wrote! How we miss him!

As a person who also grew up in Coney Island all be it some thirty years after Mr. Heller did, I found this book to be a delight. It was really something to read about some of the people that I knew and some that my parents had told me about, as well. I totally disagree with the premise of some of the other reviewers about Heller not giving insight into how he came about to write such a classic as, "Catch 22". Actually it is in fact the environment, ethnicity and characters of Coney Island of that era that gave him his wonderful wit. I should know I have plenty of them in my immediate family. It was also nice to know that I am not the only one who felt the way that he did about swimming out to the bell buoy. All that aside, the book is very interesting and profound, and definately gives us all an insight into the heart, mind and life experiences of one of Americas great satirical authors.

REVIEWED BY MARTIN RUBIN
That arch British Imperialist pioneer-buccaneer-millionaire Cecil Rhodes famously observed - wrongly as it turned out - that he had achieved true immortality because the central African nation of Rhodesia had taken its name from his. "They can't change a country's name, can they?" he boastfully but plaintively observed, never dreaming that within 100 years "his" country would dissolve into "Zimbabwe" and " "Zambia."
A truly apt expression, however, is likely to endure, for who is going to change a catchphrase which shines a spotlight on a circumstance which formerly took a mess of words to describe? Which brings us to Joseph Heller, who does seem to have achieved immortality for as long as spoken English contains the phrase Catch-22.
The New Oxford American Dictionary gives it a remarkably concise definition, "catch-22: a dilemma or difficult circumstance from which there is no escape because of mutually conflicting or dependent circumstances," but even so, it takes 18 words to describe what Heller achieved in one and a half. And certainly this dictionary gives him his due, going on to say: "ORIGIN 1970s: title of a novel by Joseph Heller (1961), in which the main character feigns madness in order to avoid dangerous combat missions, but his desire to avoid them is taken to prove his sanity." So Heller has made a contribution to the language, has perhaps identified as well as named a troublesome conundrum, but what of his contribution to literature?
Insofar as he has made one, it has to rest on "Catch-22," certainly Heller's magnum opus, and light years ahead of any of his other novels, let alone the odds and ends contained in this depressing little collection, "Catch As Catch Can: The Collected Stories and Other Writings." Even the title of this posthumous volume is a blatant effort to ride on the wings of the one thing he wrote which has any vestige of literary merit. Yet, how much does even "Catch-22" possess?
That master of satirical war fiction, Evelyn Waugh, certainly did not think much of it. In what must have been one of the most misguided literary publicity efforts of all time, Heller's publishers sought a blurb from the author of "Sword of Honour," the crowning achievement of World War II fiction. The middle-aged curmudgeon's reply was not merely a crushing blow to the publicist's enterprise, but is also a devastating judgment upon the book:
"[Catch-22] suffers not only from indelicacy but from prolixity. It should be cut by about a half. In particular the activities of 'Milo' should be eliminated or greatly reduced.
"You are mistaken in calling it a novel. It is a collection of sketches - often repetitious - totally without structure.
"Much of the dialogue is funny.
"You may quote me as saying: 'This exposure of corruption, cowardice and incivility of American officers will outrage all friends of your country (such as myself) and greatly comfort your enemies.'"
Waugh's critique goes to the heart of what is wrong with the novel. Heller is not alone in emerging from World War II with stories to tell about snafus and incompetence. Waugh himself did it - who can forget his indelible portrait of the unsuccessful assault upon Dakar, as well as scores of incidents large and small, rife with tragicomedy? And Heller's contemporaries, from Norman Mailer to James Jones and Leon Uris, showed the confusion of military life in that great war of liberation. But Heller lacks not only literary skills but also real passion, which even a writer like Uris was capable of harnessing in a novel like "Battle Cry."
The smallness of Heller's vision, his determination to visit his hero's (and one suspects his own) inadequacies on the whole enterprise upon which he is engaged, his lack of any gravitas - all these contribute to a profoundly dispiriting credo.
It's one thing not feel you have to trumpet the "greatest generation," but to lose sight entirely of the essence of the conflict is to miss the opportunity to put his personal kvetch into some sort of context.
People will continue to read Ivan Turgenev's great novel of the generation gap, "Fathers and Sons," for its literary qualities and for what it has to say about human nature and not merely because it is the book where the term "nihilist" was coined. In the end, all that is of value about "Catch-22" is the catchphrase: The book itself is dispensable.
But the novel was not only an instant phenomenon, it continued to burgeon, a legend in its own time. And what a time it was, that other low, dishonest decade, the Sixties. In "Reeling in Catch-22," one of the essays which the editors of "Catch as Catch Can" saw fit to add to the pieces of fiction that make up the bulk of the volume, Heller comments on the serendipitous confluence of "Catch-22" and its time:
"'Catch-22' came to the attention of college students at about the same time that the moral corruption of the Vietnam War became evident. The treatment of the military as corrupt, ridiculous and asinine could be applied literally to that war. Vietnam was a lucky coincidence - lucky for me, not for the people. Between the mid- and late-Sixties, the paperback of 'Catch-22' went from 12 printings to close to 30.
"There was change in spirit, a new spirit of healthy irreverence. There was a general feeling that the platitudes of Americanism were horse sxxt. Number one, they didn't work. Number two, they weren't true. Number three, the people giving voice to them didn't believe them either. The phrase 'Catch-22' began appearing more and more frequently in a wide range of contexts. I began hearing from people who believed I'd named the book after the phrase."
The author seems very pleased with his good fortune, but what if it wasn't entirely accidental? Art, after all, can influence life, for better or worse. It is a little scary to contemplate the role this self-indulgent, whiny novel might have played in making its era something of a mirror to its destructive, corrosive qualities.
And what of Heller's later career? There are novels such as "Good as Gold," which make me wince as I remember their crude caricature combined with an air of monumental self-satisfaction. Having sat through his play "We Bombed in New Haven" (still another version of the "Catch-22" story), when it was appropriately enough given its premiere in the eponymous city at the Yale Drama School, I can testify that his skills as a dramatist were not noticeably superior to those as a novelist.
The phrase heard most often about the play that evening in the late Sixties was that It had indeed bombed in New Haven, a quip for which this hubristic and more than usually self-deluded playwright seemed to be asking. As for the stories collected in "Catch as Catch Can," they are banal beyond belief, some of them rising almost to the level of competence but none of them having anything original to contribute to the reader's understanding of either ideas or the human condition.
Indeed, some are so generic that I felt that I had read them before even though to the best of my recollection I had not.
Given the artistic level of both the published and heretofore unpublished short stories, it is unfortunate that the editors should have chosen to make such extravagant claims for Heller: "Heller set out to become a professional writer and became a literary genius."
Not even close. Say a quiet thank you to Joseph Heller for inventing catch-22 if you are so inclined, read the novel - if you are very curious as to the phrase's etiology and if you prefer satire that employs a blunt instrument rather than a rapier -- but do not waste your time on the scraps of an undistinguished literary career contained in this overblown book.

This book is well-known in academic database circles as "The Red Book" (in fact, the editors maintain a useful web site at http://redbook.cs.berkeley.edu/) and is a canonical resource in those circles. It's primarily intended as a reader/textbook for a graduate course in database systems and has a heavy emphasis on implementation issues. It contains a fair number of classic papers that should be read by anybody who actually works on database engines as well as a number of more recent papers that should be read by anyone who does research in database systems. The usefulness for end-users of databases (i.e., application writers) is unclear.

The 3rd edition, in my opinion, improves upon the 2nd edition considerably. Of course, it freshens the paper selection in some areas. More importantly, it prunes the number of subject areas considerably, resulting in a more manageable collection (in more ways than one!). For example, a great deal of work was performed in the late 1980s and early 1990s in areas such as extensibility and active database management. By the late 1990s, the SQL3/SQL1999 train had already left the station - work still goes on in these areas, but at a greatly reduced rate. Conversely, data mining and decision analysis have become hugely important areas, and the new Red Book has a section on it.

If there's a place where this book "missed the boat," it would probably be in terms of applications. The editors cut the section on user interfaces and programming models and have always ignored unstructured/semistructured data models. In these days of the Web, this choice is questionable; on the other hand, a lot of the most reasonable work in these areas has in fact appeared since 1998, so it's a bit hard to criticize with any degree of fairness!

If Joseph Heller's life had to be put into a book, this would be it. This book can give you all the information you need to know about this complicated man with a twisted mind. It was extremely comprehensive and organized.

Heller's jaw-droppingly good debut Catch-22 was always going to be a hard act to follow. Indeed, Heller's career was always in the shadow of that first book. He was well aware of this. When told bluntly by an interviewer that he (Heller) had not written anything as good as Catch-22, Heller asked 'Who has?'

That said, all Heller's novels are worth reading. Something Happened, his second, doesn't have the same incandescent humour of Catch-22, but this is because it concerns office politics and dysfunctional families.

It should be noted that the title is singular. SomeTHING happened, not many things happened. This is not a heavily plotted novel. It concerns itself with ennui, and asks questions about the meaning of it all.

That isn't to say that it drags. There is enough black humour and enough good solid Hellerian prose to carry you along until you eventually find out what that something that happened is. And it is quite a shock.

Something Happened is not an easy read. On first reading it may appear to be pointless and leading nowhere (because that is the nature of the narrator) and it may be frustrating for this. But you'll have to trust me, once you've finished and let the whole thing sink into your mind you should find it very rewarding. Bleak certainly, but rewarding.

This is, perhaps, the most complex of Heller's writings that I've read. It's structure is so tight and intentional that upon subsequent readings, each chapter becomes almost symbolic in and of itself. This book deals, in the first person, with the personal and professional life of Bob Slocum. He seems to be a very disillusioned fellow, and, at times, comes across as completely callous. However, there is more to this story than the simple ramblings of an unhappy man. It's deeply rooted in psychology (especially Freudian psychology). This is where the structure of the book comes in to play. For Heller deals with a lot of Freud's theories (which I won't necesarilly get into here), and almost all of them are repressented somewhere in this book. A common critical complaint about this book is that nothing actually happens (in terms of physical action). If you give this novel only a surface reading, you're likely to come away with that very impression. However, if you look closer (or even read this novel a few times), you'll see that there is definite psychological and symbolic action. Something happens (although it may not be readily apparent). Although Something Happened is not as humorous as Heller's earier work, Catch-22, I think that it is a far more rewarding piece, in the long run. It, in my opinion, has more depth to it, and is highly underrated because of it's lack of physical action (or drama). If you decide to pick this book up, be aware that it isn't the comic piece that Catch-22 is. Whatever humor exists in this novel is dark and jaded. It's far more likely to be disturbing than funny. However, as I've said earlier (and by the five stars I gave it), it's well worth the read. I would recomend this book to anyone who has an interest in psychology, as well as in Freud.

The title of this book by Joseph Heller is "Something Happened." Another title could have been "Life: The Book." This is one of the very, very few books I know that accurately and realistically portrays real life - life as it actually is - warts and all. The book I read immediately before this one was James Joyce's much-touted masterwork, Ulysses. Now, that book can, and has been, described the same way by many, and it is, in many ways, the very last word on realism. That said, it has much in common with this book, and Something Happened is, in many ways, the better book. Classicists and romanticists may well prefer Joyce's novel and consider it downright blasphemy to have it compared with this modern masterwork, but the fact is, this is a very good and much underrated book, and will probably be preferred by post-modernists and existentialists over Ulysses. The book is very long - nearly 600 pages - and does have a tendency to ramble at times - often seemingly without a point. It's written in the style of a first-person narrative, and this is one of the few books where you truly get into the head of the main character. That is the main difference between this book and Ulysses: unlike the latter work, which follows the adventures of three separate characters as they follow parallel courses and sometimes intertwine, Something Happened consists entirely of one character's thoughts and actions. And, since it deals only with other people insofar as they relate to him, it can get a bit solipsistic at times - however, that said, Heller's intention with this book (I think) was to accurately and realistically describe the thoughts in the head of a fairly normal, everyday American male. He does a rather remarkable job of this. The only real criticism of the book I can make is that it does tend to repeat itself quite a lot at times: certain situations are mentioned again and again with little or no variation, often seemingly for no reason - but, as anyone knows, this is, indeed, how most people's minds do work. The main character, Bob Slocum, is not a perfect person - but he is a REAL person. This is not another cardboard cutout character that we see all too many of: this is a real living, breathing flesh and blood character, warts and all - HUMAN, just like us. Many of the situations he finds himself in - both in the workplace and domestically - as well as the thoughts and emotions he finds himself experiencing, will no doubt hit home with a great many readers. Although Heller more than likely constructed Slocum to portray a certain generation of people - the anguished, confused veterans of the war - he is applicable to the Average Joe: he's the true Everyman. Heller seeks, in this book, to answer the real question: What, just what, DID happen, to that great, blinding glow of post-war euphoria? Or, as Roger Waters put it, "Whatever happened to the post-war dream?" Where's the American Dream? Where's all the sun and rainbows? WHAT HAPPENED? Something did.

I highly reccommend this book. It is a masterpiece, and criminally underrated. It's a shame that Heller's reputation rests almost solely upon Catch-22, when he has so many other notable and distinct works, such as this one. As another reviewer pointed out, I believe this book was overlooked by Modern Library when they made their list of the Top 100 Books of the 20th Century: it truly belongs on it. Don't make the mistake of overlooking it.

NO LAUGHING MATTER has some great moments. In places Joseph Heller demonstrated his ability to be funny and touching at the same time. The book was a great inspiration to me at a time when I needed the help it gave me. As the author of SOLOMON'S PORCH, a novel about a man with CIDP, the slow version of Guillain Barre', I was fascinated with this book about Joe Heller and his caretakers. Most of the material that I have read about GBS and CIDP focuses almost exclusively on the patient, but Mr. Heller wrote every other chapter of this book and had his friend, who became one of his caretakers, write the alternate chapters. At the time I read NO LAUGHING MATTER, I was beginning to formulate SOLOMON'S PORCH in my mind. NLM gave me some good ideas about structure.

Not exactly a laughing matter, but certainly one presented with plenty of humor. Author Joseph Heller developed a nerve disease called Guillain-Barre after years of seeming good health, and later wrote a book (coauthored by his pal Speed Vogel) chronicling his declining health and his fight back to semi-normality.

It was a day like any other, just before getting a divorce and starting a new novel (which became "God Knows"). But Joseph Heller found that his food tasted funny, his body felt abnormally heavy, and he was having problems putting on and removing clothing. He checked into a hotel, and sure enough -- he had had a problem. What's more, he had a nerve disease called Guillain-Barre, which could cause permanent paralysis.

While his mind remained sharp and unusually witty, Heller's body became paralyzed. His pals Speed Vogel, Mario Puzo (of "Godfather" fame), Dustin Hoffman and Mel Brooks all clustered around to help their friend as he began to regain control of his life.

The account is funny and kooky, full of eccentric people like Puzo and Brooks. But there are deeper undercurrents in "No Laughing Matter," in which the friends help keep Heller from sinking into a frenzy of displeasure and cabin fever. There are no gooey monologues about the power of love and friendship -- it would probably have made the authors gag, even if it didn't make the readers. But the accounts of an admittedly difficult-to-deal-with famous author being helped out, despite his eccentricity, is very touching.

There is a lot of serious content, with Heller's decline in health and the details of his time in the hospital. (Constantly lying in a hospital bed, mostly paralyzed, unable to grip a pen and with a tube in his nose) But he manages to give a funny spin to almost everything in the book, including his encounters with Valerie Humphrey, a beautiful nurse who became his second wife, and media-shy Mario Puzo telling him how lucky he was to be sick and paralyzed, since he wouldn't be require do interviews. Half the book is Speed Vogel's voice; he offers an alternate, somewhat humbler viewpoint. He also gives more entertaining anecdotes such as Mel Brooks painting his "SNORE! SNORE! SNORE!" message on the wall, or the lobster dinner, or just arguing with Joe about the thirty-person dinner.

Funnier and more heartwarming than most "disease diaries," this gives us two different viewpoints: The patient, and the loyal pal. Definitely an intriguing and interesting read.

NO LAUGHING MATTER is a very informative and entertaining piece of writing. Co-authored by Joseph Heller and Speed Vogel (who write alternating chapters) it details the effects of the rare debilitating affliction called Guillain-Barre syndrome. This autobiographical/biographical chronicle passes along a lot of information without once falling into obscure medical dullness.

Guillain-Barre is a disease that attacks the central nervous system, rendering the victim completely paralyzed. Although what Heller contracted was a mild form of the disorder, in an extreme case mentioned a patient was only able to move their eyes. Recovery is possible from this disease; if it's caught early enough, the patient can be hooked up to a respirator if need be and then slowly rehabilitated. NO LAUGHING MATTER is two stories. The first is that of Joseph Heller the patient who goes from being in (seemingly) perfect health to being utterly bedridden in a matter of days. The second part of the tale is told by Speed Vogel, a friend of Heller, who took care of virtually all of his financial, legal and personal obligations.

From reading some other reviews of the book, one might be under the impression that this is a light and fluffy feel-good story of friendship where one will be forced to read numerous passages on the deeper meanings of love and caring. People learning great life lessons by sacrificing much that they have purely in the name of camaraderie. Chicken soup for the soul and novocain for the brain. Fortunately, one couldn't be further from the truth. While the two authors obviously have a great fondness for each other, you won't find any obvious soliloquies on the healing power of friendship. What you will find are people who care a great deal, but aren't afraid to share a lot of good-natured abuse. While in sickness and on the road to recovery, this never feels false or sugarcoated. It's an honest account of what real friendships are made of.

Despite the title, much of the book is laugh out loud funny. Heller may have been bedridden but he didn't lose any of his trademark wit. Celebrity cameos of everyone from Dustin Hoffman to Mario Puzo to Mel Brooks help to liven up an already interesting narrative. Both authors have a warm and engaging style of writing that makes even the more incomprehensible medical jargon understandable. The jokes are great and serve also to counterpoint the feelings of desperation and of loneliness.

The book is extremely intriguing, though there are one or two sections that don't quite work. Heller was going through what appeared to be a fairly messy divorce and the legal proceedings got a little bit complicated. For a section, Heller even reproduces a few pages of the court transcripts in order to show his lawyer in the right. As justified as he may be in including these segments, they aren't nearly as interesting as the rest of the book and pale in comparison.

NO LAUGHING MATTER shows us illness from two viewpoints. From Vogel we see the outward appearance of the disease and its effect on Heller. From Heller we experience the sickness firsthand. It's a fascinating dual look at the nature of the affliction. Well worth a read.

Joseph Heller wrote one great book, Catch-22. Nothing else in his long career ever came close to capturing the absurd tragedy and comedy of the modern world as that book did, but they were interesting and readable nevertheless. Alas, the same cannot be said for Portrait of an Artist, as an Old Man. This "novel", which deals with an aging author struggling to find a new subject to write about, fails on almost every front. It isn't funny or insightful. It doesn't really tell a story. It presents, instead, a series of false starts to novels that the author then gives up on as being no good. And for good reason - they ARE no good. The frustration the author feels seems real enough. The reader, unfortunately, experiences the same frustration and it is never resolved. Frustration is a good plot device if the story then resolves the issues that caused the frustration. That doesn't happen here. There are some touching scenes in the book, but they aren't really integrated into the whole. Indeed, there doesn't seem to be any sense of this series of bits and pieces being a "whole" anything. Supposidly Heller "finished" this book just before his death. If that is true it doesn't come across in the reading. It seems incomplete and fragmentary, and a sad exit for a great writer.

It's somehow unsurprising that "Portrait of an Artist As An Old Man" was Joseph Heller's final novel. It feels like a final novel, both autobiographical and a musing about the art of writing. People who haven't tried to write probably won't appreciate this odd little novel as much as those who have.

Eugene Pota is a well-known author who produced an immensely successful modern classic many years ago. Though his books since then have been critical and monetary successes, all of them have been compared to that first book. Now, in his mid-seventies, Eugene reflects on the changing literary world and wants to write a mega-success, a fantastic book that will be loved and appreciated and possibly made into a movie. That's a pretty tall order.

So he begins writing various books, such as the Biblical parody "God's Wife," a book about Greek legends from the goddess Hera's point of view, a parody of "Tom Sawyer," and a novel about a husband viewing his wife's "transgressions." All of them don't quite work out...

Exactly how much of this book is autobiographical isn't clear -- between the witty final line and the stuff about Coney Island and "God Knows," it's clear that much of Pota is actually Heller. One thing that Heller did in this book (besides homage himself) is reflect on the authors who have gone before him. There are lots of references to Henry James, Mark Twain, Jack London, and plenty of others; at the same time, he mulls over the tragic qualities of their lives. (The aborted "Tom Sawyer" parody includes Tom going around looking for them)

This book, technically, is not about writer's block; rather it's about the frustration of feeling required to top yourself, and of a basic lack of inspiration. Not being able to write in the middle of a book is bad enough. But it's even worse when you have trouble just figuring out what you want to start out with. Eugene's dogged attempts to do the impossible -- to top himself -- are pleasant to read about.

His writing is funny and insightful, but occasionally becomes a bit self-indulgent. And I wasn't sure what to make about the passages about Polly, Pota's wife. Meaning, I wasn't sure if she was based on his actual last wife and whether he was frustrated with her.

Some witty dialogue, amusing false starts and some genuinely poignant soul-baring fill this book. It's a shame the "Old Man" passed away before it was even published.

Writer's block happens.

Joseph Heller apparently knew it well. Before his 1999 death, the famed author of "Catch-22" put his frustrations into fiction, resulting in 2000's "A Portrait of an Artist, as an Old Man," recently released in paperback format.

The story is ingenious, and perhaps eeriely autobiographical. Aging author Eugene Pota (how clever is Heller? Pota = P.O.T.A., or Portrait Of The Artist) is struggling to write his next novel. We, as readers, get to see his latest attempts in action.

They range from a modern day re-telling of Tom Sawyer, a story told from the viewpoint of a gene, a re-telling of a mythological story, another re-telling of a biblical story, and so on. Pota gets a few pages written, but ultimately rejects each one for a variety of reasons (too much research required, it's been done to death, ludicrous concept).

Oh sure, there's the appealing notion of penning a sex book. People will coo and wink naughtily at parties, especially when you reveal your title: "A Sexual Biography of My Wife." (Your wife, in this case Eugene's wife Polly, on the other hand, is none too thrilled.) But when the title is all you've got, well...

Here Heller presents a scarily realistic view of the horrors of writer's block, and proves he has perhaps the only sure-fire method of alleviating it: Write about your writer's block.

In the midst of doing exactly that, Heller presents a three-dimensional figure in Pota. The book lives up to its title, as Eugene feels his age and struggles to capture a glimmer of what he once had. ("Catch-22," anyone?) "Portrait" is very much a story of an artist struggling to keep a grip on his craft, as it is the only thing he has left. It also provides an appealing look into the artist's creative process, and hints as to what was running through Heller's mind while penning his other works, like "Something Happened," "God Knows" and "Picture This."

Also deserving of praise is the way Heller captures the characters of Pota and Polly. Eugene is a man struggling to keep busy and recapture his former glory, which also includes looking in on a couple ex-lovers and old flames, of which there are many. While not quite as three-dimensional as her husband, we see little glimpses of Polly's motivation. And one wonders how the Heller marriage fared in his waning years; if the Potas are as autobiographical as the rest of the novel seems to be, theirs was a marriage that had sunken into mutual distaste and even a hint of hatred brought upon by old age. It's disturbing to behold.

It's a relatively short work, one that doesn't even come close to approaching the magnitude of "Catch-22." Which is exactly Heller's point, and makes "Portrait" all the more breathtaking. This a cautionary tale, both envy-inspiring and frightening to aspiring writers (I tremble as I type this), and a work that could have, in all honesty, probably been written by any struggling poet with a title but no song.

But Heller is the one who wrote it, and he can rest easy in the knowledge that anyone else who dares attempt such a tale will merely be following in his giant footsteps.

There are a lot of things I did expect when starting that "novel". A plot was one of them, some of the famous Heller wit another (this book really is unfunny, but keeps winking at you as if you're just a tiny little bit away from getting some cosmic joke it really is about). I didn't expect to be treated to a 326 page long variation of Larry King's obnoxious observations in USA Today, set in ancient Greece and Holland of the 16th/17th century. The chronology is totally mucked up, it seems not because of some artitistic reason, but because it was cobbled together without any sense of structure.

Finally, an author who seriously suggests that some of the dutch provinces are perhaps not even known to many INSIDE the Netherlands (hey Joe: this isn't the US you're writing about) doesn' instill too much confidence about getting his other facts right.

One of the few books in my life I didn't finish (maybe the second half is a LOT better).

PICTURE THIS is a paradox -- a mammoth delight and a monstrous disappointment. It's a startlingly imaginative work in which Heller blends three disparate times in history. Aristotle awakens as Rembrandt applies paint to canvas. When Rembrandt paints his ear, Aristotle hears. As the brush perfects the eyes, Aristotle sees. And always, Aristotle observes.

Heller portrays life in mid-17th century Amsterdam and in the 3rd century before Christ, commenting on similarities to modern living, jumping back and forth between the ages, and tracing the 300-year history of the portrait. It's quite a mix, and that's where the book fails. He just doesn't pull it off.

The book reminds me of a game of checkers played without rules. It's an uncoordinated hopscotch through centuries, filled with distractions, tangents and irrelevant side trips. It's as though he tried to combine several books into one and missed.

Heller's books (CATCH-22, GOD KNOWS, etc.) are unique. Maybe he just tried too hard to be different. The text lacks discipline, organization and the feel for language we expect from master writers. Paragraphs are disjointed, sentences are clumsy and overburdened. Too often they just plain don't make any sense.

"The great seaport city of Amsterdam was then the richest and busiest shipping center in the world. The great seaport city of Amsterdam was not a seaport but is situated a good seventy miles from the closest deepwater shipping facilities in the North Sea." That's amateurish and sloppy. And typical.

Heller's mediocre, journalistic style (reminiscent of Kurt Vonnegut's) is inadequate for the job he has cut out for himself. The superb, sensitive and imaginative scholarship displayed in PICTURE THIS deserves organized, disciplined, and equally sensitive writing. It didn't get it.

PICTURE THIS is an enormous and sprawling work. I do not mean large in the word-count (though it's no slouch in this category) but in the scope. The back cover summary promises a "jaunt through 2,500 years of Western civilization" and it certainly delivers that. Unfortunately the result is a mixture of good and bad. At its best, it can be spellbinding, but at its worst it comes across as a fairly boring history lesson.

The book is vaguely centered around a piece of artwork that a Sicilian nobleman named Don Antonio Ruffo paid five hundred guilders for Rembrandt to produce. The painting is that of the Greek philosopher Aristotle contemplating a bust of the Greek poet and storyteller Homer. Using this foundation as a springboard, Joseph Heller jumps back and forth in time giving different perceptions on a number of different concepts. Money, power and art are just a few of the topics that Heller touches on and for the most part, as the expression goes, the more things change the more they stay the same. There are some memorable insights into the role that war, commerce, etc. have played in society.

On the other hand, PICTURE THIS does tend to get weighed down underneath its grandiose pretensions. While much of the book discusses the relation that history has to the concepts it contains, there are far too many passages that are just dry rehashes of historical documents. This is most apparent in the sections concerning the Greek philosophers where, at worst, the book spends several pages just rephrasing the events and philosophies that Plato described in APOLOGY, CRITO and THE REPUBLIC. Although these sections can be interesting (probably even more so to any readers who aren't already familiar with them) they are not always related to the rest of the story. For some of these sections, one would be better off reading the actual texts rather than just the summary of them included here.

The main sections of the book are split between long discussions about the wars of the ancient Greek world and numerous lectures upon the role of money/commerce in the Dutch society of Rembrandt's era. Some of it is extremely interesting. Some of it is stunningly dull. There are some very clever themes that run throughout the book such as the portrait of Aristotle being sentient and able to give a commentary on how different and similar life is in Rembrandt's time to that of his own. As readers in the beginning of the 21st Century, we can are also able reflect upon how their life is similar to ours. Heller is aware of this and lets the narrative play around with this idea, and while it isn't totally successful in every case, it's effective enough to be very powerful.

This book definitely has some gems contained within it. Just be warned that there is a lot of padding in between. While it's ultimately a rewarding experience, there are portions of it that are just tedious to read.

It could be argued that in embarking on writing a sequel to "Catch 22" was indeed the ultimate Catch 22 itself. Unless "Closing Time" proved to be an absolute classic, a wonderful funny-sad commentry on contemporary life, then it would pale in comparison with it's predesessor. Make it too similar, of course, and the author is open to charges that he is merely retreading old ground. Heller waited 25 years to write this sequel, and sets some of the characters introduced in "Catch 22" in modern life. More than forty years after the War, Yossarian remains as abrasive and dissatisfied as ever in his old age. Milo remains the entrepreneur of his earlier life. Both these characters have made successes of themselves in the business world. "Closing Time" attachs the absurdities of the contemporary business world in the same way as "Catch 22" attachs the absurdities and attrocities of war. Milo's new idea is to sell a stealth bomber type aircraft to the American military, and he employs Yossarian and his son, Michael, to help him sell the plane to the military. Yossarian has the ear of the "little p***k", the American President, who is obsessed with video games. Yossarian also has the plan of holding a massively expensive and gaudy wedding ceremony in a bus shelter. When exploring this possibility he finds a network of tunnels beneath the ground, where officials are safe from nuclear war, and dead people live with their wealth.The characters of Yossarian and Milo remain as good points in this book. Yossarian has the feel of a "dirty old man" in some of his sexual flirtings, and has certainly grown old disgracefully. He does however show a devotion to his son Michael. Yossarian still shows that biting wit at times, especially when dealing with the private detective that has bugged his telephone, and in conversations with his son Michael over what he is going to do with his life. Milo's dodgy dealings remain as fun as ever, attempting to sell a plane he has no intention of building. Mingling with these are passages from other old characters Sammy and Lew, which bring a note of seriousness in comparison with the decadent lifestyle led by the other two. It remains strange to see Yossarian in such circumstances as in this book. "Catch 22" is a difficult if impossible book to follow up, and the only way to really read this is to totally detach that book. If you do not expect another "Catch 22" you will still enjoy the updated exploits of Yossarian and friends.

When I read Catch-22, I came away laughing uproariously. When I discovered that there was a sequel, I immediately knew that I would have to read it. Having finished it, I have analyzed it to some extent, and I think that it may be too close too home for many people to fully appreciate it's comedic properties. Remember that Catch-22 was released in or around 1955, remember also that it recieved some horrible reviews. My point is that If Catch-22 has grown more beloved with the passage of time, might not the same be true of Closing Time? Looking back on the book, I can see how much of it might be funny to an outside observer. However, it seems that it is harder for those of us who are living within the realm of the book to appreciate it. Sort of like how you can't see all America if you're standing in Denver. I truly liked the book and reccomend it to anyone who has read Catch-22. And even those who haven't. But if you're about to read it for the first time, remember, it isn't Catch-22. Don't expect it to be

Beeing of age 30+ and born in middle Europe I have never found Catch 22 to be really appealing novel. I would be probably never born unless U.S. troups entered the World War II. Catch 22 is perhaps good intellectual excersise but dealing only around the edge of final unavoidable causalties when one finds it difficult to sacrifice himself. Understandable and having strange side ethic impacts.

Closing time is different story coming from my World and my time. It is serious satire warning which forecasts what could perhaps happen and why and also how the western civilization twisted in recent decades. My mind values such a work written with brilliant and unique technique much more then the emotional postevent cries. While Catch 22 was of little practical usage for life of all of us, Closing time digs deeply to the fuzzy beginnings of the causes using the author's 22 like paradox tool which could be sorted as dialectic, unmodern and difficult to accept by too serious readers. If we only pay attention. To much extent I agree with the writer's critical points while the book more then often laughs me on.

If there is any weak point this is that similar causes proliferate around the entire World in huge variety and sometimes even quite new clothes. Both Catch 22 and Closing time show the outside undescribed world as unknown and/or unbeliavable. Catch 22 uses the scope of small army unit, Closing time is enlarged to that of U.S. society. But the other World simply is here evolving and behaving its own ways, interacting with any subject's common world.

Btw. seems Amazon should reconsider the 5 stars indicator as "average" result simply can not reflect the love/hate rate distribution of this and other really good works.