Girish Mahajan (Editor)

Portrait of an Artist, as an Old Man

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Author
  
Joseph Heller

3.2/5
Goodreads

Portrait of an Artist, as an Old Man t2gstaticcomimagesqtbnANd9GcSIDHr1Ww6PtFejZF

Preceded by
  
Now and Then: From Coney Island to Here

Joseph Heller books
  
Picture This, Good as Gold, Closing Time, No Laughing Matter, Now and Then: From Coney Isl

Portrait of an Artist, as an Old Man is a novel by Joseph Heller. His final work, it depicts an elderly author as he tries to write a novel that is as successful as his earlier work. The novel was published posthumously in 2000. The concept of the novel mirrors that of the life of the author himself in that none of Heller's books sold nearly as well as Catch-22.

Contents

Plot introduction

The story is of Eugene Pota, a prominent writer who, in his old age, is struggling for that last piece of fiction that could be his magnum opus, or at least on par with his earlier writings. Littered throughout the novel are many of Pota's ideas and drafts of possible stories, such as the sexual biography of his wife, or of Hera's trouble with Zeus.

Title

The title is evocatively similar to James Joyce's A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man. The main character's name "Pota" is possibly the abbreviation of the phrase "Portrait Of The Artist".

Famous quotation

"My lord came home from the wars today and pleasured me twice with his boots on" -- Sarah Churchill, Duchess of Marlborough. This quote influenced the main character (Eugene Pota) to write about his sex book or "The Sexual Biography of My Wife."

References

Portrait of an Artist, as an Old Man Wikipedia