T.Y.B.A. (ENGLISH)
SEM : 5
CCE : 16
JOSEPH HELLER.
Joseph Heller was born on May 1,
1923, in Brooklyn, New York, to Isaac and Lena Heller. His parents were Jewish
immigrants from Russia.
He enlisted in the United States
Army Air Corps at the age of 19 in 1942. Two years later, he was assigned to
the Italian Front, where he flew 60 combat missions as a B-25 bombardier.
Heller later remembered the war as "fun in
the beginning ... You got the feeling that there was something glorious about
it." On his return home he "felt like a hero ... People think it
quite remarkable that I was in combat in an airplane and I flew sixty missions
even though I tell them that the missions were largely milk runs."
Joseph's father died after an
operation in 1929, just as Joseph started formal school at Coney Island's
Public School No. 188. The family struggled financially, and Lena never learned
to speak English fluently. Joseph went to work as a file clerk for an insurance
company after graduating from Abraham Lincoln High School in 1941. He accepted
a position as a blacksmith's assistant in the Norfolk Navy Yard when the United
States entered World War II in December of that year. Heller's life would be
shaped by World War II, which provided him with extensive military experiences
and, later, a formal education.
In 1948, he got his Bachelor of
Arts degree and was inducted into the academic honour organisation Phi Beta
Kappa. He also wrote two short tales in The Atlantic Monthly that year, as well
as two more in Esquire. The next year, Heller received a Master of Arts degree
in American Literature from Columbia University, as well as a Fulbright
Scholarship to study for a year at Oxford University in England.
Heller's personal life took a
dramatic turn in 1981 when he divorced his wife, Shirley, from whom he had
separated in 1981. Heller found he had Guillain-Barré syndrome, a rare
paralytic condition, in December 1981. No Laughing Matter (1986), written with
his buddy Speed Vogel, chronicles his battle with and slow recovery from the
condition. Heller met Valerie Humphries, a nurse, during his rehabilitation and
married her in 1987.
Major Works and
Literary Reputation.
On November 10, 1961, the official date of the
release of his debut book, Catch-22, Joseph Heller was an unknown novelist.
Within two years, both the novel and the author had cemented their places in
literary history.
'Catch-22,' his most successful novel, was published
in 1961. Its plot centres around Yossarian and his wartime experiences. The
Chicago Sun Times called it "the best American novel in years."
However, the novel's first reception was underwhelming, with barely 30,000
copies sold in the United States. Its success was slow, and after the baby
boomers discovered it, the novel went on to sell more than 10 million copies in
the United States alone. It was also named seventh on the Modern Library's list
of the 100 best books of the twentieth century.
Heller's own experiences influenced the work in part. The expression
"catch-22" has entered the English language to describe a no-win
situation, particularly one caused by a rule, regulation, or condition.
"Oh God, this is a calamity
for American literature," Kurt Vonnegut exclaimed in 1999, upon learning
of Joseph Heller's death.
IMPORTANT WORKS OF
JOSEPH HELLER.
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Novels. ·
Catch-22 (1961) ·
Something Happened (1974) ·
Good as Gold (1979) ·
God Knows (1984) ·
Picture This (1988) ·
Closing Time (1994) ·
Portrait of an Artist, as an Old
Man (2000, posthumous) Short stories. ·
“Love,
Dad” (1969) ·
“Yossarian
Survives” (1987) ·
"The
Day Bush Left" (1990) ·
Catch as
Catch Can: The Collected Stories and Other Writings (2003, posthumous) ·
"Almost
Like Christmas" (2013) Autobiographies.
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