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Paul Auster

Author of The New York Trilogy

113+ Works 58,224 Members 1,409 Reviews 385 Favorited
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About the Author

Paul Auster was born on February 3, 1947, in Newark, New Jersey. He received a B.A. and a M.A. in English and Comparative Literature from Columbia University. In addition to his career as a writer, Auster has been a census taker, tutor, merchant seaman, little-league baseball coach, and a telephone show more operator. He started his writing career as a translator. He soon gained popularity for the detective novels that make up his New York Trilogy. His other works include The Invention of Solitude; Leviathan; Moon Palace; Facing the Music; In the Country of Last Things; The Music of Chance; Mr. Vertigo; and The Brooklyn Follies. His latest novels are entitled, Invisible and Sunset Park. In addition to his novels, Auster has written screenplays and directed several films. He is the recipient of a fellowship from the National Endowment for the Arts and a French Prix Medicis for Foreign Literature. (Bowker Author Biography) show less

Series

Works by Paul Auster

The New York Trilogy (1985) 9,776 copies
The Book of Illusions (2002) 4,204 copies
The Brooklyn Follies (2005) 4,035 copies
Moon Palace (1989) 3,364 copies
Oracle Night (2003) 3,139 copies
Leviathan (1992) 2,774 copies
Timbuktu (1999) 2,502 copies
The Music of Chance (1990) 2,183 copies
Mr. Vertigo (1994) 2,166 copies
Invisible (2009) 2,161 copies
Travels in the Scriptorium (2006) 2,035 copies
Man in the Dark (2008) 1,892 copies
In the Country of Last Things (1987) 1,828 copies
4 3 2 1 (2017) 1,807 copies
The Invention of Solitude (1982) 1,687 copies
City of Glass (1985) 1,444 copies
Sunset Park (2010) 1,431 copies
True Tales of American Life (2001) 1,313 copies
City of Glass: The Graphic Novel (1994) — Original Author — 1,219 copies
Winter Journal (2012) 870 copies
Ghosts (1986) 487 copies
The Locked Room (1987) 423 copies
Report from the Interior (2013) 323 copies
The Random House Book of 20th Century French Poetry (1982) — Editor — 196 copies
Smoke and Blue in the Face (1995) 184 copies
Baumgartner (2023) 166 copies
Collected Poems (2004) 158 copies
Lulu on the Bridge (1998) 143 copies
The Story of My Typewriter (2002) 107 copies
Squeeze Play (1997) 88 copies
Bloodbath Nation (2023) 83 copies
Disappearances (1988) 78 copies
Why Write? (1996) 50 copies
Paul Auster's New York (1997) 49 copies
Merry Murder (1994) 40 copies
Smoke [1995 film] (1995) — Screenwriter — 39 copies
Translations (1997) 32 copies
Collected Novels Volume 1 (2004) 26 copies
Collected Novels Volume 2 (2005) 21 copies
White Spaces (1980) 16 copies
Blue in the Face [1995 film] (2003) — Director/Screenwriter — 13 copies
Ensayos completos (1984) 12 copies
Facing the Music (1980) 9 copies
Collected Novels Volume 3 (2008) 9 copies
Szenen aus "Smoke" (1996) 8 copies
Purgatory (2005) 7 copies
Le trame della scrittura (2005) 5 copies
Juego del otro, El (2010) 5 copies
Wall Writing (1976) 4 copies
Collected Screenplays (2010) 4 copies
Poesia Y Prosa 4 copies
It Don't Mean a Thing (2019) 3 copies
Unearth (1974) 3 copies
Fragments from Cold (1977) 3 copies
Itt és most 1 copy
Zimski dnevnik (2013) 1 copy
Sansit Bark : riwayah (2018) 1 copy
Worms 1 copy

Associated Works

Hunger (1890) — Introduction, some editions — 4,742 copies
The Time in Between (2009) — some editions — 1,891 copies
The Future Dictionary of America (2004) — Contributor — 627 copies
Strange Stories for Strange Kids (2001) — Contributor — 220 copies
Granta 87: Jubilee! The 25th Anniversary Issue (2004) — Contributor — 201 copies
Granta 117: Horror (2011) — Contributor — 174 copies
Chronicle of the Guayaki Indians (1972) — Translator, some editions — 162 copies
This Is My Best: Great Writers Share Their Favorite Work (2004) — Contributor — 159 copies
Granta 46: Crime (1994) — Contributor — 151 copies
Granta 58: Ambition (1997) — Contributor — 144 copies
Granta 71: Shrinks (2000) — Contributor — 136 copies
Granta 63: Beasts (1998) — Contributor — 132 copies
Granta 44: The Last Place on Earth (1993) — Contributor — 125 copies
Twenty Days with Julian and Little Bunny by Papa (2003) — Introduction, some editions — 119 copies
The Collected Writings of Joe Brainard (2012) — Introduction — 117 copies
Granta 125: After the War (2013) — Contributor — 82 copies
The Ecco Book of Christmas Stories (2005) — Contributor — 73 copies
After Yesterday's Crash: The Avant-Pop Anthology (1995) — Contributor — 66 copies
The Grim Reader: Writings on Death, Dying, and Living On (1997) — Contributor — 60 copies
Yours in Food, John Baldessari (2004) — Contributor — 40 copies
The Vintage Book of Classic Crime (1993) — Contributor — 33 copies
Antaeus No. 75/76, Autumn 1994 - The Final Issue (1994) — Contributor — 32 copies
La solitude du labyrinthe (1997) — some editions — 17 copies
The Paris Review 167 2003 Fall (2003) — Interview — 12 copies
Monkey Business: New Writing from Japan, Volume 03 (2013) — Contributor — 11 copies
Homenaje a Paul Auster (2007) — Contributor — 10 copies
Het derde Testament : Joodse verhalen (1995) — Contributor, some editions — 7 copies
Den kriminelle novelle (1999) — Author, some editions — 5 copies
Poetry Magazine Vol. 201 No. 5, February 2013 (2012) — Contributor — 4 copies
Arabs & Israelis : a dialogue (1975) — Translator, some editions — 3 copies
L'oeuvre de Paul Auster (1995) 2 copies
The Paris Review 96 1985 Summer (1985) — Contributor — 2 copies
Stooge Thirteen, Spring 1975 — Contributor — 1 copy

Tagged

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Common Knowledge

Members

Discussions

June 2013: Paul Auster in Monthly Author Reads (July 2019)
Group Read, September 2016: The Music of Chance in 1001 Books to read before you die (September 2016)

Reviews

Baumgartner, the latest book by Paul Auster is difficult to read as it is so turned inwards. The work of Auster seems to have developed from a expressionism and surrealistic boundless optimism to introspection, increasingly delving for identity. While previously the search for identity remained general, looking for a connection with Jewishness, often, like other Jewish writers by looking at Prague, Auster delves deeper in Baumgartner by describing a journey, looking for answers that are not found, in Ukraine, in a village where many people are named "Auster". This story seems to be the mirroring point where reality is mirrored into fiction, and fiction in some way is the counterpart of reality.

Baumgartner also seems to be a very mature novel, in the sense that the author feels there is no need to clarify or be clear. The story is as it stands and it is up to the reader to delve in for meaning and significance. Baumgartner is clearly a novel that needs to be read twice, partially if not whole. Like the writer, the reader needs to decide how deep they are willing to delve. The novel suggests depth that may turn out to be a lead to deeper understanding or a decoy, such as the title of the book Baumgartner is writing, nl "The Mystery of the Wheel".

While on the one hand, Baumgartner seems to be a book about aging, and how aging affects the mind, it is also about how the mind works, the mind of a writer.
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1 vote
Flagged
edwinbcn | 13 other reviews | Feb 25, 2024 |
I fell for this book right away. I almost always like books by this author, and in this book I felt such an affinity with the main character right from the opening pages. Baumgartner is a 70-something philosophy professor, and while working in his study one morning he finds he needs a book which is downstairs. As he heads downstairs, he remembers he had promised to call his sister. He goes into the kitchen where the phone is and smells something burning--he had left the burner on under the pot in which he had earlier cooked his poached eggs. He turns off the burner and grabs the pot, thus burning his hand. He drops the pot on the floor and rushes to put his hand under cold water to prevent blistering. He is trying to remember what he came into the kitchen for when the phone rings. It is the meter man to tell him that he is on the way. He hangs up and remembers he is supposed to call his sister, when the doorbell rings. It's the UPS person--he has taken to ordering books he does want because he likes to chat with the UPS person. After their chat, he heads to the kitchen again to call his sister, but before he can pick the up the phone, it rings--a problem with the cleaning lady. He ends the call when the doorbell rings again. The meter man has arrived. As he is showing the meter reader down into the basement, he falls down the stairs and is briefly stunned--did you ever have a day like this??

Anyway, Baumgartner is still deeply mourning the death of his beloved wife Anna ten years before in a freak accident at the beach. "Ten years later Baumgartner marvels at how little has changed for him since those early months of near insanity." In the novel we backtrack from the present as Baumgartner thinks back on his past, "the lost world of then." We learn of his early life and of his life with Anna, including through some of Anna's biographical writings that Baumgartner has retained and reads over.

Arriving back at the present, Baumgartner contemplates moving on--what will that consist of, what does he want to do with the rest of his life? "Time is of the essence now, and he has no idea how much of it he has left. Not just how many years before he kicks the bucket but, more to the point, how many years of active productive life before his mind or his body or both begin to fail him and he is turned into a pain-racked, imbecilic, incompetent, unable to read or think or write, to remember what someone just said to him four seconds ago...."

I loved this book, which I think may be partly autobiographical, especially in its depiction of aging and the thoughts about the effects of aging. Highly recommended.

4 stars
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Flagged
arubabookwoman | 13 other reviews | Jan 30, 2024 |
Dull, but mercifully short.
 
Flagged
breathslow | 66 other reviews | Jan 27, 2024 |

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Statistics

Works
113
Also by
42
Members
58,224
Popularity
#249
Rating
3.8
Reviews
1,409
ISBNs
1,765
Languages
39
Favorited
385

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