Catch As Catch Can: The Collected Stories and Other Writings - Softcover

Heller, Joseph

 
9780743257930: Catch As Catch Can: The Collected Stories and Other Writings
Softcover
ISBN 10: 0743257936 ISBN 13: 9780743257930
Verlag: Simon & Schuster, 2004

Inhaltsangabe

A collection of short stories and other miscellaneous writings by Joseph Heller, one of America’s most influential and idiosyncratic writers.

Years before the publication of Catch-22—which was called “a monumental artifact of contemporary literature” by The New York Times, “an apocalyptic masterpiece” by the Chicago Sun-Times, and “one of the most bitterly funny works in the language” by The New Republic—Joseph Heller began sharpening his skills as a writer, searching for the voice that would best express his own peculiarly wry view of the world.

In Catch As Catch Can, editors Matthew J. Bruccoli and Park Bucker have for the first time collected the short stories Heller published prior to that first novel, along with all the other short pieces of fiction and nonfiction that were published during his lifetime. Also included are five previously unpublished short stories, most reflecting the influence on Heller of urban naturalist writers such as Irwin Shaw and Nelson Algren.

The result is an important and significant addition to our understanding and appreciation of Joseph Heller, showing his evolution as a writer and artist. For those unfamiliar with his work, it will serve as an excellent introduction; for everyone else, Catch As Catch Can is a chance to explore a new aspect of Heller's remarkable career.

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Über die Autorin bzw. den Autor

Joseph Heller was born in Brooklyn in 1923. In 1961, he published Catch-22, which became a bestseller and, in 1970, a film. He went on to write such novels as Good as Gold, God Knows, Picture This, Closing Time, and Portrait of an Artist, as an Old Man. Heller died in 1999.

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Chapter One: I DON'T LOVE YOU ANY MORE

Joseph Heller is twenty-two years old, born and educated in Brooklyn, New York, and, after three years of service in the Air Corps, is planning to enter the University of Southern California. He says, "I was stationed on the Island of Corsica with a B-25 squadron of the Twelfth Air Force and flew sixty combat missions as a bombardier, earning the Air Medal with seven oak-leaf clusters and a Presidential Unit Citation. I was discharged from the Army in June under the point system and have been comfortably rehabilitating myself ever since. At present, I am busy trying to get a play produced."

She stood in the center of the room, her arms folded across her ample bosom and he could almost see the fires of anger flickering within her. She was doing her best to control them.

"You aren't being very considerate, you know," she said quietly.

"I know," he replied, "I'm sorry."

"I don't believe you are sorry," she said. She waited for him to answer but he remained silent. "Are you?"

"No," he said. "I'm not."

She didn't answer him immediately; she didn't know what to say. It wasn't working out right. He had been home three days now and it was getting worse. The first day they had been uncomfortable, very cautious and considerate, feeling each other out as prize fighters do, not being themselves at all, and hoping to pick up the thread of happiness from where it had been dropped almost a year ago when he left. The second day should have been better, but it hadn't been. She was still considerate, too much so, and he found that something in the routine was getting on his nerves and making him bitter. And now they were quarreling; not yet, but he could see it coming because he was deliberately bringing it on. He was being cruel purposely, not really wanting to be, but nevertheless deriving some perverse pleasure in seeing her unhappy. He had been thinking about her for ten months, thinking about how nice it was going to be when he got back to her, and now he was back and it wasn't nice at all.

He fingered the Chinese puzzle in his hands unconsciously, two metal rings, and without being aware of it, he deliberately thwarted himself each time from separating them. He caressed them with his hands, enjoying their cold firmness as he waited for her to speak.

"Harry and Edith are coming over," she said finally.

"That's nice."

"Will you put some clothes on?"

"No."

"Why won't you?"

"I don't want to."

"What do you want?" she implored.

He looked up at her while he thought it over. He was lying on the davenport completely naked except for a pair of shorts he was wearing, his thick, close-cropped hair uncombed and wisps of it standing out in all directions. He drank in the sight of her as she stood with her arms folded and he wondered why he had ever married her. It was her build, he decided. She was tall, taller than average, and everything about her was big, but she was put together in excellent proportion and was well rounded so that she possessed a strong physical attraction.

"I don't want to meet anybody," he said. He hadn't left the apartment since he had arrived. "I don't want to meet my family or your family, or any friends. I don't want to sit in a room filled with people who are all beaming at me as if I were some marvelous mechanical toy, and play the modest hero. I don't want to tell anybody what it was like and smile shyly as they tell me how wonderful I am."

She unfolded her arms and let them fall to her sides. She moved a few steps toward him. "What do you want to do?" she asked.

"Just what I am doing now," he said. "I want to lie here relaxed and comfortable and drink beer. Will you go downstairs and get me a pitcher of beer?"

"I will not," she said indignantly. "I'm your wife, not a servant. What did you marry me for? It would have been cheaper to hire a maid."

"I know," he said. "I married you because it was part of the dream."

"It hasn't been easy for me," she said, and asked, "What dream?"

"The sugar and tinsel dream of life," he said smirking. He didn't want to smirk but he left the expression unchanged. "The Reader's Digest beautiful panorama of a beautiful life. You were a pretty girl, I was a good-looking boy; we are both just a trifle oversexed, so we got married. It was the thing to do, wasn't it?"

"I'm doing my best," she said plaintively. "If you would only tell me what you do want, perhaps I could be more of a help. I know that you are disappointed but I don't know why. What did you expect to find?"

"I want to do what I want to do," he said.

She refolded her arms. "That makes sense," she said bitterly. "That makes a lot of sense."

"You don't understand," he said in a patronizing voice, still fumbling with the puzzle. "I want to do what I want to do when I want to do it. Is that better?"

"No," she said.

"I'll try to break it down for you. If you miss some part of it let me know and I'll repeat it. Right now I want to lie here exactly as I am doing. Two hours from now I may want to go to the Stork Club. I don't know. While I am there I may want to sing aloud at the top of my voice, but right now I want to lie here without any clothes on and drink beer."

"You know it hasn't been easy for me."

"I know it hasn't. I'm sorry."

She walked to the side of the room and sat down in an armchair, once again not knowing what to say next. She didn't want to surrender to the anger that she was trying to repress, but she could feel it swelling within her as if it were something having physical dimensions.

"You've changed," she said softly.

"I know," he said. "You've said that several times before, but it's the truth." He waited for her to reply but she made no motion to speak. "I don't like George Gershwin any more," he said, "so don't feel too badly about it."

Now he was becoming brutal, and he could feel himself filling with self-contempt for it. He knew what she would say next and he felt a glow of pride as she obliged him.

"What does George Gershwin have to do with it?" she asked.

"I used to think about his music all the time. How much I missed it and how when I got home, I would sit down and listen to him for hours. Well, I got home finally, and I listened to his music and I found that I didn't like it."

"I don't see it," she said.

He turned on his side so that he could look her fully in the face. "It's the same way with you, Anne," he said slowly. "I don't love you any more."

She sat up quickly as if the words had slapped her across the face. "That's not true," she said.

"No, it isn't," he said. "But I don't. That's the way it is and as long as it is that way, we might as well face it now. There isn't any point in dragging out something that is unpleasant. The kindest use a knife because the dead soon grow cold."

He studied her features to see if she was going to cry and he saw that she wasn't. He noticed it with disappointment. He became conscious of the rings in his hands and he grated one against the other mechanically as he waited for her to speak.

"That's nice," she said. "That's very nice."

"That's the way it is."

"Do you want a divorce?" she asked.

"No," he said, "I don't want a divorce. I have been leaning upon you for support too long a time. Psychologically, I am dependent upon you."

"Good God!" she exclaimed in desperation. "Then what do you want?"

A mischievous smile played with his mouth.

"A pitcher of beer," he said.

She rose to her feet and walked from the room. He turned over on his back and stared at the ceiling, feeling unhappy, wanting something and not knowing just what it was. He heard her come back into the room, but he continued...

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Verlag
Simon & Schuster
Erscheinungsdatum
2004
Sprache
Englisch
ISBN 10 
0743257936
ISBN 13 
9780743257930
Einband
Taschenbuch
Anzahl der Seiten
352
Kontakt zum Hersteller
Nicht verfügbar
Verantwortliche Person
Simon and Schuster Netherlands BV, GPSR Europäische Union
info@simonandschuster.nl

Herculesplein 96
Utrecht
3584 AA
Niederlande

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