CLOSING TIME by Joseph Heller Simon and Schuster ($24.00) reviewed by corey mesler

CLOSING TIME by Joseph Heller Simon and Schuster ($24.00) reviewed by corey mesler

Closing Time, as it says on the cover, is The Sequel to Catch-22, and it is virtually impossible to review the new book without comparisons to its illustrious predecessor. That Catch-22 is a modern classic, a first novel of such dazzling assurance that it set a precedence for comic verve, originality and style for the next couple of generations, makes the contrast seem inequitable. It's a trap Heller has set for himself, audaciously creating this sequel thirty-three years after the original, and it raises a larger question about the state of black humor, the term most commonly employed to describe that generation of writers, which also includes Vonnegut, Roth, Barth, et al. Some of the gallery of misfits, which graced the pages of Heller's freshman work, have survived into the present book, notably John Yossarian, Milo Minderbinder and Chaplain Tappman (who is inexplicably passing heavy water in his urine). He has fleshed out this tale of the latter days of the twentieth century with new characters, whose destinies, when the novel works as it is supposed to, mesh with the fortunes of his aging personae. There is Sammy Singer, who flew missions with Yossarian and is now old and lonely. There is Lew Rabinowitz, the giant, who is dying of cancer. There is Gaffney, the private investigator, who is working for Yossarian and also spying on him (Heller delights in the irony of the contradictory), and who knows too much about everything. And there is Noodles Cook, who works for the president (referred to only as The Little Prick, but he bears a sadly humorous resemblance to a recent vice president), and who is a menacing Gordon Liddy type. Once again Yossarian is the focus of the story and the human metaphor for the themes Heller is bent on. He remains one of the finest creations in American literature, and it is with great pleasure that the reader welcomes him back. As the novel opens Yossarian is in hospital, unsick, suffering from malaise. He says, "Is it me or old age?...Everyone everywhere is glib. My enthusiasms are exhausted." As the title implies Heller is riffing on The End of Things: the end of life (cancer, war, suicide), the end of the century (millennialism runs thematically like a silver thread through the fabric of the book, and, if the novel works it is because of this loose thread), and ultimately, the end of the world. Not to give too much away, but the apocalypse closes the book and it is both hilarious and frightening. The high points of Closing Time involve two separate incidents which serve as loci for the web of lives which make up the narrative. One is a surrealistic trip into the lower regions, actually under the Port Authority Bus Terminal in New York City, which suggests (as many pieces of the book re-emphasize) that life is an amusement park on the outskirts of Hades. The other is a highly comic wedding--the social event of the century--which is also held in the PABT, and which brings together the children of two billionaire families. It is written with great gusto--Virginia Woolf crossed with Rabelais--and is the penultimate event of the book, making it a sort of last rites for civilization. This is Heller doing what he does best; it is a gloomy meditation on self-destruction. God, who figures as a minor character in the proceedings, says to Man, "I will give you intelligence, ...enough knowledge to destroy everything on earth, but you will have to use it." It is this pact which is at the heart of Closing Time's grim comedy. Joseph Heller has tried to do for contemporary politics what he did for the military in Catch-22. At times the absurd exchanges between characters harken back to the twisted brilliance of the earlier book, but sometimes Closing Time reads like a pale imitation, an attempt to capture a lost past. The new book almost works from sheer brio, from the astuteness of Heller's observations and the cleverness of his writing, but it has a little trouble cohering. As a sequel to Catch-22 it can only be a disappointment. It was almost a heroically foolhardy venture to begin with. But, as a darkly comic novel about the latter twentieth century and its absurd politics and plights, it has a lot to say, and is, after all is said and done, downright entertaining.

COREY MESLER has published in numerous journals and anthologies. He has published two novels, Talk: A Novel in Dialogue (2002) and We Are Billion-Year-Old Carbon (2006), a full length poetry collection, Some Identity Problems (2008), and a book of short stories, Listen: 29 Short Conversations (2009). He also has two novels set to be published in the Spring of 2010, The Ballad of the Two Tom Mores (Bronx River Press) and Following Richard Brautigan (Livingston Press). He has also published a dozen chapbooks of both poetry and prose. He has been nominated for the Pushcart Prize numerous times, and two of his poems have been chosen for Garrison Keillor’s Writer’s Almanac. He also claims to have written, “In the Year 2525.” With his wife, he runs Burke’s Book Store, one of the country’s oldest (1875) and best independent bookstores. He can be found at www.coreymesler.com.