- Audio Cassette
- Publisher: Simon & Schuster (a); Abridged edition (November 1994)
- Language: English
- ISBN-10: 0671505726
- ISBN-13: 978-0671505721
- Product Dimensions: 18 x 10.7 x 1.5 cm
- Shipping Weight: 181 g
- Average Customer Review: 3.1 out of 5 stars See all reviews (39 customer reviews)
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Product Details |
Product Description
From Publishers Weekly
Heller's sequel to his classic first novel, Catch-22, finds Yossarian and company again surrounded by greed, violence and insanity, this time in contemporary New York.
Copyright 1995 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to the Paperback edition.
Copyright 1995 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to the Paperback edition.
From Library Journal
Just like the original Catch-22, this sequel opens with Yossarian in a hospital bed, flirting with the nurses. Now in his seventies, Yossarian is depressed by his perfect health: things can only get worse. He lives alone in a Manhattan apartment not far from most of his old war buddies, including Milo Minderbinder, a defense contractor straight out of Dr. Strangelove. Yossarian and company mourn the decline of New York City and American culture in general and look back longingly to the golden age of prewar Coney Island. The symbolic center of the book is a surreal wedding extravaganza held at the Port Authority Bus Terminal and hosted by Minderbinder, who recruits highly paid actors to portray derelicts and prostitutes. This work attempts the same sort of giddy black humor that made its predecessor a classic, but the underlying mood is somber, almost elegiac. A profoundly disturbing novel, if not quite up to the standard of Catch-22; recommended for all fiction collections.
Edward B. St. John, Loyola Law Sch. Lib., Los Angeles
Copyright 1994 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.
Edward B. St. John, Loyola Law Sch. Lib., Los Angeles
Copyright 1994 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.
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Most helpful customer reviews
5.0 out of 5 stars
Relevent to our times, acerbic, poignant, hilarious!,
By J.J. Kilroy "devon_maloy" (Dallas, TX USA) - See all my reviews
This review is from: Closing Time: The Sequel to Catch-22 (Paperback)
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.
5.0 out of 5 stars
A Worthy Sequel,
By
This review is from: Closing Time: The Sequel to Catch-22 (Paperback)
I suppose the title of this review is a bit hyperbolic... nothing could be worthy of Catch-22, one of the greatest novels ever written. However, people disappointed that it's not as good are mising a brilliant novel, one of the best since Catch-22 became a hit.The writing style will instantly remind you of Catch-22, particularly when Milo Minderbinder, his son M2, and Wintergreen are in the spotlight and the classic surreal humor Milo brought to the first book reappears in full force. Sammy Singer, best known in Catch-22 for fainting every time he saw Yossarian working with the dying Howard Snowden, becomes one of the major characters of Closing Time, as does his friend Lew Rabinowitz; both make only minor appearences in the main story, but their side story proves as enjoyable as the plot itself. Also important to the main storyline is Jerry "Senor" Gaffney, whose all-seeing detective agency is really just a cover for his Real Estate business (that's where the money is.) Having read Catch-22 and Closing Time back to back, I don't see Catch-22 with the same rose-colored glasses some might; while Closing Time certainly falls short of its predecessor's genius and social importance, it is nearly as entertaining a novel.
2.0 out of 5 stars
It's a sequel, but it's not the same,
By
This review is from: Closing Time: The Sequel to Catch-22 (Paperback)
Catch-22 is a classic was satire, one of the best books ever written. Closing Time feels like a lame attempt to roll on Catch-22's success. Some of the old characters are back, but the style just isn't the same. If this book were released seperately from Catch-22, with all new characters, I might have given it three or maybe even four stars. Instead, the book has a "kludged" feel, almost as if it were written before deciding to make it a sequel to Catch-22. And unlike Catch-22, Closing Time incorporates fantasy elements which might break the suspension of disbelief if you're expecting the style of Catch-22.
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