Book Review | ‘Man in the Dark’ by Paul Auster

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book review, don delillo, Fiction, New York Trilogy, Paul Auster, point omega, Travels in the Scriptorium, United States

Man in the Dark by Paul Auster

My rating: 5 of 5 stars

“Escaping into a film is not like escaping into a book. Books force you to give something back to them, to exercise your intelligence and imagination, where as you can watch a film-and even enjoy it-in a state of mindless passivity.”

It is my opinion that Paul Auster gets better with age. Whether that’s his age or mine I’ve not quite decided, but I’m finding him a lot more agreeable the older I get. I first met him in the acclaimed ‘The New York Trilogy‘; a book I fiercely wished I could like, but found I couldn’t because of all the disjointedness and the loose ends of plot he kept leaving artfully around for my poor brain to trip up on.

Anyway, the long and short of it is, I could smell a good thing was there and that my brain needed a bit more ripening, so I made a mental note to come back to Auster. Good job I did as well. After ‘The New York Trilogy’ I did what I normally do with fiction/ fiction writers I find hard to get into: try out a shorter work instead. So I indulged in ‘Travels in the Scriptorium‘ (excellent!) and now ‘Man in the Dark’, which I found electrifying.

One thing to remember is, when writing fiction, Auster can’t help but write ABOUT fiction as well. This must be a theme he loves returning to because both ‘Travels in the Scriptorium’ and ‘Man in the Dark’ have elements of ‘when fiction invades life’.

There is a decidedly Borgian element to ‘Man in the Dark’, mainly because it is a short narrative that harbours the seeds of a much larger one within it. There is a ‘story within a story’ thing happening here, parallel worlds that threaten to break through the thin membrane separating reality and imagination.

August Brill is an elderly man who is recovering from a car accident. He also suffers from severe insomnia, which compels him to make up stories to pass the time. One character, Owen Brick, becomes a fictional alter ego of sorts, and the world he occupies is an eerie place where history is re-written to create an alternative history. In Bricks’ world, America is a battleground as civil war ensues and fellow citizens kill each other relentlessly. The chapters alternate between Brill and Brick seamlessly and there is an overarching ’emptiness’ that unites or rather binds them together. For Brill this is the void left behind by the passing of his wife and his own general loneliness as an elderly man. For Brick, it is the frightening fear of waking up from a coma and not knowing who he is, where he is and more importantly what the hell he is doing there in the first place.

For those finding Auster difficult I highly recommend this short novel. If any of the themes in this review interest you then ‘Travels in the Scriptorium’ by the same author or ‘Point Omega’ by Don Delillo are equally as good (and short!)

View all my reviews

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Book Review | ‘The Summer Without Men’ by Siri Hustvedt

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book review, feminist literature, marriage breakdown, Paul Auster, philosophy, siri hustvedt, the summer without men

The Summer without Men by Siri Hustvedt

My rating: 3 of 5 stars

“Not telling is just as interesting as telling I have found. Why speech, that short verbal journey from inside to outside can be excruciating under certain circumstances is fascinating.”

Meet Mia; a successful poet, writer and University lecturer who after 30 years of marriage succumbs to ‘hysteria’, thanks to Boris (the emotionally wooden husband) and his mid-life French fling (the ‘pause’). This is a story of temporary mental break-down, of having the rug pulled out from underneath you and the long, arduous journey to getting back on solid ground.

Yes, Siri Hustvedt takes the 17th Century ‘mad woman in the attic’ syndrome and applies it to a modern scenario. Like most stories of its ilk it follows the traditional path of woman goes nuts, moves out, quickly decamps home to mum’s house whereupon she simmers in self-loathing and the incessant ‘why, why, why’ of the situation. Meanwhile Boris the bastard keeps in touch, telling his shelved wife exactly what’s going on in his life with ‘the pause’ (we are not given a name. Remember, Mia is a poet. Literary devices can and will be used to dehumanise the offending party!)

Now, the interesting thing about this book is that even though Hustvedt follows
a tried-and-tested story arc, there are some pretty unusual moments that caught me off guard. For one, the language oscillates between poetry and prose. Not only that, the narrative is constantly being interrupted and dissected by diary entries, emails, notes and random letters. As the reader, we aren’t really given any prior notice to these and it’s a little unsettling to adjust oneself to what’s going on. The timeline is also a bit inconsistent as Mia goes back and forth between present and past without warning. One of my other gripes is the use of CAPITAL LETTERS to emphasise a certain point, which in my opinion was completely unnecessary. Italics could have done the job nicely.

Despite these faults, I found ‘The Summer Without Men’ to be a surprisingly intelligent read. Do not pick up this book if you expect it to be an easy ride. Hustvedt’s prose rises and falls like a tide. Sometimes when the tide is low our attention is drawn to things in the shallows, but when it swells it demands we keep up with a narrative full of deep philosophical and literary musings. I had a lot of fun in the ‘high’ moments, because Hustvedt is raising the bar, inviting us to ride the crest of a certain idea. During these moments I could sense an author at her peak powers, flexing the feminine literary muscle at the male novelists.

However ‘The Summer Without Men’ is not an overly feminist work. Hustvedt does look deeply at the role of woman, be it literary value or otherwise, but I never got the sense that she was hitting the opposite sex over the head. The various characters that come into Mia’s life are all women with problems of their own. It doesn’t matter if they are seven or seventy; every female has their own style of going mad or staying sane. From Flora, the toddler who refuses to take off her wig, to Abigail a seventy year old saint of the ‘Secret Amusements’, this is an alternative look at the many ways we women cope with the ‘cracks of life’.

View all my reviews

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Mailbox Monday & It’s Monday, What Are You Reading? (25/ 7)

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benjamin zephaniah, carlos ruiz zafon, cats cradle, charlotte perkins gilman, civil war, emila zola, herman hesse, ian fleming, irvine welsh, Its monday what are you reading?, jm barrie, kurt busiek, kurt vonnegut, margaret atwood, mark millar, marvels, matt moylan, meme, mohsin hamid, patricia melo, Paul Auster, Paul Gallico, paul jenkins, peter pan, raymond carver, roberto bolano, siddhartha, stephen galloway, streetfighter world warrior encyclopedia, the angel's game, the cellist of sarajevo, the dream, the guernsey literary and potato peel pie society, the skating rink, the spy who loved me, the year of the flood, the yellow wallpaper, trainspotting, violette leduc, wolverine origins

Welcome to Monday Meme’s! (‘Mailbox Monday’ by Marcia at The Printed Page and ‘It’s Monday! What Are You Reading?’ by Sheila at The Book Journey are fun weekly meme’s that allow book-bloggers to share their reading progress and the books they have yet to read.

July has been a hectic month, but also fruitful in terms of books. Since I haven’t had time to post that often (due to my novel-writing) I’m taking this opportunity to pick up from where I left off in March. Here’s a review of the titles that have either wowed me, or left me a little disappointed:

Books Read | March/ April
(click for reviews)
Lost World by Patricia Melo (1/5)
Man in the Dark by Paul Auster (5/5)
Nazi Literature in the Americas by Roberto Bolano (4/5) – review pending
Kung Fu Trip by Benjamin Zephaniah (3/5)
The Snow Goose by Paul Gallico (5/5)
The Reluctant Fundamentalist by Mohsin Hamid (3/5) – review pending
The Informers by Brett Easton Ellis (3/5) – review pending
Lucky Jim by Kingsley Amis (1/5) – review pending
The Paper House: A Novel by Carlos Maria Dominguez (4/5) – review pending

Books Read | May/ June
(click for reviews)
Siddhartha by Herman Hesse (4/5) – review pending
2BR02B by Kurt Vonnegut (5/5)
The Lady and the Little Fox Fur by Violette LeDuc (1/5)
Peter Pan by JM Barrie (5/5)
The Yellow Wall-paper and Other Stories by Charlotte Gilman (4/5)
Beginners by Raymond Carver (5/5)
Cat’s Cradle by Kurt Vonnegut (4/5)
The Dream by Emile Zola (5/5) – review pending
The Cellist of Sarajevo by Stephen Galloway (5/5)

 Other reviews:
The Angel’s Game by Carlos Ruiz Zafon (4.5/5)

Books Read | July
Streetfighter: World Warrior Encyclopedia by Matt Moylan (4/5)
Marvels by Kurt Busiek (5/5)
Wolverine: Origins by Paul Jenkins (3/5)
Civil War by Mark Millar (3/5)
The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society (5/5)

Currently Reading/ August Outlook

 

What a pick-n-mix! As someone who never just reads one book at a time, I’ve started off first with Bolano’s “The Skating Rink”, which is a strange mix of romance, political scamming, figure-skating and cold-blooded murder. This is my second Bolano book (gearing myself up for ‘2666’) and the story seems to be chugging along quite well, despite the weird elements he’s thrown together to make it. Meanwhile I’m also poking around in “Trainspotting”, which unbeknownst to me is written in a very thick Scottish accent! I’m slowly getting used to it (fitba = football, hame = home, jaykits = jackets). It would be useful to have a glossary, but on second thought might spoil all the fun. After all, the best thing about ‘The Clockwork Orange’ was the strange Russian street lingo.

The one I can’t let go of at the moment is “The Spy Who Loved Me”. It is quite cheesy (as most Fleming books are) and it does feel a lot like one of those guilty comfort reads. The Bond of the movies and the Bond of the novels are so very different! However if there is one book I class as top-grade reading material, it is the Atwood. I practically have to ration her out for fear of guzzling through her entire works. She is so AMAZING! “The Year of the Flood” is the second in the MaddAddam trilogy, the first being ‘Oryx and Crake’, and loosely follows on from it. I can’t wait to lose myself in the plot. Can’t imagine what Atwood has dreamed up for us dystopian fiction lovers. Oh bliss…

What are you planning to read this week?

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Book Review | ‘After Dark’ by Haruki Murakami

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7/11, After Dark, book review, full moon, Haruki Murakami, japanese horror story, Koji Suzuki, love hotels, nocturnal, Norwegian Wood, Paul Auster, Tokyo, Travels in the Scriptorium

First of all, I think everybody should read ‘Norwegian Wood’. It’s not particularly vital that they understand it, but it would do them good to take a little trip down the back-alleys of frustrated love and deathly longing that Murakami is so good at writing about. Another reason they should read it, is because when they come to ‘After Dark’, they will appreciate the maturity of Murakami as an author and his mastery in the art of saying so much, with so little.

 

This is a novel I struggle to place. Murakami seems to straddle several genres, using different elements from each, enmeshing them in his own way to form a narrative that flows delicately from one character to the next. As the title suggests, the novel explores the strange nocturnal activities in the city of Tokyo. We are introduced to Mari, yet through her a string of other characters begin to form odd, disjointed relationships with one another.

Sometimes by past events, other times by chance and occasionally through indirect technological encounters, Murakami’s characters lead us through very personal, tragic and often unintelligible moments of their lives. This attempt at emulating Koji Suzuki is not uncommon; as Paul Auster demonstrated a similar, yet more subtle version of this in his novel ‘Travels in the  Scriptorium’. For example, Murakami’s way of making two seemingly unrelated characters interact with one another could be through a mobile phone (one character loses her phone, the other by chance discovers it in a supermarket and answers a call). Or one scene might end with a character watching a program, and the next begins with another character watching the same show.

As I read, I got a sense that this was a detective story that didn’t want to be solved. In fact, I think things are better that way with a story like this, where characters begin in a state of limbo and leave without much change in their status. It was refreshing to watch them get pulled into the ebb and flow of a fate they have no control over. They often found themselves in ridiculous situations like love hotels and 7/11’s, criss-crossing each other’s lives like busy city traffic, oblivious to the fact that they are part of a much bigger, chaotic storyline. These are characters that feel their lack of control, yet they can sense a frustration similar to theirs being suffered somewhere on the periphery of their ‘vision’. While the full moon turns their actions and intentions into lunar paranoia; the characters themselves enjoy being on the edges of sanity. By no means are these characters incapable of happiness, it is fully in their means to be so. Yet it is the choices they make that put them in the position they are in.

Murakami has offered up an intense, yet deliciously frustrating plot due to its lack of a good ending. There are many questions left unanswered in the reader’s mind, and I think this was intentional on the author’s behalf. The narrative also changes form, veering from a ghost-story to a crime novel, and then hitting the well-known notes of a classic Japanese horror story. It is in fact neither of these, but the expert use of them in subtle, suggestive ways that enable a reader to create their own answers to the questions.

This short novel will stay with you for a long time, often making you wonder just how he did it.

I give this 4/5 stars.

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