Portrait of an Artist, as an Old Man

by Joseph Heller

Book Overview

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? That first novel, the one that... This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0743202007
• ISBN13: 9780743202008
• Release Date: June 2000
• Publisher: Simon & Schuster
• Length: 233 Pages
• Weight: 0.95 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.9" x 5.9" x 8.8"

Customer Reviews

A Still Life

As the twilight of his life approaches, Eugene Pota, legendary author, is trying to wrestle one last, great novel out of his head and onto the page. Yet everything he tries isn't good enough - not anything that would sell and possibly make him some movie money, or recapture his earlies success. That is the premise for Joseph Heller's last book, "Portrait Of An Artist, As An Old Man", an author's journey to finish one last novel before he (and possibly his legend) dies. Eugene Pota is suffering from severe writer's block. His best ideas have been used up in previous works; his most imaginary and catchy sentences have been used by other authors. He has no where left to turn except to other masterful works and try to rework them from a modern viewpoint. And overwhelmingly he comes to the conclusion that he has lost his touch. Readers follow his struggling journey through draft after draft of stories that will never be, a "literature of despair" that Pota recognizes in many famous authors whose final years were marked with misery and neglect, their literary star burned out. Joseph Heller has done a remarkable job at opening up a writer's world to a world of readers. As readers follow Pota on his quest for one last great idea, they struggle as he searches for that creativity that forever eludes him. Heller intersperses Pota's efforts with witty ponderments about famous authors, a treasure trove of trivia and homage for any bibliophile to love. Heller's trademark humor in place, he makes Pota's impossible quest poignant, quirky and deeply realisitc.

Lament in Old Age

Joseph Heller was indecisive about what his final great work should be. He explored many different avenues, but still found himself indecisive. Through the character Eugene Pota, "Pota" being an acronym for Portrait of an Artist, Heller explores the journey to his final novel. While this is not as critically acclaimed as some of Heller's others works, it is one of the best books I have read this year. Many of the great authors found their lives ending in loneliness and tragedy. Knowing this, Pota sought to end his career with one last great novel. Ideally this book would be so successful that he could explore a movie option. Along the way to this new novel, he pays homage to many tragic authors such as Mark Twain, Franz Kafka, Jack London, and many others. With the biting humor of Joseph Heller, Pota begins writing a literary idea in the book only to rip it to shreds a few pages later. The book is written with sections that alternate between the life of Eugene Pota and Heller's real-life efforts to settle on a novel to write. Well-read individuals will enjoy this book tremendously. Those that have enjoyed Heller's humor in his other works will certainly embrace his more obscure final work. This book is a wonderful little gem.

A Catch-22 of Another Color

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.

A Stellar Conclusion to a Master's Legacy.

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

Not like others

This story by Heller is not like his other novels- or for that matter anyone's other novels. The perspective and unique humor kept me interested throughout the whole book. I found myself not wanting to put it down, which is a quality I often times look for (like most people) If you like Heller-read this book.