The opening paragraph goes:
"These are the last things, she wrote. One by one they disappear and never come back. I can tell you of the ones I have seen, of the ones that are no more, but I doubt there will be time. It is all happening too fast now, and I cannot keep up." -Auster, p.1-
I love it!
Whenever I see a Paul Auster book, I always think of other books he's written that are in my possession, and of the fact that never--not once--did I fail to like his writing.
The New York Trilogy marked my initiation into Paul Auster fandom. I loved that book to death. I've since read The Invention of Solitude, Oracle Night and The Book of Illusions. The last one, perhaps, is my favorite, next to The New York Trilogy.
One of Auster's major story telling strengths is that his writing is always a perfect patchwork of the abstract and the concrete, balancing each other out and at the same time endowing the structure of each to fuse into a harmonic whole. There is a melancholic fluidity to his prose that makes the forms and the objects in his stories float to life into the reader's world.
I can't wait to get started with this latest find. The first lines look very promising.
Are you a Paul Auster fan?
I've only read one Auster book, The New York Trilogy, and I loved it. It was around five years ago and I remember when I finished it I instantly thought, "Wow, that was trippy." I'm planning to read another work of his soon, but I can't decide which to read first. He's a little hit-or-miss with the critics (for example, his last couple of novels haven't been received kindly by both critics and fans), but it's undeniable that he can write. Terse, but effective.
ReplyDeleteAll I can say is, he's always a hit with me.
ReplyDelete;p
Yes. :)
ReplyDeleteMy favorites are Leviathan and The New York Trilogy. The most recent Auster I read was Oracle Night, which was good too.
Hey, Sir Luis!
ReplyDeleteAllow me to refresh your memory: in CW 111, you assigned us to read "The Locked Room" from THE NEW YORK TRILOGY.
Reading that novella (it was a real blast!) introduced me to Paul Auster; had me scouring the bookstores for his books (needless to say, I bought THE NEW YORK TRILOGY as soon as I saw a copy), led me to THE INVENTION OF SOLITUDE, THE BOOK OF ILLUSIONS, ORACLE NIGHT.
And now, this blog post. A million thanks.
You really should teach again.
;p
Hey Shan! I remember. :) Am very glad indeed to have introduced you (and many of your classmates) to the man's work. :)
ReplyDeleteI'm pretty sure I will teach again, someday, though I'm not sure if it's going to be someday soon, and it probably won't be in UP.