Picture This (Picador Books)

by JosephHeller (Author)

• Used

  Paperback
  1989

  $3.35

• Used

  Paperback
  2000

  $3.35

  Picture this: Rembrandt is creating his famous painting of Aristotle contemplating the bust of Homer. As soon as he paints an ear on Aristotle, Aristotle can hear. When he paints an eye, Aristotle can see. And what Aristotle sees and hears and remembers from the ancient past to this very moment provides the foundation for this lighthearted, freewheeling jaunt through 2,500 years of Western Civilization. Picture This is an incisive fantasy that digs deeply into our illusions and customs. Nobody but Joseph Heller could have thought of a novel like this one. Nobody but Heller could have executed it so brilliantly.

• Used

  Hardcover
  1988

  $3.35

  In 1961, the Metropolitan Museum in New York paid $2,3000,000 for the painting Aristotle contemplating the bust of Homer by Rembrandt. It was the highest price ever paid for a painting. Rembrandt received 500 guilders for the same picture and fought off debtors all his life. Heller examines the painting out of its frame as a representation of history, travelling through Greece, Holland, England and America encompassing life from 500 BC to the present day. The author also wrote Catch 22 , Something Happened , Good as Gold and God Knows .