Something Happened

E-word,

Jer asked me why I'm finding 'Something Happened' so amazing, and despite the fact that I'm not finished reading it (I'm cruising, though, I'm like on page 300 and I started just last Sunday or so), I'm going to give a review about what I like.

I'm so bad at this. I have to start with that caveat. While I have the ability to read critically (I think), I really just read for pleasure, so bear with me. Bob Slocum (the protagonist, and I'm guessing Joseph Heller, too- and this is the part that kills me- have focused the Hubble Space Telescope onto the human heart. Bear with my metaphor here. As I read this novel, I want very badly to know what was going on in Joseph Heller's brain while he wrote this. It is becoming exceedingly important to me. I want to know how he survived, how he did not end up drinking his life away, or end up killing himself otherwise. He is peering into the heart like David Foster Wallace did [read Good Old Neon, please].) is our only only friend, and he talks to us in his head. He has no one else, no one that he trusts. He is supremely lonely, heart-breakingly lonely. He is damaged goods, and no amount of status or wealth can change that. Without giving the story away, he lashes out at his family (excepting his beloved son), he preemptorily defends himself from their scorn but unleashing scorn upon them, and hates himself for doing it. He subscribes to the fact that it is a dog eat dog world, and he knows it, and though he knows that he himself is incredibly weak (and maybe because he knows this), he pounces and tries to destroy when he finds weakness in other people. He acts like he lives only to satisfy his id and ego, yet confesses to us later that he doesn't know why, and that it doesn't give him pleasure.

I relate to Bob Slocum. I do things in life that are just compulsions at this point, that don't bring any pleasure, and only the most short-lived release. Bob Slocum is a horrible father and husband, and I'm afraid that I too will be like him. Bob is so petty and childish, and so fucking hurt, I mean, he is all of us. Bob is also extremely funny and loves his son, and has a strong moral compass that he ignores and that contradiction seems to be destroying him.

I agree with something E-word has said about this book- you have to be in the right state of mind to read it, because it is totally heart rending, but it's also just incredibly funny. I have to share one scene in particular, I don't think I'm giving anything away, really. Bob is talking about cheating on his wife with much younger girls, and he tells us they don't really even turn him on, and for him to come he actually fantasizes about his wife while fucking them. He then says 'That's the kind of faithful husband I am'. His wife should he honored!

I think that's what actually makes this book so readable despite its unrelenting darkness; it's funny as hell, and even that is funny because Bob Slocum knows he's trying to be funny and his funnyness is even a self-defense mechanism. This novel is fucking layered, man.

Well, there's my review.

Love,

Toe