(4.7/5.0) There’s that moment in American Beauty, just after Kevin Spacey gets shot in the head, when the director goes for broke, doling out an abundance of voiceover and somber piano and transporting us into the bits of brain now splattered across Annette Bening’s kitchen. From there, the plot stalls, we enter an ethereal space, and trying not to be snide, Spacey delivers that famous final monologue into which Alan Ball has managed to stuff all kinds of cloying signifiers. Remember that final monologue? With the autumn leaves and the grandmother’s hands? And the clouds and the ballerinas and the crackling fireworks and the first time Lester got to see his Cousin Tony’s brand new Firebird? All of it coming in this grainy, slow-mo black and white like it’s a commercial pushing Omega watches? Well imagine if it had been written by someone else. In the case of Something Happened, by someone whose perverse wealth of compassion manifests only through humor and cruelty. So much of this book is shocking and awful, and there’s so much of this book “(ha, ha).” It’s one of those vortex novels, where the plot is secondary to the characterization and the mood (in this case, Bob Slocum and his manic alienation). All we ever read about is Slocum’s wife, his children, his first love, Virginia, all those other women, his two hundred bosses, and next year’s keynote address in Puerto Rico. This goes on for over five hundred pages, all in Slocum’s voice, and what’s more, his monologue swirls in loops, so we get to revisit points he’s already passed. He tells corny jokes. He golfs. He hopes for little more than a middle management job in a firm whose products are never revealed. He mines the company phonebook and creates info-graphics for fun. But by dealing exclusively in the ultra-mundane and by departing from everything that made his debut novel fantastic, Heller gives us a character who is so intensely realized that we forgive him for his anger and his cowardice. We see his monologue as an elegy for life, as a yearning for everything he’s realized won’t ever again happen to him.Form Pages 364-365:tSomething terribly tragic is going to happen to my little boy (because I don’t want it to) and nothing at all will happen to Derek. Police and ambulances will never come for him. I see no future for my boy (the veil won’t lift, I don’t get a glimmer, I see no future for him at all) and this is always a heart-stopping omen. When I look ahead, he isn’t there. I can picture him easily the way he is today, perhaps tomorrow, but not much further. He is never older, never at work or study as a doctor, writer, or businessman, never married (the poor kid never even goes with a girl), never in college or even in high school; he is never even an adolescent with a changing voice, erupting skin, and sprouts of sweating hair discoloring his upper lip and jaws. I mourn for him (my spirit weeps. Where does he go?). He doesn’t pass nine. He stops here. (This is where he must get off. Every day may be his last.) Either he has no future or my ability to imagine him present in mine is blunted. I view the empty space ahead without him dolorously. Silence hangs heavily. I miss him. I smell flowers. There are family dinners, and he is not present. What will I have to look forward to if I can’t look forward to him? Golf. My wife’s cancer? A hole in one. And after that? Another hole in one.t“I made a hole in one,” I can repeat endlessly to people for years to come.tWhen obscurity and old age descend upon me like thickest night and shrivel me further into something small and noticeable, I can always remember: “I made a hole in one.” tOn my deathbed in my nursing home, when visitors I don’t recognize arrive to pay their respects with gifts of very sweet candy and aromatic slices of smoked, oily fish, I may still have it in my power to recall I made a hole in one when I was in my prime— I’m in my prime now and I haven’t made one yet. It’s something new to start working toward— and it may cause me to smile. A hole in one is a very good thing to have. t“Will you believe it?” I can say. “I once made a hole in one.”t“Have another piece of smoked fish.”t“A hole in one.”t“I don’t know what else one can do with a hole in one except talk about it.” t“I made a hole in one.”t“Eat your fish.”
This is an amazingly great book...and I generally recommend against reading it.This book takes place entirely inside the head of a middle-aged, upper middle-class, middle manager. He is not a nice person. He is not a unique person. He is not a particularly interesting person...except for the stunning detail in which we get to know him. We see--no--we live through his insecurities, his sex drive, his job, his nostalgia, his insecurities, his wife, his sex drive, his humor, his insecurities, his daughter, his nostalgia, his insecurities, his son, his sex drive, his neuroses, his other son, his humor -- and yes, like a real person his thoughts often return to the same tracks they have covered before. I fully believe that 99% of readers will want to yell "Let Me Out Of This Man's Skull!" within the first hundred pages because it is such a cramped and uncomfortable place to be in.However, for the other 1% let me give two reasons for why I liked the book. (Hmm, I don't think I "liked" this book and I certainly didn't "enjoy" it, but in the absence of a more nuanced verb let it stay as "liked".)The first reason is the multi-layered portrayal of the character. Consider the instance when Bob visits his son's gym teacher because his son hates some of the activities. Bob is intimidated by the gym teacher because he himself wasn't very good at sports. He feels superior because he is a business manager and not a mere gym teacher. He feels love for his son. He feels his son is right not to enjoy gym because he himself didn't. He feels his son is a wimp because he isn't competitive in sports. He wants to get his way to help his son. He wants to get his way because that proves he is a more powerful man than the gym teacher. This mixture of the good, bad, and banal is ever present in the descriptions of Bob's thoughts and actions.The second reason is that Heller created an unsympathetic character and made him fully human. The man is despicable. His is an adulterer, a liar, a manipulator, and a betrayer. Yet somehow for me instead of repulsion and denial ("Thank God I am not a sinner like him") Bob evoked repulsion and empathy ("There but for the grace of God go I"). Because as the reader I am so enmeshed in Bob's insecurity and despair, I understand where his impulse to lash out comes from at the same time as I cringe at his behavior. And aren't I a little bit of Bob, speaking thoughtlessly and selfishly just because I feel clever or I feel hurt?
What do You think about Something Happened (1997)?
This is the sad story about Bob Slocum: business man, husband and father. Written in 1st person, largely inside the mind of Slocum, we see true unhappiness as he pines for a better career, has unsatisfying affairs with secretaries and office workers, and constantly wishes for a better family and better life. The drive of this tell-all confessional of Slocum's, is the curiosity as to which, of all his unhappy situations, will be the most destructive. I thought, as I neared the end, that Heller might not give us one single incident, but he does, and it's a good one. Something Happened is satirical, witty, tragic and absolutely a book worth reading.
—Alissa
If you're looking for a film that underscores a lot of the same themes as this book, Revolutionary Road is that film. Both deal with the futility of having a 9-5 job without any sense of purpose and both have the potential to depress you utterly if you let it.In regards to the book itself, it is well written. Heller knows how to express images extremely well. However, the whole book is hundreds of pages longer than it needs to be. When reading this, dont expect your typical plot line of rise, climax, fall, conclusion. This book is most definitely a descent. I was drawn in by the first section of the book and I would recommend even reading that on its own as a challenge to one's self. From there it goes into a sick Freudian trip which involves a lot of obsessive thinking, fornication and heavy drinking.If Bob Slocum is any kind of hero, he's the anti-hero because he's sick, vindicative, futile, and weak. Hopefully no one aspires to what he is despite what is seen as "accomplishments." I kept reading thinking there would be some kind of redemption to speak of but don't Bob Slocum would agree, dont get your hopes up.
—Heather
Many have lived a life similar to that of Heller's main character, Bob Slocum. I also have a daughter and a son close to the ages of the characters within, and have found it astounding the way he'd sometimes hit the nail on the head with resemblance in many of the conversations between father and offspring, spouse as well. The irony and comparability to my marriage, and life in general, was both hysterical and intense. I have a disabled son too, and know quite well the difficulties and complications that can and will arise, and the stress that it can place on a marriage as well. Heller did a good job describing that (although I must credit myself with being a bit stronger about it than Bob Slocum ... to a point). There were differences as well, traits of Slocum that I didn't exactly care for, or couldn't seem to relate to; for he was in no way a perfect human being, yet neither am I, nor are most of us. Though he did seem to be a bit of a bigot, a hypocrite, a womanizer and a male chauvinist, and somewhat vain and self-centered as well, these were mere flaws in the personality of a man who was basically fairly decent and normal. As different as we all may be, we all have our individual and personal flaws. Good people do have a tendency to struggle through life a lot, blindlessly at times ... constantly trying to figure it out by asking questions such as: "Why?" This was a personable, brave, and heartfelt story from Heller, of one man's bout with fatherhood and modern life and its trials and tribulations. Though a tad depressing at times, so is life ... it's not always easy. I've read 'Something Happened' a couple of times and enjoyed it immensely both reads, though years between each. I may even read it again someday.
—Brian Holland
