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In Something Happened, and in his first, most famous novel, Catch-22, Heller had documented, more vividly and humorously than any of his contemporaries, the path of World War II veterans in our national life. As it turned out, their path was our national life until recently, which is perhaps why people said to me, time and again, when I mentioned I was writing about Joseph Heller, “Oh, I think of him as the most American writer.”

In stepping into Heller’s circle, I had felt the panting of the Angels of Death and Forgetfulness, and as a result I came to think of him as quintessentially “American” in another way. Our popular national literature consists of various genres serving many functions: speaking snippily, we might say these genres offer aesthetic formulas for those of us who don’t wish to work hard for artistic pleasures, or they provide dependable market niches for writers and publishers. But they also (I have come to understand, pursuing Heller’s path) form chambers to accommodate memories and experiences that are genuinely, eccentrically American.

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For all its low comedy, Catch-22 ultimately treats war as a metaphor for a Pascalian universe, a prison-house from which each of us is led off to die. This vision belongs to the dark side of the 1950s, but its radically disillusioned sense of absurdity and collective insanity became a theme song of the following decade. It is rooted in a grunt’s-eye view of war that had been a staple of comedy going back to Aristophanes and Shakespeare. When Prince Hal tells Falstaff that “thou owest God a death,” he demurs. “‘Tis not due yet; I would be loath to pay him before his day.” Careful of his own tender flesh, proud of his cowardice and his cunning, Falstaff ridicules honor as an empty word, a posthumous achievement: “Who hath it? He that died o-Wednesday.” The insane trench warfare of World War I, with its astronomical loss of human life, brought this home afresh. A curdled view of military valor soon burst into modern literature with Jaroslav Hašek’s The Good Soldier Švejk and Céline’s scabrous Journey to the End of Night, both rich literary models for Heller.

KomicalKamikazee

Sep 27 2011, 09:13 PM

One of my irrational ways of thinking is that some people are meant to be one-book authors.

KomicalKamikazee

Sep 27 2011, 09:13 PM

Kesey too, I guess.

Liam

Sep 27 2011, 09:33 PM

Does your opinion count for ANYthing with KK? If it was me, I'd be like, Um, yeah, and so I continue... LOL. Poor M. (OK, OK, I'm kidding!).

Canox

Sep 27 2011, 09:39 PM

Johnny agrees with me

Liam

Sep 27 2011, 09:42 PM

Canox

Sep 27 2011, 09:39 PM

Johnny agrees with me

Who's he then?

Canox

Sep 27 2011, 09:51 PM

the non-reading lawyer wife

Liam

Sep 27 2011, 09:57 PM

Johnny, I do apologize

Liam

Sep 27 2011, 10:07 PM

Mon Dieu! Heller be damned.

Jayaprakash

Sep 27 2011, 10:28 PM

Is it okay if women er telephone his groin?

Canox

Sep 27 2011, 10:37 PM

Since she explicitly discussed men who have designs on the alabaster body of her husband, I assume women are allowed.

Liam

Sep 27 2011, 10:42 PM

Canox

Sep 27 2011, 10:37 PM

Since she explicitly discussed men who have designs on the alabaster body of her husband, I assume women are allowed.

That's OK, M, you have just over a month to turn yourself into a she-male,

Straight chicks are weird. What, they think gay men are THAT desperate? I mean, their husbands should only be so lucky, right? My bff also told me that when she gets married, she fully intends to keep her hubby away from me,

Canox

Sep 27 2011, 10:48 PM

Well, it was in direct response to my hitting on him in a thread on FB I'm afraid I will bore him dreadfully when I'm there