Picture This is a novel of ideas that moves across centuries, beginning from Rembrandt's painting of Aristotle contemplating a bust of Homer. Heller connects the painter's Amsterdam, ancient Athens and later European history, reflecting on art, money, war and the way empires rise and decline. Socrates, Plato, Aristotle and Alexander appear alongside Rembrandt and his troubles with debt. The tone is wry and essayistic, with Heller's habit of repetition and irony applied to the long record of human folly. It is a more learned and meditative book than his earlier comedies.