— A darkly comic and ambitious sequel to the American classic Catch-22. —
— In Closing Time, 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: Yossarian and Milo Minderbinder, the chaplain,... more » and such newcomers as little Sammy Singer and giant Lew, all linked, in an uneasy peace and old age, fighting not the Germans this time, but The End. Closing Time deftly satirizes the realities and the myths of America in the half century since WWII: the absurdity of our politics, the decline of our society and our great cities, the greed and hypocrisy of our business and culture -- with the same ferocious humor as Catch-22.« less
Rachel R. (soleil) reviewed Closing Time (Catch 22, Bk 2) on
Helpful Score: 1
Of course I was looking for a follow up to my favorite book of all time; Catch 22, but this book was really difficult to get through and a bit disappointing. Oh well!
I told a friend of mine I'd begun reading this book, and his comment pretty much sums it up: "How do you even write a sequel to Catch-22?"
You don't. To /me/ this isn't really a sequel. This is a book based around a bitter, pompous old man with the same name as the character from the first book. It tries so hard to be like its counter-part and fails entirely. The characters, the story, the wit, they're all mediocre; and aside from the bits and pieces relating back to Catch-22, the author really could have just re-named everyone and made this an entirely separate story.
Even if he had, it still wouldn't have been great, but it would have been a lot less disappointing.