Picture This : A Novel
by Joseph Heller
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other reviews (showing 1-20 of 164)
i've fancied myself a kind of minor champion of this book for a long while. Catch-22 was one of my first real "favorite" books, and Joseph Heller was one of the first authors I really recognized as having this authorial voice that I could learn from & follow. And Catch-22 is great, terrific, wonderful, everyone knows that . . . but when I read Picture This it appealed to me in this strange dark way which is also wickedly smart, and has always had a unique place in my book-loving he...more
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Read in May, 2005
recommends it for:
Just about anyone
"Aristotle contemplating the bust of Homer thought often of Socrates while Rembrandt dresses him with paint in a white Renaissance surplice and a medieval black robe and encased him in shadows."
Wow.
So reads the first sentence of Joseph Heller's Picture This. Through Rembrandt's painting "Aristotle contemplating a bust of Homer," Heller uses ancient Greece, the Dutch in the seventeenth century, and the modern day to tell the story of the decline of Athens and how it i...more
Wow.
So reads the first sentence of Joseph Heller's Picture This. Through Rembrandt's painting "Aristotle contemplating a bust of Homer," Heller uses ancient Greece, the Dutch in the seventeenth century, and the modern day to tell the story of the decline of Athens and how it i...more
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Captivating fiction of the character Aristotle, in a painting by Rembrandt, who "lives" as he is being painted, travels from the artists studio in Amsterdam to his first owner in Italy, and eventually winds up in the Metropolitan Museum in New York City. Aristotle spends the entire book philosophizing on human nature, especially greed, both for money and power. Heller draws parallels between the fall of the ancient Greek civilization, with that of the later Dutch world power in the tim...more
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recommends it for:
virgins
A glorious coming of age story about a young English boy who attends wizard school and discovers his treasure trove of hidden magical ability whilst cavorting with hirsuite giants and majestic Owls. Wait, I was reading it upside down. Actually, Its a novel about a real painting written from the point of view of the painting itself. Uhmm, yeah.
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Read in December, 2002
Most underrated Heller? (Although, aren't they all underrated apart from Catch-22?)
Picture This is Heller's meditation on art, history, commerce, democracy, and the myths embedded in all four. He paints Socrates, Plato, Aristotle, and Rembrandt the same way he does Yossarian, Slocum, Gold, and King David, and it's remarkable how well they fit into the Heller worldview.
Picture This is Heller's meditation on art, history, commerce, democracy, and the myths embedded in all four. He paints Socrates, Plato, Aristotle, and Rembrandt the same way he does Yossarian, Slocum, Gold, and King David, and it's remarkable how well they fit into the Heller worldview.
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My least favorite of Joe Heller's books. It took be forever to get through and I didn't keep it.
If you're a fan of art, you may like it better than I did. There's nothing particularly offensive about it (or I would have put it in my "thrown with great force" list), it just didn't keep my interest.
If you're a fan of art, you may like it better than I did. There's nothing particularly offensive about it (or I would have put it in my "thrown with great force" list), it just didn't keep my interest.
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Read in January, 1991
This book whetted my youthful appetite for art and history and philosophy all together.
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Read in January, 2006
this is a pretty funny look at history but it really gives a good commentary on today's world.
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