Joseph Heller

Catch-22 is like no other novel. It is one of the funniest books ever written, a keystone work in American literature, and even added a new term to the dictionary. At the heart of Catch-22 resides the incomparable, malingering bombardier, Yossarian, a hero endlessly inventive in his schemes to save his skin from the horrible chances of war. His efforts are perfectly understandable because as he furiously scrambles, thousands of people he hasn't even met are trying to kill him. His problem is Colonel Cathcart, who keeps raising the number of missions the men must fly to complete their service. Yet if Yossarian makes any attempts to excuse himself from the perilous missions that he is committed to flying, he is trapped by the Great Loyalty Oath Crusade, the hilariously sinister bureaucratic rule from which the book takes its title: a man is considered insane if he willingly continues to fly dangerous combat missions, but if he makes the necessary formal request to be relieved of such missions, the very act of making the request proves that he is sane and therefore ineligible to be relieved. Catch-22 is a microcosm of the twentieth-century world as it might look to some one dangerously sane -- a masterpiece of our time.

Catch-22

First Simon & Schuster paperback edition 2004

Something Happened

The sequel to Catch-22, the classic that came to symbolize the absurdity of war, takes on politics, the greed of business, and the decline of society and brings back most of the original major characters as they battle The End. 150,000 first printing. Tour.

A Novel

Closing Time

Уловка-22

Unpublished printer's proof of the title: God knows.

God Knows

Bruce Gold, a middle-aged, Jewish professor of English literature, finds himself on the brink of a golden career in politics -- and not a moment too soon, as Gold yearns for an opportunity to transform a less-than-picture-perfect life: His children think little of him, his intimidating father endlessly bullies him, and his wife is so oblivious that she doesn't even notice he's left her. As funny as it is sad, Good as Gold is a story of children grown up, parents grown old, and friends and lovers grown apart -- a story that is inimitably Heller.

Good as Gold

In his final novel, Heller, through the personna of Eugene Pota, portrays the life of a novelist whose first novel was his biggest ever but who still feels a need to write yet another and so consults everyone from his agent to his wife, to his editor, to old lovers, and considers the lives and works of many other novelists along the way.

Portrait of an Artist, as an Old Man

"Mr. Heller treats the whole panorama of history past and present with the bravado of Mark Twain in one of his sassier moods." The New York Times Book Review A keenly satirical look at the world of art and museums by the author of the modern classic, Catch-22.

Picture this

Comma 22

William A. Henkin

Hellerwork connects life issues and natural bodily alignment and restores the body's natural balance from the inside out.

Regaining Your Natural Flexibility and Vitality for Maximum Well-being

Body Wise

David Heller

Children's Letters to God

Dear God

Un clásico moderno absolutamente rompedor sobre el sinsentido de la guerra en una nueva edición con prólogo de Laura Fernández. Trampa-22 es uno de los mejores libros del siglo xx y ha sido recientemente adaptado como miniserie televisiva protagonizada por George Clooney y Christopher Abott. Durante la Segunda Guerra Mundial, en el hospital de la base norteamericana de una minúscula isla italiana, un piloto de bombardero llamado Yossarian finge estar loco. Quiere evitar a toda costa perder la vida en su próxima misión aérea y regresar a casa. ¿Por qué demonios intentan todos matarle desde abajo?, se pregunta cada vez que lanza una bomba. Yossarian intenta demostrar que está loco pero cae en la «trampa 22»: una absurda y perversa regla militar que afirma que aquellos que alegan locura para no ir a la guerra son los más cuerdos. Y si estás cuerdo, estás sano, así que... ¡no te queda otra! Publicada originalmente en 1961, Trampa 22 es sin lugar a dudas una de las obras maestras más divertidas y celebradas de todos los tiempos y una piedra angular de la tradición literaria norteamericana, que le ha valido estar en las listas de los mejores libros del siglo xx. El lector se sumergirá en una ráfaga de situaciones absurdas y diálogos delirantes que subrayan la estupidez de la guerra y del ser humano. Y es que «el infierno somos, y hemos sido siempre, nosotros», apunta Laura Fernández en el prólogo. «Si iba a describir un infierno, sería uno rabiosamente divertido. Porque así de ridículo es el mundo. [...] para que esta humanidad trate de aprender algo de sí misma.» Críticas: «No hay ningún libro como este [...] sorprendentemente poderoso.» Norman Mailer, Esquire « Trampa 22 es la única novela bélica que he leído que tiene sentido.» Harper Lee «Novela bomba [...]. Heller no solo descubrió "el lado gracioso" de la Segunda Guerra Mundial, sino que, además, anticipó las horriblemente hilarantes alucinaciones de Vietnam abriendo paso y escotillas para soltar absurdistas y entrópicos como Vonnegut, Berger, Kesey, Barthelme, Brautigan, Pynchon, Elkin, Friedman y Hunter Thompson y, más cerca, Wallace, Saunders y Palahniuk.» Rodrigo Fresán, Babelia, El País «Una de las obras más terriblemente divertidas en el uso del lenguaje [...]. Explosiva, implacable, subversiva, brillante.» Robert Brustein, The New Republic « Trampa 22 es una novela que nos recuerda una vez más todo aquello que hemos dado por supuesto en nuestro mundo y que no deberíamos, la locura que intentamos que pase desapercibida, las decepciones y las mentiras que no tenemos la voluntad de discernir de la verdad.» John W. Adridge, The New York Times Review «A mi parecer,en los últimos cincuenta años ha habido dos grandes novelas norteamericanas. Trampa 22 es una de ellas.» Stephen King, Entertainment Weekly «Esta no es meramente la mejor novela norteamericana que surgió de la Segunda Guerra Mundial,es la mejor novela norteamericana que ha surgido en años de cualquier lugar.» Nelson Algren, The Nation «Lo que tienenen las manos [...] es un monumento [...] hecho de páginas y personajes [...] suculentamente delirantes.» Laura Fernández

Trampa 22

We Bombed in New Haven

Verzeichniß von bambergischen topographisch-historischen Abbildungen in Holzschnitt, Kupferstich, Lithographie &c. mit historisch-artistisch-literarischen Notizen

Yossarian is a hero endlessly inventive in his schemes to save his skin from the horrible chances of war, and his efforts are perfectly understandable because as he furiously scrambles, thousands of people he hasn't even met are trying to kill him.

A Dramatization Based on the Novel Catch-22

An anthology of short works by the author of Catch-22 considers Heller's life in post-World War II America and includes such pieces as "I Don't Love You Anymore," "Castle of Snow," and "A Man Named Flute." Reprint. 15,000 first printing.

The Collected Stories and Other Writings

Catch As Catch Can

Nicholas Bayley

Notes

Joseph Heller, Catch-22

Catch-22 was published in 1961, immediately becoming a classic. Now, 33 years later, Joseph Heller has written the sequel, revisting many of the characters, now older if not wiser, that made Catch-22 so unforgettable a novel.

Joseph Heller returns to the characters of Catch-22, now coming to the end of their lives and the century, as is the entire generation that fought in World War II. But this time they are fighting not the Germans, but The End. Closing Time deftly satirizes the realities and the myths of America post WWII: the absurdity of their politics, the decline of their society and their great cities, the greed and hypocrisy of their business and culture – with the same ferocious humour as Catch-22. This novel is a stunning achievement; a chilling, darkly funny depiction of the moral collapse of the Western world.

Joseph Heller

About

Books

Join the club