God Knows Summary
Two social concerns predominate in God Knows, both of which Joseph Heller has addressed in earlier novels.
One is the breakdown of the family, which Heller first fully treated in Something Happened (1974; see separate entry).
In God Knows we witness incredible violence, antipathy, and back stabbing within the family unit, made all the more complicated by the fact that David's offspring are from different wives. The other concern is the human fixation upon gaining and maintaining power, which Heller exposed in Good as Gold (1979; see separate entry).
In God Knows, politics intrudes in the relationships between Saul and David and between David and his sons over succession to the kingship, and even in David's relationship with Bathsheba as she withholds sex to manipulate him to follow her will in choosing a successor.
God Knows focuses most intently upon the father/son relationship, particularly David's...
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Study Pack
The God Knows Study Pack contains:
God Knows Short Guide
Joseph Heller Biographies (5)
9,017 words, approx. 31 pages
Joseph Heller (1923-1999) was a popular and respected writer whose first and best-known novel, Catch-22 (1961), is considered a classic of the post-World War II era. Presenting human existence as absu...
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5,394 words, approx. 18 pages
When Joseph Heller learned that the New York Times Book Review's response to his first novel was negative, he and his family were terribly depressed. "Waiting for that review to come out," he later to...
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3,058 words, approx. 11 pages
Jospeh Heller was born 1 May 1923 in Brooklyn, New York. His father died in 1927. After graduating from Abraham Lincoln High School in 1941, Heller joined the Twelfth Air Force. He was stationed in Co...
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3,265 words, approx. 11 pages
Despite his relatively small output, Joseph Heller is considered a major contemporary author. His reputation rests principally on his first book, the experimental antiwar novel Catch-22, one of the mo...
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12,613 words, approx. 43 pages
Joseph Heller has established himself as a major satirist in the field of contemporary American fiction. A new phrase was added to the American lexicon from the title of his first novel Catch-22 (1961...
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Joseph Heller
Joseph Heller
Joseph Heller