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Something Happened
 
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Something Happened (Paperback)

by Joseph Heller (Author)
4.4 out of 5 stars See all reviews (30 customer reviews)
RRP: £8.99
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Frequently Bought Together

Something Happened + Closing Time + God Knows
Price For All Three: £21.97

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  • This item: Something Happened by Joseph Heller

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  • Closing Time by Joseph Heller

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Product details

  • Paperback: 576 pages
  • Publisher: Vintage; New edition edition (16 Mar 1995)
  • Language English
  • ISBN-10: 0099889803
  • ISBN-13: 978-0099889809
  • Product Dimensions: 19.2 x 13 x 3.4 cm
  • Average Customer Review: 4.4 out of 5 stars See all reviews (30 customer reviews)
  • Amazon.co.uk Sales Rank: 96,479 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

    Popular in this category:

    #7 in  Books > Fiction > 20th Century Classics > Heller, Joseph

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Product Description

Product Description
Bob Slocum is a promising executive and society demands that he should be happy. But his wife is a drunken flirt and his daughter wages her own cunning campaign against him. Slocum's soliloquy moves to a shocking climax as fate hands him a tragic focus for his despair.

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What Do Customers Ultimately Buy After Viewing This Item?

Something Happened
75% buy the item featured on this page:
Something Happened 4.4 out of 5 stars (30)
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Customer Reviews

30 Reviews
5 star:
 (22)
4 star:
 (3)
3 star:
 (2)
2 star:    (0)
1 star:
 (3)
 
 
 
 
 
Average Customer Review
4.4 out of 5 stars (30 customer reviews)
 
 
 
 
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Most Helpful Customer Reviews

 
12 of 14 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars A Highly Under-appreciated Work, 31 Mar 2001
By A Customer
It is easy to only judge this book against Catch-22, but can any book worthily be judged against Catch-22? Something Happened is quite simply a moving novel which delves deeper into the culture of twentieth century despair than any other. In years to come it will be appreciated as an even finer work than its predecessor. Someone on this page has commented that 'nothing happens' in the novel. Well, that's the joy of the book. Heller doesn't need to barrage us with action or incident, he lets his beautifully languid style guide to what has to be one of the most tragically depressing climaxes ever written, a climax which can only be fully appreciated against the background which Heller creates. This book simply must be read, and savoured. I envy those who are still to read it.
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8 of 10 people found the following review helpful:
3.0 out of 5 stars Funny in parts, 19 Oct 2004
By Happy Mummy (London, UK) - See all my reviews
Has the Heller humour and yes, something does happen. It is not a surprise and it did not make me suddenly appreciate what I had read before. I like his humour in the book but it is repetitive and I ended up rushing to the end to get the whole process over with.

I found the style hardest - he hates paragraphs and he loves using brackets. This is very difficult to read, for example a sentence may start

My daughter is unhappy (then he tells a long winded story, that he has already told 5 times previously, about a time he has been unhappy) because she is.

She is what? You have to flick back to remember what the start of the sentence is. The lack of breaks and the long chapters make this heavy going and can only encourage the reader to skim.

I would only recommend this for Heller fans (which I was). It will burst the bubble.

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4 of 5 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars Excruciatingly good., 25 Jun 2003
By Paul Caira (London UK) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   
Yes, it's one guy ranting about his life, and his dreadful relationships with his wife, his daughter, his son, and his other son, and his work colleagues, and yes nothing happens (except that it does), but what is astonishing is the way in which he is able to maintain the interest, varying the ranting, contradicting himself, illuminating the terrors of family life afresh on every page.
What happens? If you were skimming it, you'd miss it, and I think some of the reviewers here did just that. Just two paragraphs very close to the end, the content of the first shockingly, unbearably sad, the content of the second making the first explode with a grim tragedy (I missed this before I reread it a few hours later).

I read Catch 22 years ago, and enjoyed it, but it was nowhere near as technically skilled as this.

But not one to read if you're feeling a bit low.

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Most Recent Customer Reviews

4.0 out of 5 stars The collective meninges.
One is inevitably going to make comparisons with this and `Catch 22' and `Something Happened' is not a classic but it is very good. Read more
Published 21 months ago by Mark Dickens

5.0 out of 5 stars Relentless and honest
There are a lot of reviews here saying that nothing happens, which I can't understand because something does definitely happen. Read more
Published on 6 Mar 2007 by K. M. Taylor

5.0 out of 5 stars Scarily Good
This book is absolutely amazing! It tells the story of Bob Slocum who has lived the life that most people hope for, yet daily contemplates ending it. Read more
Published on 31 Jul 2005

1.0 out of 5 stars You wouldn't want to take it on holiday.
Other reviewers will tell you what it's about. I found it quite long, it's very boring, nothing does acually happen (how clever!)and it's quite depressing. Read more
Published on 10 Sep 2004

5.0 out of 5 stars As good as Catch-22
I have never empathised with a book as much as I did with Something Happened - the brutal honesty of Bob Slocum's life resonates with how I feel living in society. Read more
Published on 7 Feb 2004

1.0 out of 5 stars Something Happened... eventually!
Something Happened is an in depth journey through the mind of the novel's main character, Bob Slocum. Read more
Published on 15 Jun 2003 by Mr S. SMITH

5.0 out of 5 stars In my opinion Hellers best
Hellers career will forever be remembered for Catch 22 but his second novel, Something Happened is in my opinion, the greatest novel ever written. Read more
Published on 11 Oct 2001

1.0 out of 5 stars Insanely dull
After reading both Catch 22 and Closing time and loving them, this was a major disappointment. A dull, dull (and very American) book which endlessly repeats the same sections over... Read more
Published on 28 Mar 2001

5.0 out of 5 stars Excruciating
I admit that i have read no other books by Heller, i had never read a review when i picked Something Happened off the shelf, i just delved right in, i wanted to know 'What... Read more
Published on 27 Mar 2001

5.0 out of 5 stars moving and yet painful
i found this book to be at times almost painful to read but at the same time that never detracted from the point that it was a most revealing and questioning book. Read more
Published on 4 Sep 2000 by M. J. Wakeman

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