I guess I've said this before: I buy and read everything Paul Auster writes. This is a principle which is independent of the fact that he seemed possibly to have lost the capacity for innovation he once had and has tended to tell similar stories in the same way of late. I've heard that criticism, and though I can see something in it, my view is that I at least owe it to Paul Auster to buy everything he writes - whatever - simply on the grounds that I owe him the favour after all the pleasure his writing has given me since his early days. Dammit, the world owes the guy a living for the rest of his life for what he has contributed, and I'm just doing my small bit. So I saw this, and I bought it.
An American recently told me, slightly bemusedly, that "no-one in America has heard of Paul Auster, but the Europeans love him". I was slightly taken aback, I had always classified him as the very exemplar of the dynamism, spare style and creativity of American writing, as set against rather unambitious, domestic, slightly limited British literary fiction. (A bit harsh on the Brits, I know, and I take it back.) However, what you could say is that Auster is the perfect exemplar of a European literary sensibility combined with the dynamism, spare style and creativity of American writing. In particular, there has always been that French connection with Auster, more or less explicit, which has added to the richness of his underlying literary culture. And yes, they LOVE Auster in France (just as, pointed out my American interlocutor on the same occasion, they love Woody Allen…).
Well the whole French thing is up front in this latest novel by Paul Auster, which features French and American characters, whose fates interconnect over 40 years in various French and American locations. The novel is, well, thoroughly Auster-esque in its mood, method and preoccupations: the role of chance, the obscurity of motivations, indecision and surprising decisiveness, the difficulty in pinning down any truth or objective view of events - and, sure enough, the central character is a impecunious, struggling writer, at least at the outset, who we end up viewing from a variety of viewpoints, first and third person in both the grammatical and literal sense. Invisibility is at the heart of the book, for sure, because you realise that what is ultimately going on here is something you can never quite grasp, but quite possibly something we ultimately live for: love, sex, revenge, self-justification, but cannot take hold of or control?
For Auster fans, this book has surprises in store, most obviously in that there is a surprising amount of sex, some of it quite shocking (because of who's involved). Paul Auster hasn't done quite this kind of subject matter before, so it does raise a reader's eyebrow, to say the least, although ultimately we find it's all part of the Auster thing, and, well, there is a twist, which I won't give away.
But the key point about this book is that the "Auster thing" is back, big time. This novel confounds those who have criticised Auster, with some justification, for drifting into self-referential metaphysics. This is a classic Auster story, challenging, real, but slippery, difficult to grasp. It's a book you read easily, to end up feeling that you possibly missed the half of it. It carried you along on its narrative, with its typically straight, unadorned yet profound language, and at the end, you wonder about the gaps in what you retained along the way. Stylistically, we are on very familiar ground. Paul Auster is a magnificent, economical writer and has once again produced a book which you read with ease and pleasure. Not a typical page-turner, perhaps, but I read this eagerly and quickly.
Recommendation: of course you should read this. Everyone should read Paul Auster, and not just because the world owes him a living. Seriously, if you like Auster, you will like this. And the prime reason you will like it is because it is vintage, authentic, real Auster, his best in years. Yay, our hero's back!
An American recently told me, slightly bemusedly, that "no-one in America has heard of Paul Auster, but the Europeans love him". I was slightly taken aback, I had always classified him as the very exemplar of the dynamism, spare style and creativity of American writing, as set against rather unambitious, domestic, slightly limited British literary fiction. (A bit harsh on the Brits, I know, and I take it back.) However, what you could say is that Auster is the perfect exemplar of a European literary sensibility combined with the dynamism, spare style and creativity of American writing. In particular, there has always been that French connection with Auster, more or less explicit, which has added to the richness of his underlying literary culture. And yes, they LOVE Auster in France (just as, pointed out my American interlocutor on the same occasion, they love Woody Allen…).
Well the whole French thing is up front in this latest novel by Paul Auster, which features French and American characters, whose fates interconnect over 40 years in various French and American locations. The novel is, well, thoroughly Auster-esque in its mood, method and preoccupations: the role of chance, the obscurity of motivations, indecision and surprising decisiveness, the difficulty in pinning down any truth or objective view of events - and, sure enough, the central character is a impecunious, struggling writer, at least at the outset, who we end up viewing from a variety of viewpoints, first and third person in both the grammatical and literal sense. Invisibility is at the heart of the book, for sure, because you realise that what is ultimately going on here is something you can never quite grasp, but quite possibly something we ultimately live for: love, sex, revenge, self-justification, but cannot take hold of or control?
For Auster fans, this book has surprises in store, most obviously in that there is a surprising amount of sex, some of it quite shocking (because of who's involved). Paul Auster hasn't done quite this kind of subject matter before, so it does raise a reader's eyebrow, to say the least, although ultimately we find it's all part of the Auster thing, and, well, there is a twist, which I won't give away.
But the key point about this book is that the "Auster thing" is back, big time. This novel confounds those who have criticised Auster, with some justification, for drifting into self-referential metaphysics. This is a classic Auster story, challenging, real, but slippery, difficult to grasp. It's a book you read easily, to end up feeling that you possibly missed the half of it. It carried you along on its narrative, with its typically straight, unadorned yet profound language, and at the end, you wonder about the gaps in what you retained along the way. Stylistically, we are on very familiar ground. Paul Auster is a magnificent, economical writer and has once again produced a book which you read with ease and pleasure. Not a typical page-turner, perhaps, but I read this eagerly and quickly.
Recommendation: of course you should read this. Everyone should read Paul Auster, and not just because the world owes him a living. Seriously, if you like Auster, you will like this. And the prime reason you will like it is because it is vintage, authentic, real Auster, his best in years. Yay, our hero's back!
Auster in Austeresque form. Superb and a little shocking: Invisible.
No comments:
Post a Comment