Table Of ContentTowards a Postmodern Absurd: The
Fiction of Joseph Heller
Erik Grayson ^ \ (
McGill University, Montreal
June, 2003
A thesis submitted to McGill University in partial fulfillment of the
requirements of the degree of Master's of Arts in English
©Erik Grayson 2003
,' (
This thesis is dedicated to my parents,
Linda and Vincent Grayson. Without their
tremendous love and support, I would never
have had the educational opportunities that have
made th is project possible.
11
Table of Contents
Abstract
IV
Acknowledgements
VI
Preface 1
On the Absurd i
Joseph Heller and the Absurd 7
The Pillars Crumble 14
Assessing the Damage 26
Emerging From the Rubble 34
On Structure 52
Critical Reception and the Question of Structure in Heller's Fiction 52
I See Everything Twice: Joseph Heller and the Method of Dejd vu 56
Dejd vu After Catch-22 62
On the Postmodern 75
Pastiche 76
They Really Are Trying to Kill Yossarian: Paranoia in Heller's Fiction 86
Afterword 93
Works Cited 97
in
Abstract
This thesis examines the entirety of Joseph Heller's career as a novelist and
explores the various existential themes uniting a seemingly diverse body of work.
Considering Heller's relationship to the philosophy of Albert Camus and Jean-Paul
Sartre, "Towards a Postmodern Absurd: The Fiction of Joseph Heller" suggests that the
novelist promotes the same existentially authentic lifestyle of revolt originally articulated
by the French existentialists. Refuting the critical assessment of Heller's fiction as
formless, this thesis argues that Heller deliberately structures his fiction around the
concept of dejd vu in order to buttress the author's existential concerns with the absurdity
of human existence. Finally, in response to the recent debates over Joseph Heller's place
in the postmodern American canon, the thesis identifies the author's use of such
postmodern concepts as pastiche and paranoia as a further reinforcement of the relevance
of an absurdist worldview in contemporary America.
Cette these examine l'integralite de la carriere d'ecrivain de Joseph Heller et
explore les themes existentiels unissant les romans apparemment divers. En identifiant le
rapport de Heller avec la philosophic d'Albert Camus et de Jean-Paul Sartre, "Towards a
Postmodern Absurd: The Fiction of Joseph Heller" suggere que 1'ecrivain est partisan
d'une mode de vie s'y comprenant la revolte—une idee initialement exprimee par les
existentialistes Francais. Refutant 1'evaluation provenant des lecteurs qui proposent que
l'art de Heller manque de structure, cette these conclue que le concept du "deja vu" se
presente dans tous les romans et met en vedette la preoccupation de l'auteur a propos de
IV
la condition humaine "absurde." Repondant aux discussions recentes, le these identifie
les concepts comme le pastiche et la paranoia comme exemple de 1'appartenance de
Joseph Heller aux rangs des ecrivains postmodernistes Americains.
Acknowledgements
First and foremost, I must thank my family, Linda, Vincent, and Larissa Grayson
and Carole and Jean Skwarek for their unparalleled financial, technical, and above all,
emotional support throughout the course of this project.
I would also like to thank Professor Peter Ohlin for his enthusiasm and support as
my thesis supervisor. Without his encouragement, constructive criticism, and probing
questions, this project would not have been possible.
Vlada Finagin, more than any other person, has helped me progress from page
one to the last page of this thesis. In addition to reassuring me of the value of my work by
reading each day's output, Vlada's constructive criticism, proofreading, editorial
suggestions, and regular questions have enabled me to write a better thesis. Additionally,
when flooding and noise pollution rendered my building a poor work space, Vlada
generously provided me with the quiet, contemplative atmosphere I needed. Her
friendship and love kept my spirits up whenever I most needed a boost. She also assisted
in the French translation of the abstract.
I would like to acknowledge my debt to Susan Strehle's article "'A Permanent
Game of Excuses': Determinism in Heller's Something Happened."" Professor Strehle's
research has been integral to my reading of Something Happened and I encourage the
reader to refer to her excellent article for a more detailed analysis of the issues I present. I
am also grateful for Professor Strehle's continued interest in my thesis, which has been
an important source of encouragement throughout the entire project.
vi
In addition to the McGill University library system, 1 have received materials
from the libraries of Concordia University, the University of Regina, and the University
of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.
In addition to Professor Ohlin (McGill University) and Professor Strehle (State
University of New York at Binghamton), I have received assistance from Professor Peter
Gibian (McGill) and Dr. Bob Solotaroff (University of Minnesota). My brainstorming
with Professor Gibian helped me to find a topic that interested me and Professor
Solotaroff has sent me some writings on American postmodernism.
Finally, I would like to thank my cockatiel, Pelle, for his spiritually uplifting
chirping and Sogndal bibliotek in Sogndal, Norway for providing me with my first copy
of Catch-22 way back in 1995.
vn
Preface
In the most recent book-length study of Catch-22, Jon Woodson calls Joseph
Heller "an example of a writer whose work has been subjected to inadequate critical
frameworks" (36). Woodson argues that "thirty years of critical misinterpretation and
misreading" necessitate the reassessment of Heller's fiction as part of the late twentieth-
century American canon (35). A year earlier, Harold Bloom, in a dismissive introduction
to a collection of essays on Catch-22, insists that Heller's "time has passed" since his
novels are nothing more than "sub-literary" Period Pieces (1-2). Completely discounting
the value of Heller's "scarcely readable" subsequent novels, Bloom insists that Heller's
first novel "will for perhaps another decade still find an audience" before fading away
into literary oblivion (2). Interestingly, the author of The Western Canon seems to have
ignored the fact that, in 1999, Daniel Boorstin, A. S. Byatt, Christopher Cere, Shelby
Foote, Vartan Gregorian, Edmund Morris, John Richardson, Arthur Schlesinger, Jr.,
William Styron, and Gore Vidal ranked Catch-22 seventh on the Modem Library's
famous Hundred Best Novels of the Twentieth Century list. Clearly, there is some
disagreement over the literary value of Catch-22. Heller's subsequent novels, however,
seem to elicit an almost universally negative critical assessment.
In the conclusion to her study of Heller's career through the publication of Picture
This, Judith Ruderman notes that "[m]ost critics regard [Catch-22] as Heller's crowning
achievement, with all subsequent productions as a falling away from glory" (178). In fact,
as Steven Potts observes in From Here to Absurdity, "it is unlikely that most readers of
Catch-22, which remains a canonical standard in contemporary American literature
courses, are even aware of Something Happened, Good as Gold, God Knows, or Picture
This"" (9). Thus, while Catch-22 has achieved "classic" status and deservedly inspires
regular study, the vast majority of Heller's later work languishes as the forgettable
aftershocks of his literary one hit wonder. Given the current debate over the place of
Catch-22 in the recent American literary canon and the widespread critical dismissal of
Heller's subsequent novels, a reexamination of Heller's oeuvre seems necessary,
especially in the absence of any critical treatment of the author's final novel, A Portrait of
an Artist as an Old Man. Agreeing with the assessment of Catch-22 by the Modem
Library as one of the most important novels of the twentieth-century1, I seek to refute the
negative perception of Heller's fiction by viewing Catch-22 not as the quirky exception
to an otherwise insignificant body of writing, but rather as a piece of an intricately unified
existentialist worldview only partially articulated in the author's most famous work.
I argue that Heller, while frequently thrust into the shade beneath the postmodern
parasol, actually represents a bridge linking America's ontologically-focused postmodern
fiction with the primarily European writing concerned with the existential Absurd. I
suggest that while Heller certainly does employ such typical characteristics of
postmodern fiction as seemingly formless narrative structure, paranoia, intertextuality
and pastiche, his use of these tactics work to achieve an entirely different effect on the
reader from that of his postmodern contemporaries. Whereas such late twentieth century
literary figures as Don DeLillo and Thomas Pynchon use these strategies to depict a
world of vague paranoia and frightening uncertainty, Heller presents an absurd world not
very different from that of Franz Kafka, Albert Camus, and Samuel Beckett. It is Heller's
1 Only Ulysses, The Great Gatsby, A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man, Lolita, Brave New World, and
The Sound and the Furv are ranked higher than Catch-22.
unique use of "standard" postmodern conventions that places him amongst America's
most innovative and important writers.
I have divided my thesis into three primary sections, On the Absurd, On Structure,
and On the Postmodern. The difficulty in delineating Heller's treatment of absurdity lies
in the reader's tendency to become confused by the verbose and repetitious style of the
author's fiction. Unlike the relatively straightforward philosophical novels of Albert
Camus or Jean-Paul Sartre, the philosophical content of Heller's fiction lies beneath the
surface of the prose, waiting for the reader to recognize its presence in a novel more
overtly focused on war, politics, or art.. Compounding the critic's task, each of Heller's
novels promotes absurd revolt and existential authenticity through the simultaneous
exploitation of several distinct thematic and structural components. The first section
establishes Heller's worldview as compatible with that of the European existentialists.
Taking my theoretical framework from Albert Camus's The Myth of Sisyphus, Martin
Esslin's The Theater of the Absurd, and Jean-Paul Sartre's Being and Nothingness, I
argue that Heller's treatment of the Absurd extends far beyond Catch-22.
This first section examines Heller's direct relationship to the philosophical tenets
associated with the existential Absurd. Since each of Heller's subsequent novels builds
upon and expands the philosophical outlook he presents in Catch-22, I have decided to
examine the novelist's entire career as a whole rather than risk redundancy by proceeding
through a novel by novel evaluation of Heller's exploration of the human condition. In
order to do so in a logical and readable manner, I have avoided the inclusion of certain
absurdist conventions that have received considerable critical attention among Heller
scholars, most notably the failure of language. Instead, I focus on Heller's method of
Description:I See Everything Twice: Joseph Heller and the Method of Dejd vu. 56 This thesis examines the entirety of Joseph Heller's career as a novelist and.
