Picture This [Hardcover]

Joseph Heller (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: September 6, 1988

"Mr. Heller treats the whole panorama of history past and present with the bravado of Mark Twain in one of his sassier moods." The New York Times Book Review
A keenly satirical look at the world of art and museums by the author of the modern classic, Catch-22.

--This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

In a radical departure, Heller has concocted a clever, strange piece of experimental historical fiction. As the novel begins, slovenly, debt-ridden Rembrandt van Rijn is painting his now-famous Aristotle Contemplating the Bust of Homer. Suddenly, we are whisked from 17th century Holland to ancient Greece, where an exiled, weary Aristotle clairvoyantly watches Rembrandt doing his portrait. Not much has changed, the philosopher concludes as he gazes down the centuries at our dawning modern era of greed, wars and capitalism run amok. Written in a flat, reportorial style, omniscient in viewpoint, the narrative confusingly and annoyingly jumpcuts in time and spacebetween and within epochs. The chapters on Athens, where Plato pontificates while Socrates berates the belligerent youth Alcibiades, are occasionally wickedly funny. Best read in short takes, this startling parable about the degeneration of art into commodity and the survival of human values in a materialistic world demands total suspension of disbelief. For willing readers, it casts an undeniable spell. First serial to Playboy; BOMC featured alternate.
Copyright 1988 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From Library Journal

Less a novel than a discursive meditation on a theme, this work broods over the manifold implications of the Metropolitan Museum's possessing Rembrandt's Aristotle Contemplating the Bust of Homer. Juxtaposing the Periclean Age with the Golden Era of the Dutch Empire, and always aware of the quasi-imperialism of recent American history, Heller focuses and refocuses in different historical settings on the ambiguous incompatibilities of art and contemplation with the equally human drives of material lust, vanity, and ambition. The collapsed and degraded Athenian Empire, collapsed and degraded European imperialism, and our own post-1945 history of cold, tepid, and hot wars are brought into pathetic consonance. Sardonic, polemical, occasionally preachy and turgid, but to my mind Heller's most interesting book since Catch-22 . Earl Rovit, City Coll., CUNY
Copyright 1988 Reed Business Information, Inc.

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 352 pages
• Publisher: G. P. Putnam's Sons; 1st edition (September 6, 1988)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0399133550
• ISBN-13: 978-0399133558
• Product Dimensions: 9 x 6.1 x 1.6 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.4 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 3.9 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (14 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #297,592 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

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 (the sequel to Catch-22), and Portrait of an Artist, as an Old Man. Heller died in December 1999.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

11 of 11 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Maybe his best?, September 8, 2003

By 

David Beavers (San Francisco, CA United States) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Picture This (Hardcover)

Would it be some kind of sacrilige to say that this is a better piece of writing than Catch-22 ? Catch-22 is a superior emotional and autobiographical work, for sure; it is his "best" because of how closely it pulls readers through the dark comedy of warfare, which Heller experienced firsthand. But Heller's particular brand of wit comes through in a different way here, and proves his mettle as a writer, and not just as someone who came back from WWII with a "story to tell." The soul of this book is a political one, but the generosity Heller shows his characters -- who just happen to be Rembrandt and Aristotle -- is wonderful. Catch-22 is immersed in the "present" in that wartime is all about surviving hour-by-hour; what's neat about Picture This is how it looks at democracy and capitalism as they have existed for centuries: Socrates was put to death for "corrupting the youth" long before the NSA turned the U.S. into a police state; likewise the Dutch found out what a mess capitalism was hundreds of years before Wall Street. The genius of this book is in that Heller never really explicitly points a finger at modern states, but just points at the trail of dead they've left over thousands of years. Heller pulls art and history through the lens of capitalism & corruption, and he's deadpan-funny while he does it. Also helping the cause: the last few lines of this book are my favorite ending to any novel, ever.

8 of 8 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Heller's Very Good Second Best, June 1, 2000

By 

Stephen M. Kerwick (Wichita, KS United States) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Picture This : A Novel (Paperback)

Joe Heller had a hell of a job matching Catch 22. The reviews of its ostensible sequel Closing Time (many of them unfairly negative) prove this. Several of his works in the 70's and early 80's tried to live up and, although decent novels, fell well short of the mark. Ultimately in 1988 he struck gold (no pun intended) again. Picture this is a tour de force of all of Heller's best dialogue writing, irony and subtle political commentary and does all of the things right that Catch 22 did, although at a somewhat lesser volume. It has always been a mystery to me why the book wasn't better received critically and financially, apart from the possible fact that it came close on the heels of Heller's frightening episode of Guillan Barre syndrome and his nonfiction work on that experience. Anyone who has enjoyed his best work and been slightly disapponted by his also-rans ought to pick this one up for a light but thoughtful and entirely pleasant read.

6 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars a masterpiece, August 17, 2000

By 

the Penguin (Israel) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Picture This : A Novel (Paperback)

"picture this" is a masterpiece of writing. it is an enchanting work, about often tragic subjects, showing humanity both at it's greatest and it's lowest points, which often occur at the same times. cynnical, informative, wonderfuly funny, complex and sad sometimes, it is one of the best books I have read