Good as Gold

Rating:
Summary: In ain't no "Catch-22"....
Review: ...But, then again, what is? I guess my expectations for this book were way too high. I loved "Catch-22", and it ranks amongst my favorite books of all time. But "Good As Gold" seemed...off. It reads almost as if someone was trying to immitate Heller (a poor immitation at that). It was nearly as funny as "Catch-22", nor was the humor as dark or ironic. It was absurd, for the most part. Only Ralph and the other Politicians in the book had lines with any real biting social criticism that were comparable to EVERYTHING EVERYONE said in "Catch-22". It does make many interesting comments on politics in America, though frankly they are expessed elsewhere in a more productive manner. I found my copy at Half price books for about a buck, and I consider it worth that much, at least. In short, read "Catch-22", if you just love it, read "Good as Gold" for a Heller-heroin fix...

(I do need to write up my favorite quote from the novel though...from Ralph- "American Democracy is the most rigid aristocracy on earth...")

Rating:
Summary: In footsteps of Kissinger
Review: A professor and a writer, Bruce Gold feels unappreciated by his family. He is the son of Russian-Jewish immigrants. He still lives in New York and sees his old friends from his childhood in Coney Island. His friends don't seem to respect him, either.

He sees an opportunity to change his life when he meets an old university friend, the Protestant Ralph Newsome, who used to copy all of Gold's course work and who got better grades for it. Newsome now works for the President, who is impressed by Gold's writings, and a high government position is dangled in front of Gold. To ease his way into the government, he duly decides to divorce his old wife and marry a daughter of a rich establishment family. This leads to humiliation at the hands of the father of that family. "You have aspirations and regrets and feelings of inferiority and I don't," Pugh Biddle Conover tells Gold.

The novel takes place in the late 1970s, after Henry Kissinger's stint as Secretary of State with presidents Nixon and Ford. Gold has been collecting materials about Kissinger for years and plans to write a book about him. Gold detests Kissinger, as does everyone else in the book. Kissinger is "a noisy, babbling fellow who was always trying too hard to be entertaining and made war like a Nazi," Conover says. To which, Gold says, "please don't put me in the position of defending the one person on earth I disapprove of most."

Conover mocks Gold as a Jew and for his political aspirations. Both Conover and Gold's father believe that Jews have no place in government and that Kissinger was an aberration.

Gold is well aware of Kissinger's infamies: "his role in the Cambodian war, in which an estimated 500,000 died," and his involvement in overthrowing the Allende government in Chile. Yet, when Gold angrily asserts that Kissinger wasn't even a Jew, is it because Gold really does detest Kissinger or is it because Gold himself wants to be the first Jewish Secretary of State?

This is a very good novel. Some objections, however, have been made about the ending. Without revealing it, I will say that the unexpected event is the sort of thing that jolts people back into reality, as it does to Gold. Another criticism of the book is the stuff on 1970s politics and events. In my opinion, there wasn't too much of that and also I thought that by mentioning these things, it made the novel more realistic.

"Good as Gold" has been unfavorably compared with "Catch-22." They are different books, despite some similarities (for example, the government officials that Gold encounters could easily have stepped out of "Catch-22"). "Catch-22" is a book mainly about young men and appeals to readers in their 20s (perhaps the only time in their lives they will ever read novels); "Good as Gold" deals with the themes of the middle-aged. It is a book about a mid-life crisis and dealing with aging family members.

It is also a book about an outsider desperately wanting to be an insider and how far he will go to get ahead. Gold believes Kissinger is vile and yet...It's a useful novel because it records a phenomena that occurs again and again in American life. Perhaps another novel about ambition will be written some day about a protagonist who gazes with disgust and envy on Colin Powell or Condoleezza Rice, instead of Kissinger. Until then, we have "Good as Gold."



Rating:
Summary: Crude.
Review: Catch-22, my first Joseph Heller novel, sometimes made me giggle until my sides hurt, and then took me into devastatingly truthful chapters where I cried. The wit, the humor, the catches, and the longing for more hasn't been surpassed. The novel was amazing, and certainly remains one of my favorite books of all time. But this? It's crude, it's vulgar, and it wasn't worth my time. I kept waiting for it to pick up, and it never did. I was disappointed in Heller's satire -- yes, the White House does have its problems, but Heller just sounded unintelligent when all he could talk about was sex. The book is directionalless, (though it does mimik Gold's life). There was a bit of humor ... three stars go to the moments I chuckled. But I have to say, I grew sick of the book.

The moral? Read Catch-22 ... you'll love it forever. After that, don't pick up another Joseph Heller book ... you'll be disappointed.

Rating:
Summary: Crude.
Review: Catch-22, my first Joseph Heller novel, sometimes made me giggle until my sides hurt, and then took me into devastatingly truthful chapters where I cried. The wit, the humor, the catches, and the longing for more hasn't been surpassed. The novel was amazing, and certainly remains one of my favorite books of all time. But this? It's crude, it's vulgar, and it wasn't worth my time. I kept waiting for it to pick up, and it never did. I was disappointed in Heller's satire -- yes, the White House does have its problems, but Heller just sounded unintelligent when all he could talk about was sex. The book is directionalless, (though it does mimik Gold's life). There was a bit of humor ... three stars go to the moments I chuckled. But I have to say, I grew sick of the book.

The moral? Read Catch-22 ... you'll love it forever. After that, don't pick up another Joseph Heller book ... you'll be disappointed.

Rating:
Summary: Good as gold, indeed.
Review: Good As Gold is Joseph Heller's third masterpiece. Heller, who sadly left us in 1999, was notorious for taking an eternity between books (13 years between his first two.) And, although this may be true, one thing is certain: when Joe Heller delivers a book, it's a guaranteed masterpiece. Every new Heller release is an event. Good As Gold is as good as the best of them. By turns screamingly funny and heart-piercingly true, this is one of the few books that can make you laugh and cry at the same time. The book works simultaneously on multiple levels. It is a fable of "The Jewish Experience" in America; it is a satiric and highly biting look at the hypocrisy and incompetence at work in everyday government affairs; it is a funny and all-too-sad peek into the lives of the typical American extended family (you could also see the entire thing as an attack on Henry Kissinger - indeed, the only complaint I have about the book is that Heller sometimes follows this tangent too far.) The book, as always with Heller, is very cleverly written. There are no numbered chapters: instead, the book is split into a number of different sections, all with a certain title, which also happen to be titles of works being written by the protagonist (who is, among other things, a writer) - in this way, the book plays out the very story and experience it is purporting to have the main character write himself. An essential read from the greatest American author of the second half of the 20th century.

Rating:
Summary: Hilarious satire.
Review: Good As Gold successfully transposes the anti-logic and hilarity of Catch-22 to the world of lecturing and high-level politics.

Politics is, of course, a natural home for Heller's sense of the ridiculous. And although the machinations of the White House staff seem absurd, they are also naggingly true-to-life. The book is actually too near the bone for comfort on occasion.

But it brings tears to the eyes, it's so funny.

Gold at home with his extended family (where he spends much of the novel) suffering their babbling insanity is supremely comical. No matter how successful he is, they just treat him like dirt. And he has to grit his teeth.

These are hilarious characters and you just feel a touch embarrassed for whomever they were based on. Because they're too real to be entirely fictional... Surely.

Excellent, intelligent, funny, thought-provoking novel. But it's probably safer to not read it on the train. People might stare while you lose your composure.

Rating:
Summary: good, but not gold
Review: i once read an interview of joseph heller in which he stated he came up with the idea for novels by coming up with an opening sentence. assuming that to be true here, this is a novel about the jewish experience. when we view this book from that perspective, we have a better appreciation of it. we have gold, who is out trying to write a book about the jewish experience, continually rejecting his jewish heritage. it is not until the end when he finally embraces it.
the political humor is exaggerated and doesn't work as well as it did in catch 22 where the setting of war makes the absurd normal. his family life is archie bunker/michael like except for the very touching lunch between gold and his older brother sid. this conversation brought the family into focus.
other characters like liebowicz and his fiancee's father border on the ridiculous and don't add a lot to the story.
this is not vintage heller. suggest your reread catch 22 instead.

Rating:
Summary: one of the all time funniest books I have ever read.
Review: It so apropos today. Bruce Gold has a job at the White House... to make sure the politicians say absolutely nothing of any importance at all, but sound like they are. This book is biting. Hilarious. I have read all his books and oddly enough while I loved Catch-22, and Something Happened, this one sticks with me. It is all about the Orwellian newspeak which I seem to hear everywhere these days. But done with a wicked sense of humour. Laugh out loud funny. The best political satire I have ever read.

Rating:
Summary: Classic Heller
Review: Joseph Heller is probably the only writer who could always make me laugh out loud. This is a book about a college professor and writer who gets a chance to go to Washington to work for the President. An old friend of his works at the White House and invites him to come to work there, but won't tell him what the job is or when he can start. The friend tells Gold that they want to make a big announcement about the appointment, but want to keep it secret. Everything this guy says is an oxymoron.

Meanwhile, his family is driving him crazy. His father and step mother live in Florida during the winters, but come back to New York for the summer. The whole family is anxious for them to go back to Florida, but they keep stalling. Gold's brother makes idiotic comments, egging him on constantly. Gold is always being put into a position where he can either argue and look like he's showing off, or ignore the comment and be criticized for ignoring the mistake in his brother's comment.

If you've enjoyed any of Joseph Heller's other books, this is more of the same, so you should get a kick out of this one too.

Rating:
Summary: An amusing romp through politics and family
Review: This book tells the story of a Jewish English professor's trials and tribulations. It spans his family life (including his large extended family), his sex life (he has serious affairs with several people who are not his wife), and his professional life, both as a teacher and a writer. He has a friend in the White House who insists that he must join the government unless he musn't, an FBI man following him around who thinks he's a disgrace to the Jewish faith, and a big brother who delibrately misquotes scientific knowledge to draw him into arguments.

All of these trials are scathingly sattirical, and often very funny. I was especially amused by the White House shenanigans, which sound a little too true to life, especially in light of the Monica Lewinsky scandal. My other favourite parts take place at the university, such as his admission that course descriptions and titles are written to attract students, not to reflect the course's content (e.g., the course "Montheism and Monarchy from the Middle Ages to the Modern" was actually a course on Shakespeare's tragedies and histories, "except Julius Caesar because the Romans weren't monotheistic, and Othello, because there's no monarch"). Other parts have not aged quite as well, but are still amusing.

There are a few problems with the book however. At times, Heller gets carried away to the point of being vitriolic. While this is amusing in small doses, there are times in the book where several pages (say 4 or 5) are devoted to trashing Henry Kissinger, or denigrating Jews. It goes on so long that you get the impression that it's now Heller saying these things, and not the character, which moves the book out of sattire and into political science.

All in all, however, if you can stand these overlong diatribes, it is an enjoyable and funny book. Maybe not quite as funny as Catch 22, but close.