Interesting and unique-it tells the story of an author trying to come up with an idea for his last novel, interspersed with abandoned chapters from various story ideas he abandons.

Originally published on my blog here in June 2001.

Heller's final novel, published posthumously, is about an American author in his seventies, struggling to get started on what he expects to be his final novel. He wants to create something by which he will be remembered, rather than something which will be compared disparagingly to his famous first novel, as all his subsequent fiction has been. (As he says, though, you can only burst triumphantly onto the scene once.)

Like the novel to which it makes clear reference, A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man, there are obviously many autobiographical elements to Heller's tale of Eugene Pota (POTA - Portrait Of The Artist). It is perhaps not intended to be such a general depiction of the nature of the artist (note the title changing "the" to "an"). After all, people in old age are more individual than children and teenagers, simply because they have had more time for their experiences to differentiate them.

The inevitable thing that the reader does is to compare Heller's last novel with his earlier work, precisely what Eugene Pota complains about. It seems to me to be gentler than the earlier novels that I have read, much more resigned to the world even than Closing Time. It is humourous, particularly in the false starts Pota makes toward his final novel, and it is full of ironic references to Heller (at one point Pota complains that he is stuck in a Catch-22, for example). It reads rather like a John Barth novel rather than a Joseph Heller one, and it is certainly much more self-consciously literary in character (which is of course because it is about writing a novel and is part of the joke).

I like Portrait of an Artist, As an Old Man. It may lack the fire of Catch-22, the sense that what you're reading is one of the great novels, but it is clever and enjoyable, gentle, funny and accepting old age with dignity and wry sadness. It is probably Heller's most original novel, with (as always) the exception of his first.

Strasznie nudne... Meta-opowieść o pisarzu u schyłku życia piszącym swoje ostatnie dzieło. Tak jak Heller w trakcie pisania tej powieści.

I'm sorry, but a book that consists largely of the failed attempts of the main character to write a final novel is not worth reading. I've previously read "Catch 22" and "Closing Time" by Heller. The former was a masterpiece, the latter was passable, but I found no redeeming features in the final novel on which Heller settled.

Роман-завещание? Не знаю. Уловка-22 это да. Но не портрет. Даже «Вообрази себе картину» и то было намного лучше. Может быть, сам Хеллер был не такой интересный в жизни, какие были его книги (судя по книжке, в которой он пишет про самого себя) (Кстати, практически к такому же выводу я пришла и в случае с Сью Таунсенд). Видимо так. Очень жаль…

Очень понравилась фраза Геры – я ревнива, потому что сама добродетельна. Логично ))
А еще понравилось – про Тома Соейра и как он ездил по разным писателям, пытаясь разузнать, как заработать писательством.


N.B. Оценку ставлю исключительно из уважения к автору. Если бы не он, поставила бы оценку ниже

Totally unique take on a pseudo autobiography. A million what might have beeen stories pushed aside to find out the last hting he ever wanted to write. Utter Brilliance, turned me into even more of a fan of Heller.

I am still trying to figure out why this book doesn’t work for me when Richard Powers’ Galatea 2.2 does. In essence each is the same kind of novel: a story of how the story itself came to written focusing on the trials and tribulations of the author in getting to the beginning, let alone the end. Heller more or less does exactly what his narrator says he’s trying to do; Powers (again as usual) doesn’t really have his narrator explain the intended/imagined function of the fiction until near the final paragraph. Perhaps it’s just that I believe Powers’ narrator to be a literary conceit all the way through (despite his being named Richard Powers), whereas I find Heller’s narrator (unnamed) to most likely be Heller himself. It’s going to need some thought.

Though the title carries a rare emphasis of being a novel, it becomes clear as we sail past impeccable narration of the initial few chapters, that the book is a far from being a novel. It is put together as a clever collage of autobiographical insights that finds its way as fictionalised accounts glued by inimitable wit with his twisted semi efforts to write one final reputable novel.

In this last book published after his death, Heller speaks through his alter-ego protagonist Eugene Pota (Portrait Of The Artist), a previously successful novelist walking into the sunset of his literary winter, with too much idyllic time at hands and pride to wear, with a faithful publisher by his side trying to put forth one final piece before his farewell.

At the crux, the book deals with writer’s block and his jovial struggles to come up with an idea worthy of a marketable novel and through such pursuits he half heartedly tries to explore, Greek mythology, biblical themes and also several of his favourite fictions/lines twisting them into parodies that are often shuffled about before being abandoned. The result is a combination chronicle of his brilliant false starts interspersed with his personal takes on several things in life.

Personally he traces the uninspired writer’s world, reclusive and dull often trying to find muses in inanely imaginative things from his wife’s possible sexual biography to reflections of women in his life, The idea of Gods wife, to a consultation with his doctor and often at times tries his hand at weaving some fiction out of them. Needless to add there is a distinct sexual undertone in many such chapters.

As we move on, it is obvious his false starts are bound to loose steam ending up as paragraphs, chapters and at times just headings. However some of themes like Hera speaking of Zeus’ wives and the chapter on Isaac have brilliant sparks that bring back memories of what a gut twistingly hilarious talent he is.

But the more insightful segments of the book are when he tries on some of his favourite lines from fiction like - A beautiful woman has trouble living up to her looks for very long: Kurt Vonnegut, Last night my lord returned from the wars and pleasured me twice/thrice? with his boots on: Duchess of Marlborough or at times manages to exploit in satire some familiar chapters(or parts at least) from Tom sawyer, Metamorphosis and Moby Dick to get across his point of what a great torture writing can be?

The best theme is undoubtedly in the chapter Tom sawyer, The novelist which deals with, what Heller calls the literature of despair where Tom sawyer is re-fictionalised as a keen young american novelist trying to trace the final days of various eminent writers all over America (Mark Twain, Jack London, Flaubert, Melville, Poe, Fitzgerald etc) and across the pond (James, Dickens, Conrad, et al) only to learn about the various states of their pathological melancholia , breakdown and hopeless end. This manages to convince Sawyer to abandon his ambition of writing and to wish to become a railroad engineer instead.
Further, in the following chapter he goes on to examine the illnesses and idiosyncrasies of many writers as part of his talk to young college students only to conclude in a subtle warning veiled in humour:It is almost enough to chill the heart of the parent whose child declares the wish to seek a career as an author.

The narration when discreetly autobiographical is learnt and graceful and while experimenting with his numerous ideas is clever with flashes of his reputedly dangerous satire. This is indeed a unique book in a special genre. And for people who seek plots, mystery, meaning or perhaps even laughter, it should hold little interest for it is just a pastiche account about writing or the lack of it.

In the end, one gets a feeling that beneath all there is a unmistakable wry and the sardonic laugh at the evolution of meaninglessness into life, though perhaps not as satirical (twenty two teethed laugh) at the absurdity of war, a laugh definitely wise and subtle enough to escape a post modern conscience, a laugh perhaps enriched only by the meaning of life.
Flaky or otherwise, he has succeeded in hiding whatever he intended to hide!

Хелър е голям писател и страхотно образован мъж, за когото литературата е поле, обработвано от мнозина. Без да приема себе си като пътя, истината и живота, той е напълно наясно със силните и слабите страни на останалите, приели писането за своя съдба. С точните доза документалистика и ирония, той разказва за пътя на Марк Твен, Джек Лондон, Хенри Джеймс, Джоузеф Конрад, Хемингуей, Емили Дикинсън, Кърт Вонегът... В този смисъл "Портрет на твореца като стар" е роман, който ще допадне на любопитна и четяща аудитория, защото изобилства със сурова фактология, поднесена по необичаен начин.
Главният герой, Пота (самият Хелър, без съмнение), се намира в залеза на живота си, но все още не е готов да постави финалната точка в професионален план. В търсене на различната, ненаписана от никой друг книга, той преминава през различни вдъхновения, основни персонажи и проблеми. За да осъзнае, че е време за почивка.
Хелър пише като когото си поиска и едновременно с това никога не претопява себе си в чужда стилистика. Неговият единствен проблем лежи назад във времето и се нарича "Параграф 22". Осъден цял живот да бъде сравняван със собствения си дебютен роман, той се доказва като достатъчно упорит и самоуверен мъж, който знае, че има и други истории, които чакат да бъдат разказани. И ги разказва добре - нестандартно и запомнящо се.

Reminds me of those YouTube video essays that destroy your opinion of someone you used to like

One of the world’s most under appreciated novelists. So much more than Catch-22.

A bittersweet depiction of one's coming to an end.