Joseph Heller
From BookJive
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| Born: | May 1, 1923 |
| Died: | December 12, 1999 |
| Residence: | New York |
| School: | Abraham Lincoln High School,English at the University of Southern California and NYU,M.A. at Columbia University, Fulbright scholar at St. Catherine's College in Oxford University |
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Joseph Heller (May 1, 1923 – December 12, 1999) was an American satirical novelist and playwright. He wrote the influential Catch-22 about American servicemen during World War II. It was this work whose title (which was originally Catch-18) became the term commonly used to express absurdity in choice.
Heller is widely regarded as one of the best post-World War satirists. Although he is remembered mostly by his landmark Catch-22, his works, centered on the lives of various members of the middle classes, remain exemplars of modern satire.
[edit] Biography
Joseph Heller was born in Coney Island in Brooklyn, New York, the son of poor Jewish parents. After graduating from Abraham Lincoln High School in 1941, Heller joined the Twelfth Air Force at age 19. He was stationed in Corsica, where he flew 60 combat missions as a B-25 bombardier. It was these experiences that later became the inspiration for his first novel, Catch-22. After the war, he studied English at the University of Southern California and NYU. In 1949, Heller received his M.A. from Columbia University. From 1949-1950, he was a Fulbright scholar at St. Catherine's College in Oxford University. He returned to St. Catherine's as a visiting Fellow, for a term, in 1991 and was appointed an Honorary Fellow of the college. Heller died in 1999.
Catch-22 Controversy
In April 1998, Lewis Pollock wrote to The Sunday Times for clarification as to "the amazing similarity of characters, personality traits, eccentricities, physical descriptions, personnel injuries and incidents" in Catch-22 and a novel published in England in 1951. The book that spawned the request was written by Louis Falstein and titled The Sky is a Lonely Place in Britain and Face of a Hero in the United States. Falstein's novel was available two years before Heller wrote the first chapter of Catch-22 (1953) while he was a student at Oxford. The Times stated: "Both have central characters who are using their wits to escape the aerial carnage; both are haunted by an omnipresent injured airman, invisible inside a white body cast". Stating he had never read Falstein's novel, or heard of him, Heller said: "My book came out in 1961[;] I find it funny that nobody else has noticed any similarities, including Falstein himself, who died just last year"(The Washington Post, April 27, 1998).
[edit] Books
Short stories
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- This is the collection of writings by Joseph Heller.
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Autobiographies
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- 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.
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- The first half of the memoir focuses on Heller's childhood in Coney Island and is, in fact, as much about the place as it is about the man.
Novels
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- The novel, set during the latter stages of the Second World War from 1943 onwards, is frequently cited as one of the great literary works of the Twentieth century.
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- This book is consists of the deep, often repetitive, internal monologue of the narrator, Bob Slocum, who laments the passage of time, the departure of old friends and opportunities, the futility of his career, the stagnation of his marriage, and the impossibility of being a good parent.
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- This book is a story of children grown up, parents grown old, and friends and lovers grown apart
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- This is a tragicomedic novel.It is narrated by the Biblical King David of Israel, and purports to be his deathbed memoirs
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- This book is an eclectic historical journey across three periods of history, all connected by a single painting: Rembrandt van Rijn's Aristotle Contemplating the Bust of Homer.
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- This book attempts the same sort of giddy black humor that made its predecessor a classic, but the underlying mood is somber, almost elegiac.
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- This book depicts an elderly author as he tries to write a novel that is as successful as his earlier work.
