Order from a Major Online Bookstore
Ultimate Book Price Comparison Engine
Save Your Time And Money
| AnyBook4Less.com | Order from a Major Online Bookstore |
|
| Home | Store List | FAQ | Contact Us | | ||
| Ultimate Book Price Comparison Engine Save Your Time And Money |
||
 |
Title: CLOSING TIME : THE SEQUEL TO CATCH-22 by Joseph Heller ISBN: 0-684-80450-6 Publisher: Simon & Schuster Pub. Date: 15 September, 1995 Format: Paperback Volumes: 1 List Price(USD): $13.00 |
Average Customer Rating: 3.1 (39 reviews)
Rating: 4
Summary: A good book on the effects of growing old in modern society
Comment: Judging from the reviews on this page, it seems to me like most (but not all) of the negative reviews are from people who were merely expecting more Catch-22. Some comment that Closing Time has nothing to do with Catch-22, some that it is merely a poor rehashing of the material from Heller's earlier work, thus implying that the content is effectively similar, albeit inferior. I suppose I'm lucky not to be a Novel Nerd, because it seemed to me that Closing Time does an excellant job of what Heller set out to do: show us the effects of time, age, and society on young people with strong ideals and direction. The meandering reminicences of Yossarian and the others are not shoddily constructed prose, they are the sounds of old men trying to put their past into the context of what their present has become, and vice-versa.
If I could offer any constructive negative critism of this book, it would be that the surreal juxtaposition of concrete life, the military, and Hell seemed somewhat ill-defined, and as a result Heller's conclusion to the novel lacks some of the conviction that it could have had.
Rating: 5
Summary: Relevent to our times, acerbic, poignant, hilarious!
Comment: In Closing Time, Heller satyrizes city-life, enterprise, and corporate greed at the end of the 20th century just as well as he painted the anxieties and horrors of World War II.
Nowadays, there is little threat of a violent death, instead there is the terrible certainty of approaching mortality as Yosarian approaches seventy years of age. In some ways, this book is about dying.
I think Heller was influenced by Mark Twain and Grouch Marx for his comedic style.
The acerbic comical aspects are up-to-date, and relevent to professionals in the corporate and poitical realms, of all ages. The same hilarious wordings and characterizations of Milo and Wintergreen and the Chaplain are all here, striving in today's world...Just trying to thrive, as well as survive.
Yosarian is, of course largely agnostic though not nihilistic, but pradoxically axiomatic; so consequently the book is largely about sex, death, money, power, corruption, yet a hope for justice and the punishment of the wickid ("Dirty Old Man Stuff" as one reviewer mistakenly puts it).
I loved "Catch 22" (and will re-read it), but I *fully* appreciate "Closing Time" (and have re-read it several times).
The symbolism and literary depth are really innovative. For example, Yosarian's son proposes that the New York Port Authority Bus Terminal is actually what Dante's Inferno was supposed to represent, and it seems completely believable.
Much more needs to be said about this fine work of pseudo-fiction.
Rating: 2
Summary: Dirty old man stuff wrecks the book...
Comment: Some of the dialogue, and one of the eccentric premises (the urination of heavy water via the chaplain) are just as good as "Catch-22."
Unfortunately, what is holding it all together is a bunch of dirty old man stuff.
Heaven help us if it is true that old men in this post-Christian culture have absolutely nothing else to think about other than how many girls they've boffed over their lives, and how large those girls' mammaries were. I couldn't even finish this book.
 |
Title: SOMETHING HAPPENED by Joseph Heller ISBN: 0684841215 Publisher: Simon & Schuster Pub. Date: 12 November, 1997 List Price(USD): $15.00 |
 |
Title: GOD KNOWS by Joseph Heller ISBN: 0684841258 Publisher: Simon & Schuster Pub. Date: 12 November, 1997 List Price(USD): $13.00 |
 |
Title: GOOD AS GOLD by Joseph Heller ISBN: 0684839741 Publisher: Simon & Schuster Pub. Date: 12 November, 1997 List Price(USD): $13.00 |
 |
Title:Catch-22 ASIN: B00005ASGC Publisher: Paramount Home Video Pub. Date: 22 May, 2001 List Price(USD): $14.99 Comparison N/A, buy it from Amazon for $12.29 |
 |
Title: Slaughterhouse-Five by Kurt Vonnegut ISBN: 0440180295 Publisher: Dell Publishing Pub. Date: 03 November, 1991 List Price(USD): $7.50 |
Thank you for visiting www.AnyBook4Less.com and enjoy your savings!
Copyright� 2001-2021 Send your comments
