Word: hellers
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...development of Something Happened parallels the development of the novel. Beginning with a straightforward realistic style, Heller progresses into an elliptical series of dreams, flashbacks, news bulletins, and small pieces of philosophical graffiti; more contemporary modes. At several junctures the process of fiction becomes self-conscious, as when Slocum says he's afraid of becoming repetitive because everybody will ignore him. The novel itself becomes repetitive when memories come back again and again to Slocum, but always to underline what's most important to him: his missed opportunities in sexual conquest, his fear of the new, and of death...
...style and structure of Something Happened elucidate this underlying design, which is at first not apparent. Heller departs radically from the style of Catch-22 here. The prose is extremely simple as Slocum introduces himself, due partially to the anti-hero's inhibition. And slowly, through parenthetical remarks and more elaborate, cinematic passages, one becomes aware of an overwrought personality, who has regressed or just never overcome an arrested development in the prepubescent stage...
...prose is a lot like Kurt Vonnegut's, but it lacks the naivete that allows Vonnegut to laugh. Heller's somber style reflects the cautious narrator's inhibitions. Their eventual breakdown only after it has become too late remains in Slocum's eyes a sign of weakness. In the same way, the novel's structure evolves into a complex web out of an increasing sense of urgency. Slocum's failure to reach his children comes, he feels, not from his own virtual breakdown but from the breakdown in American values. Children, he feels, have a right to be pessimistic...
...Slocum's world, so when his wife asks him if he loves her he tells her to roll over so she can find out. He's so pleased when she finally gives up asking if he loves her that he almost wants to say "I love you." Heller's descriptions of these scenes are rarely exciting, yet somehow one feels compelled to read on, in the same way one continues deeper and deeper into a dark cave out of curiosity for the occasional paintings on the wall or to see what...
There are hardly any light passages in the novel, but sometimes Heller recaptures some of that Catch-22 black humor...