Rating: 
Summary: I'll miss the work of America's greatest satirist
Review: It was never going to be an easy task to write a sequel that would equal the creative scope and comedic precision of Catch 22, and it seems that Joseph Heller realised this when he penned Closing Time. Whereas the bleak satire and dehumanising insanity of the world of Catch 22 was almost relentless in its delivery, Heller has refined the level of black humour in the sequel and tempered it with heartfelt monologues, gentle reminiscences and altogether more subtle and moving moments.
This is not to say Heller or his characters have grown overly sentimental. The author's trademark biting sarcasm, so deftly delivered in Catch 22, still retains its sharp edge in the sequel. Instead of Pianosa in World War II, the setting is New York City in 1994 on the brink of an impending World War III. And whereas in Catch 22 the reader was bombarded with a veritable universe of strange and crazy characters, in Closing Time Heller has chosen to select a comparative handful of the originals and plumb the depths of their humanity with a far more personal intensity. We are reintroduced to the Chaplain, Milo Minderbinder and Yossarian, now in their sixties, bemused and confounded by a society that is outgrowing and overtaking them, trying to come to terms with the rigours and burdens of old age, and, ironically, harking back to the war and immediate post-war years, reminiscences which seem to evoke an era altogether less complex and dangerous.
Sammy Singer and Lew Rabinowitz lend a nostalgic charm to the book with their often lengthy monologues on growing up in New York in the 40s and 50s. Their memories of chasing girls at dances, collecting junk for a few dollars a week and soaking up the boundless youthful pleasures of post-war America are set against the ever-present backdrop of Coney Island, a metaphor that persists throughout the book not only as a symbol of carefree frivolity, but also, with typical Heller irony, as a vehicle for the descent into hell.
Heller bombards the reader with brilliant juxtapositions of the simple and the profound in this book: the doorway to the afterlife being located in the back of a locker in New York's Port Authority Bus Station; a president whose entire view of world policy can only be communicated through the latest shoot-em-up video games; Milo's M&M Enterprises formulating and designing the deadliest fighter jet in military history on the premise that it will never have to be built. The intertwining plots are simultaneously hilarious, terrifying and senseless: the Government's internment and dissection of the Chaplain for his ability to urinate heavy water and thus possibly provide an alternate and cheap source of nuclear power being perhaps the cleverest.
It's a great book - not as laugh out loud as say, Good as Gold, and not quite as viciously satirical as Catch 22, but an immensely worthy sequel.
Rating:
Summary: Good, but not as good as expected
Review: Joseph Heller's Catch-22 is the best novel that I have ever read. I picked up Closing Time at the library because I liked Catch-22 so much. Closing Time is a good piece of literature, but it does not stand up to the power of Catch-22.Closing Time picks up in the early 1990's with Yossarian and other Catch-22 World War II veterans nearing the end of their lives. It is a satire of New York life like Catch-22 was of war. Closing Time is a catching novel, but it does not live up to the humorous and intriguing nature of Catch-22. If you have not read Catch-22 then you should pick it up before trying Closing Time. If you loved Catch-22 then give Closing Time a try. You will most likely be disappointed, but Closing Time is a great novel.
Rating:
Summary: A good book on the effects of growing old in modern society
Review: Judging from the reviews on this page, it seems to me like most (but not all) of the negative reviews are from people who were merely expecting more Catch-22. Some comment that Closing Time has nothing to do with Catch-22, some that it is merely a poor rehashing of the material from Heller's earlier work, thus implying that the content is effectively similar, albeit inferior. I suppose I'm lucky not to be a Novel Nerd, because it seemed to me that Closing Time does an excellant job of what Heller set out to do: show us the effects of time, age, and society on young people with strong ideals and direction. The meandering reminicences of Yossarian and the others are not shoddily constructed prose, they are the sounds of old men trying to put their past into the context of what their present has become, and vice-versa. If I could offer any constructive negative critism of this book, it would be that the surreal juxtaposition of concrete life, the military, and Hell seemed somewhat ill-defined, and as a result Heller's conclusion to the novel lacks some of the conviction that it could have had.
Rating: 
Summary: Quit while you're ahead, or leave well enough alone.
Review: Old adages that Heller would have been wise to heed.
The pages of this book groan from Heller's strain to whip this material into a sequel to the classic "Catch 22"..
In retrospect, the only parts of the book that really work are the narratives of Lew and Sammy, which follow a very traditional first-person narrative and bear little of the madness so memorable in the first novel. The parts with Yossarian are rambling and often incoherent, and the social satire is weak and obvious: Pick on the rich. Pick on the military. Pick on politicians. We've seen this before, and we've seen it done better. The attempts to recapture the humorous absurdity of Catch 22 are painful to read. "Absolutely General Bingam?" "Positively, Col. Dreedle." The interchanges between the military personnel are flat and strained, (one sequence consists of nothing more then the repetition of the word "fuck", to no apparent purpose) because we've been here before with Heller, and the sense of urgency or madness just isn't there this time. The scene of the wedding party held at the bus terminal goes on far too long. Heller means to show us the obscene excessiveness of the wealthy, who spout platitudes such as "If you've got it, flaunt it". But the scene just rumbles on as Heller trots out new examples of profligancy, and ultimately we are left to wonder, "What is the point", not of the wastefulness of the party but of Heller's indulgent narrative. The scene adds nothing new to the story, and could have been severely condensed.
The parallels between Sammy and Yossarian are interesting, but ultimately unsatisfying, primarily because Yossarrian's character has been reduced to nothing more then a plot device used to filter Heller's social commentary through. He is meant to be the "everyman", the only sane person in an insane world, and he WAS in Catch 22. Now he is superflous, a character with nothing new to say who has outlived his usefulness. A very disappointing, forgetable, and unnecessary follow-up to a classic novel?
Absolutely.
Rating:
Summary: Dirty old man stuff wrecks the book...
Review: Some of the dialogue, and one of the eccentric premises (the urination of heavy water via the chaplain) are just as good as "Catch-22."
Unfortunately, what is holding it all together is a bunch of dirty old man stuff.
Heaven help us if it is true that old men in this post-Christian culture have absolutely nothing else to think about other than how many girls they've boffed over their lives, and how large those girls' mammaries were. I couldn't even finish this book.
Rating: 
Summary: Kurt Vonnegut-like Satire of Modern Mores -- Not Catch 23
Review: The subtitle for this book is -- The Sequel to Catch 22. That's the catch, for sure. Only in the loosest sense could this be viewed as a sequel. Change the names of a few of the characters, and you have another Kurt Vonnegut spoof of modern society. I graded the book down one star for partial misrepresentation. So, forget Catch 22 when you read this book. Otherwise, you'll just get frustrated. Although some of the broad themes are the same, the connection is pretty small between the two books. Yossarian and Milo are the main connections between the two stories, but decades later. Their characters remain familiar, though. What, then, is the book about? It's primarily a complaint about modern society and its lack of a moral center and purpose. If you like outrageous humor put in modern times, you have the potential for a lot of good laughs. If you want a tight, believeable plot, you've come to the wrong place. Humor is always somewhat relative, and Heller's humor in this book is an acquired taste. He does go on to get his points across. Edit the humor down, and it would have worked better. Still, I found the book to be an interesting novel, and am glad I read it. Just be sure you know what this book really is before reading it. Read it for what it is, or avoid it for what it is not. Personally, I think Heller is very good at making fun of the bureaucracy stall in this book. That is what made me interested in reading it, and rewarded me for my patience.
Rating: 
Summary: Wasting Time
Review: This attempt to squeeze a last bit of cash out of a faded reputation, "Closing Time," is replete with forced cleverness, recycled material (Heller's and other's), and hackneyed criticism of matters poorly understood by the author. Save your money. Re-read "Catch 22."
Rating:
Summary: Recommended somewhat - but with the below qualification.
Review: This is not all that bad of a book, and doesn't deserve the slagging I've heard it get recently. I need to qualify the rating I gave to "Closing Time" by saying that the novel works better when you DON'T think of it as the sequel to "Catch-22", but as a completely independent work. It may well be the one sequel that I might (to a neophyte) recommend reading _before_ its predecessor, although I will admit that "Catch-22" is a far superior book. "Closing Time" is an enjoyable read -- "Catch-22" is an all-time classic. For those (probably most of you reading this review) who have read "Catch-22" - forget that you've ever heard the names Yossarian, Milo Minderbinder, and the Chaplain and "Closing Time" becomes more enjoyable, IMHO. Judged as a sequel to "Catch-22", I would only give this book about one-and-a-half stars, but standing on its own, I'd give it two-and-a-half to three. Since I've enjoyed every other Heller work I've read ("Good as Gold", "Picture This", "Something Happened", and "God Knows") except for the absolutely atrocious play "We Bombed In New Haven" (which may , however, be one of the most aptly named works in the history of American literature - except that New Haven ain't the only place it bombed ;-)), I'll give him the benefit of the doubt and bump this one up to 3 stars. Not something to rush out and buy unless you're a Heller fanatic, but enjoyable on its own terms. A good rainy-day Sunday read, but don't expect "Catch-22, Part Two" or you'll be as disappointed as some of the other reviewers on this page.
Rating:
Summary: A Real Yawner
Review: This is only the second book I've owned that I have never read all the way through. After I hit page 100, I said "enough already". Maybe when I'm older I will appreciate this work, but by then I would likely become very depressed by it. Catch-22 is my favorite all-time book, but this book doesn't even come close. Heller would have done a better job by not billing this book as a sequel, and using different characters.
Rating:
Summary: Close, but no cigar
Review: Well, it ain't Catch-22, and for all the talk about how this is a work in its own right and how such comparisons are unfair, more Catch-22 is what you're hoping for when you buy this book. And that's not what you get. What you get are moments of grim amusement and boredom. The book is at its best only when its dealing with new characters that never appeared in Catch-22. The absurd sections fall flat, and the sections that are supposed to be hilarious are tired and seem like pale shadows of the ideas of Catch-22. The book works best, strangely, when its being realistic, but Heller seems scared to write the whole thing that way. Too bad. The sections dealing with Lew, his best friend, his wife, and the fire bombing of Dresden are the most effective and touching -- and add up to about 50 pages total.
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