Portrait of an Artist as an Old Man a Novel [Paperback]

Joseph Heller (Author)

Product Details

• Paperback
• Publisher: Simon & Schuster; 1St Edition edition (2000)
• ASIN: B00125U3CW
• Average Customer Review: 4.1 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (20 customer reviews)

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
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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.