Sunday, November 3rd, 2002
Closing Time
Finished Joseph Heller’s ‘Closing Time’. I’m not too proud to admit I really didn’t get what the hell was going on in this book. There were essentially three narratives – one detailing the life of Sam Singer, one about Lew Rabinowitz, and one that ostensibly detailed the later days of Yossarian, a wedding for the ages in the Port Authority Bus Terminal, a dunderhead President, a Chaplain passing heavy water in his urine, etc etc. There were some terrifically funny scenes in this third and primary plot thread, but on the whole it seemed overly scattershot and was ultimately unsatisfying. Whatever Heller’s point was, it was lost on me.
The biographies of Singer and Rabinowitz were what made the book worthwhile. Written with great care and affection, it’s the story of two Jews from Coney Island who go through World War II and their lives after they return. The only things remarkable about them is how their lives peripherally intermingle with Yossarian and the madness that is his existance, but I couldn’t help but care far more about these two pedants than the de facto protagonist.
So that book took me ages to complete and I now move on to less weighty tomes. Gonna finish that TapeOp book and start a short novel Mark lent me, ‘The Silent Strength Of Stones’ by Nina Kiriki Hoffman. No idea what it’s about, but it looks to be a quick read anyway. It’s nice to have a stack of books on the go.
Tried to install the USB CD-R drive tonight, works like poo. Good as a coaster maker and that’s about it. But now that I have the notion of burning CDs in my head, it’s inevitable that I get a CD-R for my box. Time to do some research.
np – Pulp / We Love Life
No Responses.
![[Valid RSS]](http://www.chromewaves.net/images/interface/valid-rss.png "Validate my RSS feed"){kind=small}