Rating: 
Summary: It's a sequel, but it's not the same
Review: Catch-22 is a classic was satire, one of the best books ever written. Closing Time feels like a lame attempt to roll on Catch-22's success. Some of the old characters are back, but the style just isn't the same. If this book were released seperately from Catch-22, with all new characters, I might have given it three or maybe even four stars. Instead, the book has a "kludged" feel, almost as if it were written before deciding to make it a sequel to Catch-22. And unlike Catch-22, Closing Time incorporates fantasy elements which might break the suspension of disbelief if you're expecting the style of Catch-22.
Rating: 
Summary: Not really a sequal
Review: Every other review of this book, either good or bad, starts this way, so I feel that there's no reason mine should be any different....I'm a huge fan of "Catch-22". Let's face it, if "Closing Time" lived up to the original novel, people would start their reviews with "I was a hug fan of 'Closing Time.'" That they don't, even if they are saying something positive about it, says something very bad about the book. There is no question that Joseph Heller was coasting on his reputation when he wrote this. My personal belief is that this is why this novel is billed as a sequal to "Catch-22" when it really has little to do with it. This being said, "Closing Time" is really a very good book. It is surreal, and unsettling, and, at times, quite funny. Clearly Heller was concerned about his health when he wrote it (in one of the most clever surrealist touches, one of the characters even refers to Heller's health problems). That makes the book a little gloomy, maudlin, and yes, at times heavy handed as well. Nevertheless, Heller proves that he can still create strong, realistic characters, and that he is still the master of vicious social satire. If you read it as a sequal to "Catch-22" you will be disappointed. If you read it as a new and original work, though, you will be pleasently surprised.
Rating: 
Summary: A Worthy Sequel
Review: I suppose the title of this review is a bit hyperbolic... nothing could be worthy of Catch-22, one of the greatest novels ever written. However, people disappointed that it's not as good are mising a brilliant novel, one of the best since Catch-22 became a hit. The writing style will instantly remind you of Catch-22, particularly when Milo Minderbinder, his son M2, and Wintergreen are in the spotlight and the classic surreal humor Milo brought to the first book reappears in full force. Sammy Singer, best known in Catch-22 for fainting every time he saw Yossarian working with the dying Howard Snowden, becomes one of the major characters of Closing Time, as does his friend Lew Rabinowitz; both make only minor appearences in the main story, but their side story proves as enjoyable as the plot itself. Also important to the main storyline is Jerry "Senor" Gaffney, whose all-seeing detective agency is really just a cover for his Real Estate business (that's where the money is.) Having read Catch-22 and Closing Time back to back, I don't see Catch-22 with the same rose-colored glasses some might; while Closing Time certainly falls short of its predecessor's genius and social importance, it is nearly as entertaining a novel.
Rating:
Summary: not a deserving sequel for a awesome classic like catch-22
Review: In Closing Time, Heller satyrizes city-life, enterprise, and corporate greed at the end of the 20th century just as well as he painted the anxieties and horrors of World War II.
Nowadays, there is little threat of a violent death, instead there is the terrible certainty of approaching mortality as Yosarian approaches seventy years of age. In some ways, this book is about dying.
I think Heller was influenced by Mark Twain and Grouch Marx for his comedic style.
The acerbic comical aspects are up-to-date, and relevent to professionals in the corporate and poitical realms, of all ages. The same hilarious wordings and characterizations of Milo and Wintergreen and the Chaplain are all here, striving in today's world...Just trying to thrive, as well as survive.
Yosarian is, of course largely agnostic though not nihilistic, but pradoxically axiomatic; so consequently the book is largely about sex, death, money, power, corruption, yet a hope for justice and the punishment of the wickid ("Dirty Old Man Stuff" as one reviewer mistakenly puts it).
I loved "Catch 22" (and will re-read it), but I *fully* appreciate "Closing Time" (and have re-read it several times).
The symbolism and literary depth are really innovative. For example, Yosarian's son proposes that the New York Port Authority Bus Terminal is actually what Dante's Inferno was supposed to represent, and it seems completely believable.
Much more needs to be said about this fine work of pseudo-fiction.
Rating:
Summary: not a deserving sequel for a awesome classic like catch-22
Review: individually the book isn't too bad,but as a sequel to catch22 it SUCKS!
closing time tries to cash in on the phenomenal success of its prequel, but miserably fails.
i advise those who haven't read catch22 yet,not to prejudge it based on closing time.catch22 is one of the best books ever!
Rating:
Summary: catch 23?
Review: It could be argued that in embarking on writing a sequel to "Catch 22" was indeed the ultimate Catch 22 itself. Unless "Closing Time" proved to be an absolute classic, a wonderful funny-sad commentry on contemporary life, then it would pale in comparison with it's predesessor. Make it too similar, of course, and the author is open to charges that he is merely retreading old ground. Heller waited 25 years to write this sequel, and sets some of the characters introduced in "Catch 22" in modern life. More than forty years after the War, Yossarian remains as abrasive and dissatisfied as ever in his old age. Milo remains the entrepreneur of his earlier life. Both these characters have made successes of themselves in the business world. "Closing Time" attachs the absurdities of the contemporary business world in the same way as "Catch 22" attachs the absurdities and attrocities of war. Milo's new idea is to sell a stealth bomber type aircraft to the American military, and he employs Yossarian and his son, Michael, to help him sell the plane to the military. Yossarian has the ear of the "little p***k", the American President, who is obsessed with video games. Yossarian also has the plan of holding a massively expensive and gaudy wedding ceremony in a bus shelter. When exploring this possibility he finds a network of tunnels beneath the ground, where officials are safe from nuclear war, and dead people live with their wealth.The characters of Yossarian and Milo remain as good points in this book. Yossarian has the feel of a "dirty old man" in some of his sexual flirtings, and has certainly grown old disgracefully. He does however show a devotion to his son Michael. Yossarian still shows that biting wit at times, especially when dealing with the private detective that has bugged his telephone, and in conversations with his son Michael over what he is going to do with his life. Milo's dodgy dealings remain as fun as ever, attempting to sell a plane he has no intention of building. Mingling with these are passages from other old characters Sammy and Lew, which bring a note of seriousness in comparison with the decadent lifestyle led by the other two. It remains strange to see Yossarian in such circumstances as in this book. "Catch 22" is a difficult if impossible book to follow up, and the only way to really read this is to totally detach that book. If you do not expect another "Catch 22" you will still enjoy the updated exploits of Yossarian and friends.
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: 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: 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: Ho hum
Review: With the possible exception of the movie Aliens, sequels are almost never as good as the original. Anyone who really enjoyed Catch-22 - which is almost everyone who's ever read it - will fetch a yawn at Heller's attempt to carry on the story of Yossarian. The book's got a decent theme. It retains the brilliant temporal hackjob that would make perfect sense if you read the book twice, or backwards, like reconstructing a murder mystery. Yet it lacked an interesting plot; it seemed like nothing new was added and nothing unexpected occurred. Predictably enough, Milo Minderbinder and Ex. PFC Wintergreen ultimately put their differences aside to form a major corporate alliance. Yossarian plans a party in the subway system. Not nearly as visceral a venue as WWII. I shrugged and didn't have the heart to finish it. It's a shame, and pretty disappointing, because I had begun to think Heller was quite the genius after I downed Catch 22 and God Knows.
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