God Knows

"I thought I’d choose this instead of Heller’s earlier and better known Catch-22, if only because I read it quite young, and my mother picked the book up to find what I was reading, and read the opening lines of chapter four, I think it is, in which the narrator—the biblical king David of Israel—describes shepherding as being like cunnilingus: ‘dark and lonely work’. I did not know what it meant, but the book was confiscated, and I only finished it much later, and laughed, not just at that, but at many of the salty, sly observations on life and death that David, or Heller, makes. I think it is more personal, in a way. The first-person narrator allows Heller more freedom to indulge himself, often criticising Solomon for stealing his best material and that sort of thing. Lots of biblical references, but brought up to the date—or at least the 20th Century. It’s like listening to Mel Brooks, really."