Book Review: Portrait of an Artist, as an Old Man

A week ago I completed Joseph Heller’s Portrait of an Artist, as an Old Man. What a treat it was! Of course Catch-22, which is Heller’s break through novel that also made that phrase, "Catch-22", part of the common English vernacular, is one of my all-time favourite books. I haven’t read anything else by Heller except for Catch-22. The latter I have read, I think, at least three times. So when I picked up Portrait of an Artist, as an Old Man, it was with much anticipation. I wasn’t disappointed.

Portrait of an Artist, as an Old Man is nothing like Catch-22. Thematically it is much different, although, I guess, the theme of discontentment may be shared. Both books are postmodern, but they go about being postmodern in very different ways. Catch-22 reveals fragmented plots within one narrative framework. In other words, there are different stories, all told within the same context (i.e. a world war), and if I remember correctly, by the same narrator. Portrait of an Artist, as an Old Man, on the other hand, is also fragmented, but the fragmentation is more diverse. Different stories (narratives) and there are frequent jumps in narrative levels. In other words, the narrator may at times be the overarching narrator (the implied author), at other times it is the main character which just happens to be an author as well, and at other times it is a character invented by the main character. Often jumps occur up and down these narrative levels within in any given passage.

As a scholar of Postmodernism I really enjoyed this well executed postmodern text. While I won’t suggest everyone to read Portrait of an Artist, as an Old Man (it’s not everyone’s cup of tea), I will definitely recommend it to other writers, whom will most likely find much resonance with the “author”, those interested in creative writing, as well as to people that enjoy good postmodern craftsmanship.

Trivia: The title clearly refers to James Joyce's book: Portrait of an Artist as a Young Man, considered one of the greatest novels of the 20th century. Heller's novel is also somewhat biographical as it depicts his own frustrations as an author whom is never quite able to set the same standard with his later novels as he did with his first. Portrait of an Artist, as an Old Man is Heller's final novel. It was published posthumously.





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My current subway read is Mary Shelley's Frankenstein, which fits nicely in with the British Romantic Poetry I'm currently teaching.