Bob Solcum probably wouldn’t like you. It’s not personal- except, it kind of is. Don’t feel too bad about it though; he doesn’t really like anybody- not his wife, not his daughter, not his sons, not his colleagues, not his mother. Solcum is a veteren in the 50s hunting down the American dream- 3 kids and a wife, affairs and a possible promotion- and finding that this idealized life is closer to a nightmare. Working everyday in an unnamed corporation, Solcum relives memories of his teenage years to pass the time; it’s his escape route from the petty office quarrels- of which he is not often innocent- and the arguments within his home- of which he is commonly the instigator. Heller doesn’t bother with giving Solcum a purpose in life let alone a plot or story arc. Nope, Solcum’s a regular guy: he’s neither brave enough to be a hero nor evil enough to be a villain. Instead, we watch, sometimes with horror and sometimes faint amusement, as Solcum muddles through his time as a failing patriarch in Suburban America.
Superman always remembers to do his laundry and Captain America never forgets to take out the trash, but all Bob Solcum does is splash in the murky puddles of human mind. There’s a reason that most authors make the hero affable: it’s absolutely shocking when the protagonist declares that he no longer considers his brain-damaged son Derek “as one of my children. Or even as mine. I try not to think of him at all”. Alright, thinks the reader, this is just Solcum letting off steam. He doesn’t really mean it. But he does. He’s just as serious when he describes the way he rapes his wife and the way he wants to attack his daughter and the way he cheats with younger women. He is such an unlikable antihero that readers continuously hope for the moment in which they develop Stockholm Syndrome; at least when that happens the similarities they note between themselves and the protagonist will seem less repulsive. With the flip of each page, the reader tries harder and harder to ignore the slithering voice inside his skull that indentifies parallels between himself and Solcum; however, by mid-book the voice is growing louder, and the reader is forced to confront what a self-help book could describe as his ‘inner-Solcum’. Heller’s concious choice to make Solcum the star means the reader is forced to recognize and observe all of his behaviors, even the terrible ones that readers would rather ignore than identify with. Let’s be honest: on some level we’re all deceitful and cowardly and self-loathing and righteous. On some level we’re all Bob Solcum- neither a Moriarty nor Mother Teresa- thinking that “the problem is that I don’t know who or what I really am.” Heller conjures this terrifying truth effortlessly. “This is black humor indeed,” wrote Kurt Vonnegut in his review of Heller’s work, “with the humor removed”. Reading Something Happened was like being thrust into an alien universe where the standard rules of literature barely- if they even did- apply; sometimes it’s uniqueness was amazing; occasionally, tiresome. The entire tale is told from Solcum’s stream-of-conciousness, which is sardonic and witty, yet also depressing and lonesome. 5-second-memories can span pages as he reflects on why that girl didn’t sleep with him when he was 19 and why blind people disturb him. Sometimes, this is welcoming; sometimes, sickening. Hearing about his endless misery at times seems profound and makes the reader realize what a visionary Heller is, but, occasionally, like the opening for an antidepressant commercial and makes the reader wish he could just change channels. By the time one is a few hundred pages in he starts to wonder: for crying out loud why on earth can’t anyone just be happy?! “I’ve got the decline of American civilization and the guilt and ineptitude of the whole government of the United States to carry around on these poor shoulders of mine,” he grumbles, and it’s no exaggeration because by the end of the book Heller’s prose has made the reader believe it. Next time you’re flipping through channels and find yourself gawking at those rednecks with speech impediments or those girls with fake tans, remember not to identify with them. Remember, remember, remember not to let it get to you that you have just as little idea of what you want your future to be, that you justify all of your actions with twisted morals, that you are just as lost as they are. Most of all, if you want to maintain this flimsy veil of righteousness and would prefer not to explore the fact that maybe you’re not so perfect either, don’t read Something Happened.
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