Portrait of an Artist, As an Old Man [Deckle Edge] [Hardcover]

Joseph Heller (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: June 12, 2000

In a front-page obituary, The New York Times described Joseph Heller as "the darkly surreal novelist who spoke to a generation." Heller, whose famous bestseller Catch-22 brought him universal acclaim as a literary icon, finished his final novel just before his death in 1999. Portrait of an Artist, as an Old Man is a poignant and fascinating foray into the mind of an artist as he examines his life, seeking a source of inspiration for his last book.

Imagine an author -- primarily a novelist -- who has become a legend...no, more than that -- an icon! In his own lifetime, all because of the first novel he wrote, many years before.

Imagine that the novelist -- his name here is Eugene Pota -- realizes that the days are dwindling and he needs to come up with one more novel. But what should he write about?

There's a kind of futility to his search for a subject, of course, because, like so many noted novelists before him, all of Pota's output since that first landmark novel has been scrutinized and dissected and poked at -- and found wanting. That first novel, the one that launched him, the one that made him into the cultural icon that he seems fated to remain, has become a touchstone for his life, and his life since has been pretty much a critical failure. Oh, there were some financial successes, some New York Times bestsellers, but nothing anyone seemed to like half as much as that first one. And now, when he's faced with the need, the compulsion to write one more novel, take one final stab at the even bigger one, what should it be?

Portrait of an Artist, as an Old Man follows the journey that Eugene Pota undertakes in his effort to settle on the subject of his final work. In his quest, he talks to his wife, Polly; he talks to his agent; he talks to his editor; he talks to old lovers; he even talks to his doctor. But while everyone has ideas, no one offers any real answers.

Along the way in his search, Heller -- through Pota -- pays homage to a number of favorite authors, including Samuel Clemens and Franz Kafka, and discusses the problems that have plagued so many writers in the past who enjoyed early successes and who then fell out of favor (among them, F. Scott Fitzgerald, Henry James, Jack London, and Joseph Conrad). And at one point Pota almost convinces himself of the futility of trying again, as he speaks to a college gathering on the subject "The Literature of Despair."

Written with sections that alternate between Eugene Pota's real-life efforts to settle on what novel to write and his many and various false starts on writing that novel, Portrait of an Artist, as an Old Man is a rare and enthralling look into the artist's search for creativity.

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review

"This author was determined," says the apparently autobiographical narrator of Portrait of an Artist, as an Old Man. "He often appropriated as his own personal infirmity the concluding words of the unnameable voice in Samuel Beckett's The Unnameable, 'I must go on. I can't go on. I'll go on.'" And on his last day on Earth, Joseph Heller was still polishing this, his last and strangest novel. It is essentially an essay about a writer who's exactly like him--old and stuck for an idea for his next book. Seeking inspiration, he chats with his wife, his editors, and his friends, and floats one high-concept scheme after another.

How about a novel about the gangsters who ran Coney Island, the enchanted land of his childhood? Nah, too much plot to concoct. Perhaps he could update a classic: Tom Sawyer as a Harvard MBA, or Kafka's The Metamorphosis transposed to Manhattan. When these don't pan out, Heller takes a stab at mythology, done in the manner of his old pal Mel Brooks. Here Zeus's wife complains about his flagging ardor:

I try to put myself in Leda's place. It could be kind of thrilling, I guess, being overpowered by a huge male swan, especially after realizing it was Zeus.... I'd like to see him take the trouble to surprise me like that, even once. But that doesn't happen. He won't waste tricks like that on me. He never does, he knows he doesn't have to. When he comes to me it's never with anything new, it's always just the same, always just the same old god.

Increasingly desperate, the author tries out titles on his friends, and A Sexual Biography of My Wife stirs some interest. Still, his tentative fictions don't grab you the way the novel's sad, searing reminiscences do. When Heller--I mean, the narrator--has a tearful reunion with his adulterous old flame (who's now stricken with Lou Gehrig's disease), or asks another female acquaintance whether she regrets turning down his long-ago offer of romance, we get a privileged glimpse into the private mind of a very public author. "I want to cap my career with a masterpiece of some kind," the narrator tells his editor. This poignantly discursive book is not a masterpiece, but Joseph Heller did go on trying to the end. --Tim Appelo

From Publishers Weekly

This slim posthumous novel, playing blithely with the idea of an elderly novelist in search of a subject, is the last thing the author of Catch-22 left us. Although not a profound leave-taking, it is nonetheless a pleasant reminder of the author's great charm and fluency. Eugene Pota, Heller's alter ego here, rifles the back corners of his mind for a new novel that will restore to him some of the luster that shone from his earlier efforts. In the beginning he tries to do something with Tom Sawyer, first with a postmodernist Tom on Wall Street, then as a character determined to run down the secrets of success for an American writer. But Pota discovers, in his wry researches into the lives of Tom's own creator, Jack London, Bret Harte, Ambrose Bierce, Herman Melville, Henry James and many others, that a combination of prosperity and cheerfulness are profoundly elusive for an author. This segues into a speech Heller himself used to make about the many afflictions, particularly alcoholism, of noted American writers. Pota toys with the idea of a book to be called The Sexual Biography of My Wife, then realizes he doesn't know enough about women's sexuality, and doesn't like to ask his wife, so he calls on some old flames, and begins a few cautious, elderly flirtations. He plays, too, with the idea of the Creation from God's point of view, has some fun with Hera and Zeus, and engages in regular, despondent talks about his lack of progress with his editor (who is unfortunately about to retire). Some of this is familiar, some is simply rambling, but it is all done with a spirit of faintly irritated self-reproach that is endearing. At the very least, this is a frank and at times funny look at how a legendary American novelist coped with the onset of old age. (June)
Copyright 2000 Reed Business Information, Inc.

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 240 pages
• Publisher: Simon & Schuster; 1St Edition edition (June 12, 2000)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0743202007
• ISBN-13: 978-0743202008
• Product Dimensions: 8.8 x 6 x 1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 14.4 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 4.1 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (20 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #795,518 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Joseph Heller was born in Brooklyn in 1923. In 1961, he published Catch-22, which became a bestseller and, in 1970, a film. He went on to write such novels as Good as Gold, God Knows, Picture This, Closing Time (the sequel to Catch-22), and Portrait of an Artist, as an Old Man. Heller died in December 1999.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

12 of 12 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A Catch-22 of Another Color, December 4, 2002

By 

Kelly Langston-Smith (Atomic City, USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Portrait of an Artist, As an Old Man (Hardcover)

This novel is about the only reasonable way that Joseph Heller could have closed the book on his tumultuous and probably very frustrating career. Being cursed with the blessing of having his very first book, Catch-22, hailed as a literary masterpiece still read by high school juniors everywhere, there was no real way to eclipse his initial offering. When you start at the top, the only place to go is down, and with each successive book, this became painfully apparent. Even his decades later sequel, Closing Time, fell very flat and very far short of Catch-22.
So I was very surprised and very pleased when his final book, Portrait of an Artist as an Old Man, turned out to be vibrant and refreshing and about as good as it gets. It is a frank and honest thinly veiled autobiography about the joys and terrors of being a writer of some acclaim who seems to have run out of steam. The false starts and stops of what this book could have been make the novel even more enticing. Resistant to the idea given by his editor of writing about the process of writing, Eugene Pota is trying to end his career with a grand magnum opus on par with Tom Sawyer or The Odyssey or even a scandalous book about his wife's sex life. And aren't we lucky that he ditched all of those ideas and brought us this rare treat instead. An original work about a writer trying to figure out what to write about.
It is short, it is original and it is a very good read. Bravo on such a courageous choice to close the book on a career that started out with one of the best novels written in the English (or any other) language.

10 of 10 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A Stellar Conclusion to a Master's Legacy., July 14, 2001

By 

Matthew Weaver "cesarfaison" (Spokane) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Portrait of an Artist, As an Old Man (Hardcover)

Writer's block happens.

Joseph Heller apparently knew it well. Before his 1999 death, the famed author of "Catch-22" put his frustrations into fiction, resulting in 2000's "A Portrait of an Artist, as an Old Man," recently released in paperback format.

The story is ingenious, and perhaps eeriely autobiographical. Aging author Eugene Pota (how clever is Heller? Pota = P.O.T.A., or Portrait Of The Artist) is struggling to write his next novel. We, as readers, get to see his latest attempts in action.

They range from a modern day re-telling of Tom Sawyer, a story told from the viewpoint of a gene, a re-telling of a mythological story, another re-telling of a biblical story, and so on. Pota gets a few pages written, but ultimately rejects each one for a variety of reasons (too much research required, it's been done to death, ludicrous concept).

Oh sure, there's the appealing notion of penning a sex book. People will coo and wink naughtily at parties, especially when you reveal your title: "A Sexual Biography of My Wife." (Your wife, in this case Eugene's wife Polly, on the other hand, is none too thrilled.) But when the title is all you've got, well...

Here Heller presents a scarily realistic view of the horrors of writer's block, and proves he has perhaps the only sure-fire method of alleviating it: Write about your writer's block.

In the midst of doing exactly that, Heller presents a three-dimensional figure in Pota. The book lives up to its title, as Eugene feels his age and struggles to capture a glimmer of what he once had. ("Catch-22," anyone?) "Portrait" is very much a story of an artist struggling to keep a grip on his craft, as it is the only thing he has left. It also provides an appealing look into the artist's creative process, and hints as to what was running through Heller's mind while penning his other works, like "Something Happened," "God Knows" and "Picture This."

Also deserving of praise is the way Heller captures the characters of Pota and Polly. Eugene is a man struggling to keep busy and recapture his former glory, which also includes looking in on a couple ex-lovers and old flames, of which there are many. While not quite as three-dimensional as her husband, we see little glimpses of Polly's motivation. And one wonders how the Heller marriage fared in his waning years; if the Potas are as autobiographical as the rest of the novel seems to be, theirs was a marriage that had sunken into mutual distaste and even a hint of hatred brought upon by old age. It's disturbing to behold.

It's a relatively short work, one that doesn't even come close to approaching the magnitude of "Catch-22." Which is exactly Heller's point, and makes "Portrait" all the more breathtaking. This a cautionary tale, both envy-inspiring and frightening to aspiring writers (I tremble as I type this), and a work that could have, in all honesty, probably been written by any struggling poet with a title but no song.

But Heller is the one who wrote it, and he can rest easy in the knowledge that anyone else who dares attempt such a tale will merely be following in his giant footsteps.

6 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars poignant last words, November 28, 2000

By 

Jen (San Francisco, CA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Portrait of an Artist, As an Old Man (Hardcover)

Although Heller's trademark irony, self-effacing sarcasm and appreciation of the absurd are rife throughout the novel, "Portrait" is a radical departure from his previous work. A biographical account of a writer penning what he hopes will be his final masterpiece, the protagonist (obviously Heller himself) fears the inevitable descent into mediocrity. The book, unfortunately, is indeed solidly mediocre in both prose and plot, but is imbued with a certain sadness and poignancy. Fans of "Catch 22" should not expect a sequel in any form, but diehard Heller fans will nonetheless appreciate his literary swan song, which throws this private author into sharper relief than any of his other novels.