Portrait of an Artist, as an Old Man is a novel by Joseph Heller, published posthumously in 2000. [1] His final work, it depicts an elderly author as he tries to write a novel that is as successful as his earlier work, mirroring Heller's own career after the success of Catch-22 .
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.
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".
Critical reception to the novel was mixed. Michiko Kakutani, chief book critic for The New York Times, judged that "skills Heller did possess in abundance at the height of his career are also sorely lacking in this novel", and called it "a sad coda to a distinguished career." [2] Tim Adams, writing for The Guardian, was more positive, calling it a "moderate success" and describing it as a "caustic self-parody". [3]
"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."
Kurt Vonnegut was an American writer and humorist known for his satirical and darkly humorous novels. In a career spanning over 50 years, he published fourteen novels, three short-story collections, five plays, and five nonfiction works; further collections have been published after his death.
Philip José Farmer was an American author known for his science fiction and fantasy novels and short stories.
American literature is literature written or produced in the United States of America and in the colonies that preceded it. The American literary tradition thus is part of the broader tradition of English-language literature, but also includes literature of other traditions produced in the United States and in other immigrant languages. Furthermore, a rich tradition of oral storytelling exists amongst Native Americans.
Bluebeard, the Autobiography of Rabo Karabekian (1916–1988) is a 1987 novel by American author Kurt Vonnegut. It is told as a first-person narrative and describes the late years of fictional Abstract Expressionist painter Rabo Karabekian, who first appeared as a minor character in Vonnegut's Breakfast of Champions (1973). Circumstances of the novel bear rough resemblance to the fairy tale of Bluebeard popularized by Charles Perrault. Karabekian mentions this relationship once in the novel.
Something Happened is Joseph Heller's second novel. Its main character and narrator is Bob Slocum, a businessman who engages in a stream of consciousness narrative about his job, his family, his childhood, his sexual escapades, and his own psyche. Although Something Happened failed to achieve the level of renown that Catch-22 did, it has since developed a cult following, with some considering it one of Heller's finest works.
The Sirens of Titan is a comic science fiction novel by Kurt Vonnegut Jr., first published in 1959. His second novel, it involves issues of free will, omniscience, and the overall purpose of human history. Much of the story revolves around a Martian invasion of Earth.
Postmodern literature is a form of literature that is characterized by the use of metafiction, unreliable narration, self-reflexivity, intertextuality, and which often thematizes both historical and political issues. This style of experimental literature emerged strongly in the United States in the 1960s through the writings of authors such as Kurt Vonnegut, Thomas Pynchon, William Gaddis, Philip K. Dick, Kathy Acker, and John Barth. Postmodernists often challenge authorities, which has been seen as a symptom of the fact that this style of literature first emerged in the context of political tendencies in the 1960s. This inspiration is, among other things, seen through how postmodern literature is highly self-reflexive about the political issues it speaks to.
Arthur Phillips is an American novelist. His books include Prague (2002), The Egyptologist (2004), Angelica (2007), The Song Is You (2009), The Tragedy of Arthur (2011), and The King at the Edge of the World (2020).
Self-insertion is a literary device in which the author writes themself into the story as a fictional character.
Michiko Kakutani is an American writer and retired literary critic, best known for reviewing books for The New York Times from 1983 to 2017. In that role, she won the Pulitzer Prize for Criticism in 1998.
Closing Time is a 1994 novel by Joseph Heller, written as a sequel to his popular 1961 novel Catch-22. It takes place in New York City in the 1990s and revisits some characters of the original, including Yossarian, Milo Minderbinder, and Chaplain Tappman.
Palm Sunday is a 1981 collection of short stories, speeches, essays, letters, and other previously unpublished works by author Kurt Vonnegut Jr.
In the Beauty of the Lilies is a 1996 novel by John Updike. It takes its title from a line of the abolitionist song "The Battle Hymn of the Republic." The novel received the 1997 Ambassador Book Award for Fiction.
The Discomfort Zone: A Personal History is a 2006 memoir by Jonathan Franzen, who received the National Book Award for Fiction for his novel The Corrections in 2001.
Joseph Heller was an American author of novels, short stories, plays, and screenplays. His best-known work is the 1961 novel Catch-22, a satire on war and bureaucracy, whose title has become a synonym for an absurd or contradictory choice. He was nominated in 1972 for the Nobel Prize in Literature.
Robert Hilburn is an American pop music critic, author, and radio host. As critic and music editor at the Los Angeles Times from 1970 to 2005, his reviews, essays and profiles appeared in publications around the world. Hilburn has since written a memoir and best-selling biographies of Johnny Cash and Paul Simon. He was a member of the nominating committee of the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame for more than twenty years, and lives in Los Angeles.
Kevin Powers is an American fiction writer, poet, and Iraq War veteran.
Ideal is a posthumously published 2015 novel by Ayn Rand.
None to Accompany Me is a 1994 novel by South African Nobel Winner Nadine Gordimer. The novel follows the motifs and plot framework of a Bildungsroman, exploring the development of the main character, Vera Stark. The novel is set during the early 1990s in South Africa after the release of Nelson Mandela.
Seek My Face is a 2002 book by John Updike.