The company that made a movie out of Joseph Heller's first novel, "Catch-22," had to assemble what became the 11th or 12th largest bomber force on the planet at the time. If somebody wants to make a movie out of his second novel, "Something Happened," he can get most of his props at Bloomingdale's--a few beds, a few desks, some tables and chairs.
Has anybody read Joseph Heller's Something Happened? I've been tempted to read it, especially after reading this review. I'm a huge fan of Catch-22, and also of Vonnegut's works. But I haven't heard many good things about anything else that Heller has written, and have largely heard that he had but one good book in him.
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mk: I say that this is the most memorable, and therefore the most permanent variation on a familiar theme, in that it says baldly what the other variations only implied, what the other variations tried with desperate sentimentality not to imply: That many lives, judged by the standards of the people who live them, are simply not worth living.
Something Happened is a crushing book. It is an unrelentless, crushing book. It left a shadow in my mind. Like LSD, you either have or you haven't, and you don't know which is better.