Last Updated: 01 May, 2023 | Views: 392
Age: 76
Profession: Author
Other Profession(s): NoveList
Famous For: American Author Of Catch-22
Higher Education: Graduated
About (Profile/Biography):
As the author of Catch-22, one of the great novels, Joseph Heller was a satirical novelist, short story writer, and playwright. The darkly comic novel revolves around Yossarian, an antihero. Taking a satirical look at war, bureaucracy, and the maddening logic or lack thereof, it is based on the author's own experience as a bomber pilot during World War II. Rather than bravery or heroism, he considered cowardice the rational response to war. Upon publication in 1961, the book received mixed reviews, but its themes found a receptive audience during the Vietnam War era, and it surged in popularity.
Career:
1941: Joseph Heller worked as a file clerk for an insurance agency, became a blacksmith's assistant, and enrolled in a cadet school after graduating from Abraham Lincoln High School.
The first lieutenant graduated from the cadet school, was assigned to a squadron in Corsica, and at the start of the war, did not have any serious complaints about life in a combat unit.
1953: As advertising manager at Time magazine, Heller joined the corporate world after teaching at Pennsylvania State University. Catch-18, a novel he tentatively titled, was his first project.
1969: A play he wrote in 1969 was called 'We Bombed in New Haven'. Despite discussing the Vietnam War, the film delivered an antiwar message.
1974: In this year, second novel, 'Something Happened' was released.
1979: A Jewish, middle-aged university English professor named Bruce Gold is offered the post of first Jewish Secretary of State in his 1979 novel, 'Good as Gold'.
Aristotle Contemplating a Bust of Homer by Rembrandt, a 1988 Rembrandt painting, connects three periods of history through an eclectic historical journey.
Unknown facts:
Joseph Heller declared, "Some men are born mediocre, some men achieve mediocrity, and some men have mediocrity thrust upon them."