Joseph Heller definitely went out with a bang. I don't want to compare this with his legendary debut Catch-22 in terms of "greatness", because these two books are really two different matters. But I must say that I was shocked (in a good way) by the fact that Heller wrote something so beatiful and powerful in this stage of his career, when his books were greeted with moderate success from critics and came largely unnoticed by "regular readers".
The title is, of course, evocative: the allusion to Joyce's masterpiece is very fitting because this book also bears many autobiographic details and the authour is also occupied with a very ambitious task - to draw a multilevel portrait of the creator, and in this case not in the times of his formation and flourishing but in the times of creative crisis, when an authour is passionately thirsty with an idea to come out from writer's block with one more book and not only "a somewhat ordinary book", but a brilliant masterpiece.
Interesting thing is that in this book we have a somewhat ambiguous relation between the images of an authour of the book, his main hero - an aging writer Eugene Pota and Heller himself. It is not written from the Pota's point of view though Pota is definitely a main hero with many striking similarities to Joseph Heller in his career, writing style and personality. But it is written from the perspective of an unnamed authour, responsive and deeply sympathetic to the protagonist but also ironic and sometimes even sarcastic. Of course, there are many things deeply accentuated in the book, which show us that Pota's writing block came not only from creative exhausting and inevitable shortcomings of his age, but also from the stereotypes of consumer society unwittingly penetrating into Pota's mind. For example, Pota has an irreproachable literary taste but he is preoccupied with his last novel being made into successful Hollywood movie. At one moment while searching for inspiration he understands that there is no Hollywood cinema hits based on Svevo's masterpiece 'Zeno's Conscience' or on something written by Jorge Luis Borges. I think that for "real Heller" it is the best reason to say to himself "Damn this stupid Hollywood bonzas. They understand absolutely nothing about literature. So I will write my last book for my own delight. And for those who unlike modern society moneymakers can dig real literature no matter how sophisticated it is." But Pota is afraid to confess such things to himself.
'Portrait of an Artist, as an Old Man' consists of many started and then thrown away variants of book, of expressly down-to-earth (but also deeply psychological and lifelike) pictures of Pota's everyday life and of meditations on writing, its shortcomings (illustrated on great writers biographies) and the stimuli to write (the main of those stimuli is simply "what can I do more?"). This "minibooks" are sometimes intentionally silly and primitive (not for nothing Heller portrays writer in the state of writer's block), sometimes funny and full of trademark Heller's caustic humour. Sometimes they explore some interesting and nontrivial ideas (how about a book written from the perspective of great novel?), but then Pota (and, I think, Heller himself too) understands that he has no time for such a global plan, or it would be too hard to find a material for such a book in his age, or it would obviously came too close to something already written (if you start every new chapter with different "I-narrator" then it reminds of Faulkner's "As I Lay Dying", as Pota's favourite agent Erica says). In this sketches and motifs of abandoning them we can take a look at "writer's laboratory" and many of the problems arisen from writing process (and this is very interesting and thought-provoking aspect of Heller's novel). Sometimes the sketch is rethinking of classical masterpieces of world literature in postmodernist kind: for example, Kafka's "The Metamorphosis" in modern New York decorations, and it is valuable because in these passages Heller is revealed not only as a writer but as a reader too (by the way, very refined and clever one). Some of these rethinkings are really innovative and interesting, i.e. Dostoevsky's "Notes From Underground" with gene as a main hero. But they are come abruptly to an end or even go to nowhere, just as it was planned for illustrating creative crisis.
My only complaint with the book is its infatuation with different erotic and sexual themes, which gave no extra-meaning, bear no esthetical value and obviously vulgarise the whole thing (thank God, only to a lesser extent).
Maybe the most unusual and striking feature in Heller's book is that we can get to know his own opinion on his great predecessors, their problems and, last but not least, their works of a genius. I repeat it again: Heller had exemplary literary taste and his sometimes humorous, sometimes very deep thoughts about treasures of literature are very interesting. Heller shows, for example, deep knowledge of Russian literature: he cites the valedictory poem by the great russian poet Vladimir Mayakovsky written before the last one's suicide, he talks about Pushkin's death on duel and about Tolstoy's panic flight from Yasnaya Polyana. When lecturing in University Of South Carolina he appropriately to his own current stance chooses a theme - "Literature of Desperation", so the lecture focuses on existential crises and life misfortunes of great writers, which form something of "great writer's damnation"-kind. I shall not go for details but the fact that this book is deeply intertwined into genesis of modern literature is obvious only from direct allusions (some books and authours are only mentioned, but more often there are profound and unusual reflections on them) which come to mind right now: Mark Twain's "Adventures of Tom Sawyer..", Joyce's "A Portrait of the Artist, as a Young Man" (and "Ulysses" as well), Samuel Beckett's "The Unnamable" (the famous quote from which becomes a Pota's credo - of course, I mean "I must go on. I can't go on. I'll go on"), Franz Kafka, Fedor Dostoevsky, Jorge Luis Borges, William Faulkner, Herman Melville, Charles Dickens, John Updike, Marcel Proust, Robert Musil (both referred to as "not-easy-for-reading"), Albert Camus, John Barth, Henrik Ibsen, Kurt Vonnegut, Maxim Gorky, the whole pantheon of late XIX century North American greats in his effort about short career of Tom Sawyer as a novelist (including Mark Twain, Jack London, Francis Bret Harte, Herman Melville, Ambrose Bierce, Frank Norris, Henry James, Stephen Crane, Nathaniel Hawthorne, Henry Wadsworth Longfellow), Francis Scott Fitzgerald, Thomas Stearns Eliot, Joseph Conrad, John Cheever, Edgar Allan Poe, Malcolme Lowry, Eugene O'Neill, Sinclair Lewis, Theodore Dreiser, Dylan Thomas, Evelyn Waugh, Graham Greene, Truman Capote, Tennessee Williams, Ernest Hemingway, John Steinbeck, J.D. Sallinger, Thomas Pynchon, William Styron and many others. Impressive list, isn't it?
All in all, it is very meaningful, clever written book by brilliant stylist and very talented authour. I know that there are no rumours in Hollywood about the ecranisation of this one but at the end of his life great american writer Joseph Heller gave us an unquestionable masterpiece named "Portrait of an Artist, as an Old Man".

I almost did not care to finish reading this book, due to the awkward false starts of the main character (heller). I stuck through it, and it was worth it. I think every writer knows the feeling of not being able to conjure up those creative wits that seemed so easy one time or another; and in Heller's last years he was only concerned with writing a book for the movies, and ended up giving us a window into the mind of an elderly author who believes his writing career is over.

As a Joseph Heller fan, I must confess this book was something of a letdown for me. The dialogue here is just as witty and quick as I have come to expect from Heller, but there actually isn't a whole lot of it in this book. Large swaths of "Portrait of the Artist" are just the main character's internal conflict with unreasonably high expectations he has created for his penultimate book. It also feels like a lazy work, as the entire book is just a discussion on the difficult nature of finding an idea for a book, and repeatedly failing, but writing a book anyway on the entire process. As the main character's literary agent would surely agree, this was not Heller's best book. That would be "Catch-22," of course.

❝ A maioria de nós esmorece com a idade, e também com a experiência. O trabalho não se torna mais fácil com a prática e, quando paramos, desaba subitamente sobre o nós o peso esmagador de todo o tempo livre que temos pela frente e que não estamos aptos a enfrentar. ❞ ⁣⁣⁣
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Publicado postumamente em 2000. O último livro de Joseph Heller, consagrado escritor norte americano, acabou não fazendo muito barulho em sua data de lançamento. Em comparação com o estrondoso Catch 22(Ardil 22) - seu primeiro romance - foi praticamente ofuscado das livrarias e da boca do público. ⁣
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Claro, ambos possuem dois objetivos completamente distintos. Mas este aqui pede uma atenção diferenciada, principalmente se você pretende ter a arte como ofício. ⁣
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Aqui o autor se transmuta em Eugene Pota, um escritor já consagrado por seus antigos trabalhos que está a procura de uma ideia para seu novo romance. Porém, sua idade avançada e suas complicações com a autoconfiança acabam sabotando o escritor em diversos momentos da história, fazendo-o trocar de ideia diversas vezes e acabar dependendo muito da opinião dos amigos e de sua equipe editorial. ⁣
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O livro acabou dividindo a minha experiência. Por um lado, eu não curti muito o estilo da escrita e nem das situações que somos apresentados. Chega um momento que até o processo de criação das histórias se tornam monótonas e repetitivas, o que sinceramente não agrega para leitura no todo.⁣
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Em contrapartida, a mensagem do livro é clara: não devemos perder tempo. ⁣
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Quando falei no início sobre seguir o ofício das artes é por conta da clara comparação com o próprio título. Se chama Retrato do ARTISTA Quando Velho, não Retrato de Eugene Pota Quando Velho. Aqui é descrito uma lição. É a demonstração do arrependimento e da tentativa de concluir os sonhos no momento de celebrar as conquistas. ⁣
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Dificilmente recomendo este livro para você se inspirar. Mas, é altamente necessário para lembrar que o seu tempo, artista, está acabando.⁣

Halfway between novel and memoir, this portrait of a sad old author trying to recapture the the spark of his first novel is an all too fitting last novel for Heller. Like a self fulfilling book review, it fails to capture the spark of his earlier books and made me feel sad for him. Success?

I wasn't sure what to expect from this book, especially having little appreciation for 'Catch 22', but I have greater esteem for Heller now. Not that this final book of his is amazing by any means, but it is quirky, poignant, and I loved the chapters concerning Tom Sawyer's search for the great late 19 th century American (mainly)authors, and the discussion of their sad demises in the 'literature of despair' lecture. If I knew more about Greek mythology, I may have enjoyed even more if the book. Overall, an interesting and touching 'insight' in to the similar paths many writers' lives have trodden, including Heller's.

Possibly one of Heller's better books. An entertaining but (to someone just starting out writing, anyway) sobering read, where Heller does a great deal of literary navel gazing, rhapsodizing on literature generally, and hilariously heartbreaking self-deprecation of his own literary style. Read if you're a Heller fan or enjoy a book about books.

Somebody somewhere must write a psychological exegesis of this book. It has all the mirth of Heller's breakthrough Catch-22 but subdued and nothing is spared. Fans, the publishing industry, reviewers, and Heller himself come under inspection.
Is it worth reading? Yes, definitely, and not by everyone. Portrait of an Artist, As an Old Man fights back. It challenges you (it challenged me). It wants its readers to work. It also saddens if you know Heller's story and the impetus for this book.
And still a good read.

I was disappointed in this book. Heller's last book is telling the story of an aging, famous author struggling to finish his last book. The book is about the book that never gets written. I'm certain most writers experience this creative process, starting, stopping, questioning their abilities, begging friends and editors for feedback.

I tried to feel for Heller, who is clearly and unashamedly the main character, but it just didn't work for me. I struggled to finish. I've read most of Heller's work and enjoyed it all. Maybe I'm not mature enough for this book. I'll retire in about 20 years. I'll read this again then.

Very interesting novel and the perfect length to read slowly but not take forever to finish. There were a lot of interesting short stories as a part of the novel, but the part I liked the best was the narrators brief lecture on the literature of despair. This was an incredible chapter that discussed many of the personal problems and bad endings so many of our literary heroes experienced toward the end of their careers. As Mr. Heller, an author of extraordinary repute himself, reached the end of his life, he too had much to reflect on and decide whether or not he was going to produce one more masterpiece, and it makes sense, since novels don't exist in a vacuum, it is good to reflect that a real person with their own hopes and dreams made what we can enjoy, but there is also a struggle with one's own success and fame that we often never know about.

What a collective of story telling! To be read with recall and reminiscing, bits and pieces brought to mind and introduced. All wrapped up in the arms of a gifted writer sharing those recollections in true form. It's an easy read, with minor flare and drama. It's just a warm wrap-up of an artist.

I liked this book quite a bit more than I expected to. It’s a non-traditional style, written from an author’s perspective in 3rd person, with *the* author chiming I’m from time to time in 1st person. Interesting. I would recommend to those who have an interest in exploring various writing styles and techniques.