“This Book of Ours”: The Crisis of Authorship and Joseph Heller’s Portrait of an Artist, as an Old Man

Abstract

Intertexts, Vol. 7, No. 1, 2003 T h i s B o o k o f O u r s ” : T h e C r i s i s o f Authorship and Joseph Heller’s Portrait of an Artist, as an Old Man Laura Elena Savu U N I V E R S I T Y O F N O R T H C A R O L I N A , G R E E N S B O R O Iwant to cap my career with amasterpiece of some kind, even agreat very small one. Iwant to crown my end with applause, to go out on anote of triumph. Like an athlete dying young, but my race finally run. (Heller 229) Made by Eugene Pota, the protagonist of Joseph Heller’s posthumous novel, Portrait of an Artist, as an Old Man (2000), the above statement projects the nagging desire for recognition that most artists share and the elusive dream of self-fulfillment that they all cherish.An elderly novelist des¬ perately seeking asource of inspiration for afinal masterpiece, one that wouldnotreplicatehisearlierbook,PotaemergesasHeller’sownfictional persona,his“self-portrait.”JustasPota’sreputationrestsmainlyonhisfirst landmarknovel,soHeller’sisgenerallylinkedwithCatch-22(1961).Ina 1998 interview with Charlie Reilley, Heller made clear that “[t]o write, I needanewidea,acomplicatedidea—^notanimitationofsomethingIve already done.”i Thus, the question that arises, for Heller and Pota alike, is how to escape tautology, how to avoid repeating what other texts (including their own) have said. Indeed, astrong sense of either “been-there-done-that” or “beenthere -read-that” fuels Pota’s writing anxiety, which is also increased by the inescapablerecognitionthattheonsetofoldagepresages“closingtime”for him.2Thesourceofthiscrisislies,asRolandBartheshasfamouslyargued,in the fact that the writer “can only imitate agesture that is only anterior, never original.Hisonlypoweristomixwritings,tocountertheoneswiththeoth¬ ers,insuchawayasnevertorestonanyofthem”{Ima£[e146).Itisthisrest¬ lessnessthatPotadisplaysas,havingreachedastillpointinhiscareerand h e i s n e w being faced yet again with the challenge of writing something ‘new, striving, against all odds, for imaginative autonomy. “Why must every book be acompletely different one?” asks Paul, one of Pota’s editors. “It’s how Iam, Iguess,” Pota answers timidly. “It’s the way we are” (228). The research that Pota does into the biographies of other writers yields the dis¬ turbing and “singular fact about the creation of fiction,” namely that “it does turn more, not less difficult with seasoning and accomplishment” (20). Wavering between optimism and despair, he seems to resolve the crisis, this “stagnant, moribund paralysis” (21) in the very act of writing about it.^ 7 2 I N T E R T E X T S In what follows, Iexamine Heller’s notion and practice of authorship in Portrait of an Artist, as an Old Man—a novel that joins the postmodern conversation at the intersection of intertextuality and metatextuality. These two postmodern trademarks converge in the recurring phrase “this book of ours,” which invokes the fascinating, indeed obsessive, presence of other writers—models to be embraced but also challenged—at the same time that it suggests the reader’s active implication in the creative process with the w r i t e r . My project is threefold; first, Iwill seek to demonstrate how die authorprotagonist of Portrait practices rewriting not to do away with authorship completely but rather to regain ahumanistic sense of identity in atragic moment of his life. Secondly, since Heller conceives of Pota’s rewritings as self-conscious undertakings, Iwill turn to specific textual instances that fore¬ ground both authorial invention and intervention. Finally, Iwill probe the implications that biographical reading brings to bear on the crisis of author¬ ship. Drawing on Frederic Regard’s essay “The Ethics of Biographical Read¬ ing,” which purports to reconcile the deconstructive and pragmatic approaches to the notion of authorship,^ Iwill show how Porfra/f emphasizes the personal dynamics at work in the artists’ creative endeavors, their essential humanity, which, Heller believes, is ultimately as valuable as their art. The Writer and the Already Written Agreat created work of art cannot be plagiaristic any more than it can be original. Its connection to the world ultimately depends upon its capacity to celebrate what already exists in ways that invent what docs not yet exist. (Highwater 65) In his study of...