At times charming, at its best insightful about the life of an artist in his seventies—at worst (at least half) the fragments of bad-sounding novels that are never realised.

Nice for me to see that I don’t think the man himself possesses the mindset of Bob Slocum from Something Happened.

And as the blurbs on the book seem to suggest, a master who’s proved himself enough is just mucking around for whatever entertainment might be left in him.

Doesn’t have to be that way though. Some of my favourite living novelists are still testing themselves at least yearly. But it doesn’t have to be THAT way either I guess

Heller’s final novel is both an excellent summation of his career as a writer, and a great examination of what it means to age as a creative person. Funny, original, and inventive to the very last words he wrote.

t captures writer's block perfectly in a humourous and fun-filled narrative.

Joseph Heller was a good man.

Portrait of an Artist is a good, solid read. Heller is witty, and creates a compelling portrait of the protagonist, Eugene Pota. The story centers around Pota's struggles with the creative process and with his own aging, and his difficulties provide good food for thought about what it means to face such challenges. Personally, however, this book wasn't much of a page-turner, perhaps because of the halting style, and it's probably one that I will never come back to, but was still an enjoyable read. More than anything, Portrait of an Artist inspired a re-reading of Catch-22.

This is Joseph Heller's last book, and it's about an author attempting to write his last book. Though he changes the name it seems basically autobiographical, right down to the details of the author's career: first book was a critical and commercial triumph, everything sense has been something of a disappointment. Now old, the author occupies that rarified "widely respected but not widely read" literary ghetto. Time's running short, and he's trying to figure out one last book that'll knock everyone's socks off.

The book goes for a breezy, jokey tone, but it's still just about the most depressing thing I've ever read.

This is a fascinating read, especially if you have any interest in how authors write. In the novel, an old and establish writer wants to write one more novel that will be his best and last. Some of the ideas that the older author starts are laugh out loud funny, but the fact that I got through the book without caring whether the author succeeded or not made the book not as memorable as I would have liked. It was a quick read, and certainly worth the time.

In this book, Joseph Heller - a once-successful author who struggled to write another good book - tells the story of Eugene Pota - a once-successful author who is struggling to a write another good book.

Basically a wink and nod at his own career, Heller tells Pota's story through fits and starts of discarded book ideas. Reading it, it became apparent that these were indeed Heller's own incomplete ideas and that he was determined to make something useful out of the notes he must have had lying around as he approached death. While I applaud the creative effort for getting them out there via this novel idea, it doesn't really make for a very interesting or compelling read.

Though some of the bits and pieces of the incomplete novels were OK, the most enjoyable part of Portrait of an Artist, As an Old Man was the inside look it provided into Heller's thought process and the bit in which Pota delivers a talk entitled "The Literature of Despair" giving sad insight into the personal lives of writers like Hemingway, Jack London, Joseph Conrad, Samuel Clemens, and others.

Man, talk about self-aware. This is a semi-autobiographical tale of an author who had huge success with his first book, but not much success thereafter. The book chronicles the author's attempt to start a new work that will revitalize his career and his coming to terms with the fact that he will probably never top his first and greatest work. I thought this was funny and charming. If you're going to read anything by Joseph Heller after Catch-22, read this.

I got this as a present. Don't remember much about the book. I guess it's not that good.

Although it is kinda cliche that this book is about a writer writing about writer's block and the character is a Mary-Sue, I enjoyed the book. I have always been a fan of Joseph Heller's writing so that definitely clouds my opinion, but overall the book was written in an enjoyable manner.

This came off more as a gimmick than a novel. Perhaps that's the joke and I just didn't find it as amusing. This is the second book by Heller other than Catch-22 (Closing Time being the other, though that was a long time ago) that I've been less than thrilled with, but that's part of the plot here pretty much. Have a ton of failed novel ideas? Why not combine them into a novel about failed novel ideas? Heller makes it work in a way, which is somewhat impressive, but I still found it more mildly amusing than actually enjoyable. It just felt thin and a little tired.