\'It\'s a masterpiece, of course, but more than that it shows that there is some such thing as being a simple observer\' Nicci French, IndependentIt was 1932 when Joseph Mitchell first came across Joe Gould, a Harvard-educated vagrant of Greenwich Village.. \'It\'s a masterpiece, of course, but more than that it shows that there is some such thing as being a simple observer\' Nicci French, IndependentIt was 1932 when Joseph Mitchell first came across Joe Gould, a Harvard-educated vagrant of Greenwich Village.