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"Catch-22" author Joseph Heller dies at 76
- - - - - - - - - - - - Dec. 13, 1999 | NEW YORK --
Heller died Sunday night, according to his wife, Valerie.
Published in 1961 to mixed reviews, "Catch-22" became a cult favorite before it was recognized as an American classic. It eventually sold more than 10 million copies in the United States alone. "Oh, God, how terrible," author and friend Kurt Vonnegut, who last spoke to Heller a week ago, said today. "This is a calamity for American letters." Arthur Gelb, former managing editor of The New York Times and a longtime friend and New York City neighbor of Heller's, described a dinner party in East Hampton last month. "He had this never-flagging satirical wit that was always entertaining -- except when you were in the path of one of his ascerbic bullets. But that evening, he was sweet-tempered and somewhat subdued," Gelb said. "I asked him if he was feeling well. He said he regretted to report that age appeared to be mellowing him and that people would have to stop referring to him as a curmudgeon." Heller based "Catch-22" on his experience in the Air Force during World War II. He was a bombardier in combat over Italy and flew 60 missions before he was discharged as a lieutenant at war's end. He wrote five novels after "Catch-22" and co-authored the nonfiction "No Laughing Matter," which told of his bout in the early 1980s with Guillain-Barre syndrome, a paralyzing nerve disorder from which he fully recovered. All his books inevitably were compared to "Catch-22." For millions of readers, the exploits of Capt. John Yossarian and the rest of his bomber squadron seemed not so much larger than life, but part of life itself. "Catch 22" was a circular, pitch-black tale that suggested a devious collaboration between Twain and Kafka. It was the literary equivalent of Stanley Kubrick's "Dr. Strangelove," a vivid document of the system's poker-faced insanity. Started in 1953 and published eight years later, the tone of "Catch-22" perfectly suited the disillusion brought on by Vietnam and Watergate. The title alone was enough to suggest a universe where the only hope for escape was by going crazy – which, as the good Colonel Korn would point out, was proof you were normal after all. "There was only one catch and that was Catch-22, which specified that a concern for one's safety in the face of dangers that were real and immediate was the process of a rational mind," Heller wrote. "Orr was crazy and could be grounded. All he had to do was ask; and as soon as he did, he would no longer be crazy and would have to fly more missions. Orr would be crazy to fly more missions and sane if he didn't, but if he was sane he had to fly them." The New Shorter Oxford English Dictionary (1993) defines a catch-22 as "a condition or consequence that precludes success, a dilemma where the victim cannot win." "Everyone in my book accuses everyone else of being crazy," Heller once said. "Frankly, I think the whole society is nuts -- and the question is: What does a sane man do in an insane society?" The son of a delivery man, Heller was born in 1923 in the Coney Island section of Brooklyn. He loved writing as a child and was in grade school when he tried, unsuccessfully, to get a story published by the New York Daily News. After working as a blacksmith's helper, Heller enlisted in the Air Force in 1942. He was sent into combat two years later and discovered war was nothing like the movies. Vonnegut said he and Heller were both marked by "the greatest lunatic asylum of them all: World War II." "He said to me one time that if it weren't for World War II he'd be in the dry cleaning business," Vonnegut recalled. Heller began "Catch-22" while working as a copywriter for a small New York advertising agency. The book didn't make much of an impact when it was finally released, despite newspaper ads captioned "WHAT'S THE CATCH?". Reviews were mixed and an author tour was deemed unnecessary. "Catch-22" wasn't on any major bestseller list during its original hardcover release. But in 1962, S.J. Perelman praised the book to a reporter from the New York Herald Tribune. Other articles appeared referring to the novel's underground following. The author remembered meeting John Chancellor and being shown "YOSSARIAN LIVES" stickers the NBC newsman said he was putting up around the network's offices. "When 'Catch-22' came out, people were saying, 'Well, World War II wasn't like this,'" friend and fellow author E.L. Doctorow said today. "But when we got tangled up in Vietnam, it became a sort of text for the consciousness of that time. They say fiction can't change anything, but they can certainly organize a generation's consciousness." In 1994, Heller brought back Yossarian, Chaplain Tappman and a handful of others in the novel "Closing Time." Many critics called it a lukewarm follow-up, but Heller considered it a sequel only in the loosest sense. Set in present-day New York, "Closing Time" was Heller's mellowest work, and his bleakest. It contrasted the optimism of Yossarian, now wealthy and involved with a nurse, with a world that seemed unlikely to outlive him very long. "I tend to see my people as living in a vacuum, not anarchy, but living in a void of meaning -- even my King David, who despairs because God doesn't talk to anyone," Heller said. "It used to shock me and alarm me and discourage me that there was a general decline of everything of value. But it doesn't surprise me anymore. It seems inevitable and natural and there's no way to resist it." © 2006 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. The information contained in the AP News report may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed without the prior written authority of The Associated Press. - - - - - - - - - - - -
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