Share <Embed>

Have one to sell?

Sell on Amazon

Flip to back Flip to front

Listen Playing... Paused You're listening to a sample of the Audible audio edition.
Learn more

See this image

Follow the Author

Joseph Heller

Something Happened Audio Cassette – February 1, 1981

by Joseph Heller (Author)

219 ratings

See all formats and editions

Price

New from

Used from

Kindle

"Please retry"

$10.99

—

Hardcover

"Please retry"

$22.76

$25.00

$2.00

Paperback

"Please retry"

$20.84

$13.31

$18.15

Mass Market Paperback

"Please retry"

$6.03

$28.78

$2.99

Audio, Cassette

"Please retry"

—

This is Joseph Heller's first book after CATCH-22, and in it he explores the wartime generation's new predicament...as husband, progenitor, provider and survivalist. What happened to all the youthful dreams and those who peopled them? Gone to ruin. Because Heller is an architect of his age, his comments on the rubble contain more irony than perhaps he realizes.

Publisher

Books on Tape, Inc.
Publication date

February 1, 1981
ISBN-10

0736604723
ISBN-13

978-0736604727
See all details

Joseph Heller
193
Paperback
114 offers from $1.49
Joseph Heller
7,350
Paperback
181 offers from $1.52
Joseph Heller
113
Paperback
111 offers from $3.01
Joseph Heller
76
Hardcover
230 offers from $1.00
Joseph Heller
51
Paperback
63 offers from $2.50
Joseph Heller
20
Paperback
31 offers from $1.35

Joseph Heller
193
Paperback
114 offers from $1.49
Joseph Heller
7,350
Paperback
181 offers from $1.52
Joseph Heller
113
Paperback
111 offers from $3.01
Joseph Heller
76
Hardcover
230 offers from $1.00
Joseph Heller
51
Paperback
63 offers from $2.50
Joseph Heller
20
Paperback
31 offers from $1.35

Editorial Reviews

From the Publisher

11 1.5-hour cassettes

Start reading SOMETHING HAPPENED: A Novel on your Kindle in under a minute.

Don't have a Kindle? Get your Kindle here, or download a FREE Kindle Reading App.

Product details

Publisher ‏ : ‎ Books on Tape, Inc. (February 1, 1981)
ISBN-10 ‏ : ‎ 0736604723
ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 978-0736604727

Best Sellers Rank: #11,897,984 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
- #49,516 in War Fiction (Books)
- #391,692 in Literary Fiction (Books)

Customer Reviews:
219 ratings

About the author

Follow authors to get new release updates, plus improved recommendations.

Joseph Heller

Brief content visible, double tap to read full content.

Full content visible, double tap to read brief content.

Joseph Heller was born in 1923 in Brooklyn, New York. He served as a bombardier in the Second World War and then attended New York University and Columbia University and then Oxford, the last on a Fullbright scholarship. He then taught for two years at Pennsylvania State University, before returning to New York, where he began a successful career in the advertising departments of Time, Look and McCall's magazines. It was during this time that he had the idea for Catch-22. Working on the novel in spare moments and evenings at home, it took him eight years to complete and was first published in 1961. His second novel, Something Happened was published in 1974, Good As Gold in 1979 and Closing Time in 1994. He is also the author of the play We Bombed in New Haven.

Customer reviews

5 star		46%
4 star		21%
3 star		17%
2 star		10%
1 star		6%

How customer reviews and ratings work

Top reviews from the United States

There was a problem filtering reviews right now. Please try again later.

cookienator

Fabulously terrible

Reviewed in the United States on July 16, 2020

Verified Purchase

The narrator of this book is the least likable main character I’ve ever encountered, and I’ve read “Mein Kampf”. Maybe it’s because he’s a father, and I’m a father, and he’s a horrible, horrible, horrible father, but sometimes you can still somehow relate. Which makes you want to be a better father. In the 569 pages of “Something Happened” virtually nothing actually happened, but what did happen… was fittingly, fabulously terrible. Yet somehow, through it all, the book was a page turner and I’m really glad I read it. It was unique and unpredictable, and I’ll certainly never forget it.

9 people found this helpful

Helpful

Lenny Robinson

At once boring, sad and scary

Reviewed in the United States on October 19, 2020

Verified Purchase

A ruthless editor would have helped this book a lot -- it could have been trimmed at least 200 pages without losing any of its punch, particularly the chapter about his boy.

But this book DOES have punch -- in the same way, and perhaps even more so, than Catch 22 -- and it is sad in the only way fiction can be -- by being truthful.

"Something happened". Those words are ominous. A man sees his teenage daughter, who is nasty to him, and thinks about when she was a little cheerful baby in a high chair -- how did she become that nasty teenager? When -- how -- did that transition occur? "Something happened".

This book is scary, because it feels truthful, even if (I hope) we can't relate to Bob Slocum -- because that truth is still there, lingering, hopefully at a safe distance from the reader, and the truth that this book puts forward was described best by Kurt Vonnegut, in his review of the book, in which he said: "Many lives, judged by the standards of the people who live them, are simply not worth living." What a jab!

2 people found this helpful

Helpful

Christine Menendez

Necessary reading

Reviewed in the United States on November 28, 2005

Verified Purchase

I had forgotten about Heller for thirty years until a literary friend reminded me of him and suggested this book. So, I've read it. And been mesmerized by it despite the fact that there really is no plot and it is not particularly likeable. Here we are, eavesdropping into the thoughts of a guy who has the upper middle class dream and yet is miserable. He thinks alright: about what he wants and how he'll get it, about the fact that getting what he wants is not satisfying, about how much he hates and distrusts everyone. But he never really examines his own life. His honesty is very limited in this sense. The guy, Bob Slocum, is not a very likeable fellow. He is selfish and self-indulgent and cruel and even solipsistic to an extent. But we cannot help but turn page after page of his mental ramblings.

I know that everyone considers this book to be about the effect of corporate America on the individual, but I think there is a lot more to it.

It is also the story of a particular individual and how he handles his life, or doesn't handle it. How he goes wrong. One reviewer said that this is a "sick book". I disagree. The book records the thoughts and actions of a rather sick individual but rather than applaud those thoughts and actions it holds them up for inspection.

This is also a book which is unforgettable. I find myself thinking about this guy and the tangled webs he weaves and shaking my head in frustration at his stupidity and cluelessness.

From a literary standpoint, this is an interesting book with its stream of consciousness ramblings and two and three page paragraphs. Works very well. Very well, indeed.

Both from the standpoint of great literature and that of psychology this is a book which should not be missed.

16 people found this helpful

Helpful

elizabeth b

Greatest overlooked novel!

Reviewed in the United States on July 4, 2020

Verified Purchase

A must-read. Written in an amazing style, basically in statements, but conveying deep emotion, this is a great book which is the story of so many of us trapped in our own fears and insecurities.
Highly recommended.

2 people found this helpful

Helpful

sns1102

This was also the perfect progression after the end of Mad Men

Reviewed in the United States on August 7, 2015

Verified Purchase

I don't know how much this would have resonated with me when I was in my twenties but anyone who has worked in a professional or office environment and is in their thirties will appreciate the humor and brilliance of this book. The stream of consciousness is tough sometimes to get through but ultimately its really necessary to convey the story of the narrator and his borderline insanity (if not complete insanity).

This was also the perfect progression after the end of Mad Men. Definitely felt like this would have been the next progression of the series and an eye opener into the post 60's white male battle with cultural change.

4 people found this helpful

Helpful

Brian

"Too Real" is the only legitimate criticism I've heard

Reviewed in the United States on December 21, 2008

Verified Purchase

The title fits the book perfectly. This is basically the very honest narrative of a character (Bob) whose life didn't quite turn out the way he wanted. In the process of exploring his past, there doesn't seem to be a single "fork in the road" moment to trace back where everything went bad. Instead, as is so much more common, he sees innumerable minute compromises... no individual one a keystone to the life he has lived, but each one an incremental step towards the place where he now finds himself. To be sure, the protagonist is flawed- maybe even deserves your contempt. Some people are not comfortable with that. Bob does seem a bit too at ease with his infidelities and the cold, loveless way he measures up members of his own family is hard to sympathize with... but it does not make him unrealistic. Unfortunately, it makes him more realistic, and the author is just calling the world as he sees it. There are plenty of works of great fiction which still "feel" like fiction, but this is fiction which feels real- this could really be an interview with an actual person (if anybody is so introspective, honest, and insightful as Bob), which is testiment to the Joseph Heller's craft and honesty.

9 people found this helpful

Helpful

Top reviews from other countries

Graham G Grant

Tragicomic portrait of a slow-motion midlife crisis

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on January 25, 2020

Verified Purchase

Bob Slocum is a middle-ranking, philandering executive at a nameless firm, living an increasingly empty life while stuck in a loveless marriage to an alcoholic. He’s a father of three, and one child is brain-damaged. At work, he’s surrounded by sociopathic bosses, but a promotion beckons. Bored by his job, Slocum is energised by the prospect. But he knows he’s just one of many interchangeable cogs in a massive bureaucratic machine. The novel is really a portrait of a mind in the grip of a midlife crisis, repeatedly looking back to Slocum’s own past, his relationships with his family, and his mistresses. It’s packed with clever and poignant observations about life, and probably at its strongest on the black comedy of office politics. There are definite precursors here of Bret Easton Ellis’s American Psycho, as Slocum has a similar sense of emotional insularity, and cold alienation. He’s also conscious of social status, and the importance of dress sense, in much the same way as Patrick Bateman. He despairs of his life, and his inability to effect change, despite outward material success. But certain events, both good and bad, are beyond his control. There are moments of acute political incorrectness and even racism. But the novel - published in 1974 - is of its time, reflecting the (unreconstructed) attitudes of its protagonists. Many passages are lengthy and obsess about detail - it’s a kind of stream-of-consciousness; darting from one memory or preoccupation to another. At times, this can make it a challenging read. But there’s a raw honesty to this novel, and many beautifully crafted sentences and piercingly accurate observations. It’s a fascinating read. I never really enjoyed Catch-22 (abandoning it fairly early on), though may now revisit. By contrast, I raced through Something Happened and found it deeply compelling, and often moving.

4 people found this helpful

Amazon Customer

Book Review

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on January 4, 2019

Verified Purchase

My wife stole this book and is still reading it. We don’t really talk anymore but I heard her laughing while reading it.

10 people found this helpful

James Martindale

Not for me...

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on December 16, 2016

Verified Purchase

I was encouraged to read this book after reading Catch-22 and completely loving it. Unfortunately, I didn't feel that this book met the same standards. The book felt very repetitive and depressing. Heller hammers home the unfulfilling nature of the life of the protaganist (Bobby Slocum) like a maniac with a pneumatic drill, recounting endless tales upon tales that demonstrate how deeply unsatisfying Slocum's life is. It is all very moving and upsetting, and after 400 pages of this kind of story, you're left very miserable. I'm not saying that the role of a book is to make you happy, but this book adds gratuitous misery that adds nothing to your understanding of the book or the world but leaves you feeling deeply unsatisfied. The plot moved very slowly, and when the "something" finally did happen, I didn't feel the same punch in the gut that I did at the end of Catch-22 - the unending torment left me mostly desensitised to any more tragedy. Overall, if you loved Catch-22 and are looking for something just as good, then don't get this. It's a bit rubbish really.

2 people found this helpful

lionheart

A bit slow

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on April 23, 2014

Verified Purchase

This book has you gripped at the beginning with plenty of wit. But as the title states something happens. But not until the end and really not worth a complete novel for. It does repeat itself a lot. It is rather slow, and the outburst of wit a little to sparce.
It does however make you think you are not as bad as you thought you were.
Well packaged and delived on time.

One person found this helpful

Anthony

Five Stars

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on January 13, 2016

Verified Purchase

memorable work

One person found this helpful

See all reviews

Follow the Author

Something Happened Audio Cassette – February 1, 1981

Customers who viewed this item also viewed

What other items do customers buy after viewing this item?

Editorial Reviews

From the Publisher

Product details

About the author

Joseph Heller

Customer reviews

Top reviews from the United States

There was a problem filtering reviews right now. Please try again later.

Top reviews from other countries