Closing Time Summary
Joseph Heller

Everything you need to understand or teach Closing Time by Joseph Heller.

Closing Time Summary & Study Guide
1 Literature Criticism
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Closing Time Summary

Through the carefully chosen title of his sixth novel, the punning references to the bus terminal, the allusions to such works as Wagner's Gotterdammerung (1874), the last drama of The Ring of the Nibelung (1852-1897), Mann's Death in Venice (1912), and Leverkuhn's oratorio Apocalypse, Heller underscores his principal thematic concerns. Closing Time is about the aging process and death of individuals, the passing away of the World War II generation, and, ultimately, the demise of...

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Joseph Heller Biographies (5)

Joseph Heller

9,017 words, approx. 31 pages

Joseph Heller (1923-1999) was a popular and respected writer whose first and best-known novel, Catch-22 (1961), is considered a classic of the post-World War II era. Presenting human existence as absu... Read more

Joseph Heller

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When Joseph Heller learned that the New York Times Book Review's response to his first novel was negative, he and his family were terribly depressed. "Waiting for that review to come out," he later to... Read more

Joseph Heller

3,058 words, approx. 11 pages

Jospeh Heller was born 1 May 1923 in Brooklyn, New York. His father died in 1927. After graduating from Abraham Lincoln High School in 1941, Heller joined the Twelfth Air Force. He was stationed in Co... Read more

Joseph Heller

3,265 words, approx. 11 pages

Despite his relatively small output, Joseph Heller is considered a major contemporary author. His reputation rests principally on his first book, the experimental antiwar novel Catch-22, one of the mo... Read more

Joseph Heller

12,613 words, approx. 43 pages

Joseph Heller has established himself as a major satirist in the field of contemporary American fiction. A new phrase was added to the American lexicon from the title of his first novel Catch-22 (1961... Read more

Essays & Analysis (1)

Critical Review by Daniel M. Murtaugh

1,002 words, approx. 4 pages

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Closing Time SummaryJoseph Heller