Picture This

Heller's Catch-22 was probably the most popular novel at Maine Township South High School. My one attempt at reading it while on study break in the libary one Friday afternoon was circumvented by a brush up the nape of my neck. Dean Elbert Smith, objecting to the feel of it, a tapered bristle being required, told me then and there that I was suspended until the hair was cut to regulation. I returned the copy of Heller to my friend Richard who was sitting in front of me, marvelled with him about [...]

Я не люблю науку историю. Потому как это и не наука вовсе В самом скучном виде - это бесконечный список событий с датами. В самом вздорном виде - это попытки историков (каждого на свой лад) установить (измыслить? реконструировать? вообразить?) связи между этими событиями из сп� [...]

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 heart's a di [...]

This is a book which is quite different from Catch-22 and attempts to compare the two wouldn't be doing it justice. Still, I am going to do it. Compared to Catch-22, this is a much more sophisticated book, it deals predominantly with art and intellectuals, and their lives. The centre piece of this book is a painting by Rembrandt which has "Aristotle" with his hand on a bust of "Homer" as he ponders vacantly. I use the quotes because the book tells us: nothing is what it seems. It's a painting wh [...]

Imaginem que iniciam a leitura de uma obra de um autor cujos romances anteriores haviam considerado excelentes. Imaginem que o autor em questão tem uma voz extremamente única - deliciosamente satírica, irónica e espirituosa - na qual anseiam por voltar a mergulhar. Imaginem ainda que a sinopse do volume da obra que se propõem a ler descreve-a como sendo constituída pelos pensamentos e considerações do quadro "Aristótles contemplando o busto de Homero" de Rembrandt van Rijn que, de algum [...]

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.

An absolute gem of a brilliant little book that is nothing like anything you've read before. Not a quick read, you rather have to go slow and contemplate, but incredibly rewarding.

Maybe later. Not what I wanted to read right now. I did 40 pages.

“Picture This” is a book that is remarkable on many levels. The concept for the novel itself is almost genius, and the execution of that concept is no mean feat, and Mr. Heller pulls it off nicely.It is amazing how this novel, published in 1988, feels like it was written yesterday about very current events. It just goes to show you how much history is a cycle of events and how much Western Civilization (and all civilization) just rotate through the same stories again and again. Page 101 of t [...]

I'm a little embarrassed, but it took me a few years to finish this book I had tons of other books to read for school and work, but this novel is a bit demanding, as well. Heller does something original, as far as I know, in the history of literature. He tells the story of Rembrandt painting Aristotle contemplating a bust of Homer. One the very first page, we find out that the painting of Aristotle can observe the world, think, and feel, but cannot move. (I know, it's impossible, just like Toy [...]

Picture This is a really good book that should be and could be a masterpiece. The seeds for it are sewn throughout. Unfortunately, most of them are fallow seeds and fail to germinate. The amount that this book accomplishes is very impressive. Its critique of history is never boring, but also never extravagantly exaggerated. Heller has done a rare thing here that I've never seen duplicated elsewhere. The main problem it suffers from is pacing, and I can't even explain why it is a problem. The pac [...]

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.

If you liked Good as Gold, and you like the idea of hearing from Aristotle on history and such, you'll like this book, because it trots out the same sort of rickety framework for what -- in Kurt Vonnegut's hands -- would probably have turned out to be a book of essays that, freed from the need to be a novel, would have been much more entertaining and illuminating.

This book whetted my youthful appetite for art and history and philosophy all together.

I came to Joseph Heller's Picture this, for a second time. My warning should have been that I remembered nothing from my first read. I am a J Heller fan. I can quote much of Catch 22 by heart. I still bristle at those who call him a One hit Wonder. I took the extra try to get through Something Happened and am glad that I did. Picture This, in this, my second read through was aggravating.Picture This is something of an experimental novel. There is not a plot so much as a central story line. The p [...]

Amazing. A book about a painting by Rembrandt and the story behind it. It's not a mere account of events but a decription of life conditions in the 17th century Netherlands as well as Ancient Greece. It refers to a number of paintings by the Grand Master that I immediately wanted to see in the great and accessibile gallery of google. Parts of philosophers' views (mainly those of Socrates, Plato, Aristotle) are intertwined in the narrative and parts of Plato's dialogues are sometimes used (at lea [...]

This book is definitely not for everyone. If you like light reading about the lives of Aristotle, Socrates, and Plato, then you'll probably like it. I thoroughly enjoyed Heller's writing on Rembrandt's life. I learned a lot of amusing details there. The bits on Plato and Aristotle are boring. Socrates, at least, is always interesting to read about. Heller is better at writing about the students these philosophers taught or people they knew such as Alexander the Great and Pericles. His opinions o [...]

A post-modernist account of Plato, Socrates, Aristotle and Rembrandt. It's hard not to love Catch-22, but even if you do, this is a very hard slog.There are occasional bon mots -- "The motion in the Athenian Assembly to invade Syracuse to restore order in Sicily was deceitful, corrupt, stupid, chauvinistic, irrational and suicidal. It carried with a large majority." -- but they weren't enough to sustain my interest.

Brilliant in its conception and its delivery. It's like talking back to history and we find not much has changed. Two principle truths evolve, we never learn from our mistakes and there is no form of good governmentever! It is also an insightful history lesson that changes your outlook and perspective from the one dimensional view of history we are fed.

Про Рембрандта, Сократа и Аристотеля. Как Рембранд рисовал Аристотеля, когда тот думал о Платоне. Замут еще тот, люблю такие. Много про него думала, очень много. Выводы утешительные )"Рембрандт не мог позволить себе Рембрандта.""Он был еще одним искателем логической вразумит� [...]

Got bored on Ancient Greece parts :)

Dark humor, dark history and unexpected parallels. Everything to likeAnd nothing to dislike about this book.

Оригиналност без цел и структура. Поне в моите очи, поне сега.

Now, I'm not naive. I understand, after -- at the time I read this -- seven years of reading him that any factual assertion made by Joseph Heller should be taken with a full packet of salt, but the history, philosophy, and art analysis of this book make it particularly readable. The bizarre angle's interesting, Heller's equally cynical and humane sense of humor carries it a good part of the way (as it usually does) and, fuck me, I really do feel like I learned something.

I'm not sure what's more impressive about "Picture This". Is it Joseph Heller's chameleon-like ability to write something that in no way feels anything like any other book he's ever written, while still managing to be distinctly Hellerian? Or is it his ability to combine together such a disparate cacaphony of elements that aren't even connected by so much as a plot, and still somehow manage to make it work as a novel?According to the book's general description, "Picture This" is supposed to be a [...]

"Игра на въображението" е интелигентен коктейл от епохи, личности и събития. Хелър ги омесва хаотично (дори в самите глави), правейки паралели между минало и настояще. Като пряк свидетел ни връща в Холандия от времето на Рембранд (ХVІІ-ти век) и в древна Гърция на Омир, Сократ, � [...]

Существует ли еще одна книга, хоть сколь-нибудь похожая на «Вообрази себе картину»? Я в этом сомневаюсь.Особенная, необычная и ни на что не похожая книга Хеллера попалась мне совершенно случайно. А именно – прочитав знаменитую «Уловку-22» я решил продолжить изучение Джозеф� [...]

After reading Catch 22 I really did not expect anything likethis book from Joseph Heller. This book is not really a fictionto me, but more of an attempt to fit several parts of historyin the same book.The connection between parts of the book are two fold - first ismore physical - we have a story of Socrates, Plato and Aristotlewho knew each other, Rembrandt who painted Aristotle, theircountries at that moment and Rembrandt'r paintings. Second is morein the field of ideas - historical fate of the [...]

This book really confused me. I was expecting what the jacket said it would be, a story that follows a sentient painting through its life from creation to present day hanging in an art gallery.However the jacket was wrong and the story was split into three parts one about Athens, Aristotle, Plato and Socrates, the second about the Dutch and Rembrandt and the third about Modern Day America.It is a history book that follows no timeline. Each chapter can contain parts from each of the three main st [...]

I really enjoyed the premise of Heller's Picture This. Parts of it were truly engaging. However, much of the narrative followed history in a nearly "history book" kind of way with the choice of what to include and how to include it making it more interesting. Those sections could be very slow and tedious. The novel begins with the painting of Aristotle Contemplating a Bust of Homer by Rembrandt and traces, in a witty narrative style, the creation of the painting; the lives of Rembrandt, Aristotl [...]