Travels in the Scriptorium

Part puzzle, part mystery, and part postmodern commentary, I loved how this book kept me guessing until the very end when my head spun around so fast I had to go to the chiropractor. It's not your everyday straightforward narrative, but it's also not so esoteric that you start to snooze just from reading the jacket flap. It would make a great group read, because it's a book begging to be discussed.

"Interrupt all you like. We're involved in a complicated story here, and not everything is quite what it seems to be."

An old man wakes up to find himself alone in a small room with complete amnesia. The only clues are stickers conveniently labeling "wall", "lamp", "desk"; and a pile of photographs and several manuscripts on the desk.

"He can't show more remember how long he has been here or the nature of the circumstances that precipitated his removal to this place. Perhaps he has always been here; perhaps this is where he has lived since the day he was born. What he knows is that his heart is filled with an implacable sense of guilt. At the same time, he can't escape the feeling that he is the victim of a terrible injustice."

In an existential kind of way, the old man begins to explore his physical and psychological boundaries. I don't want to give away too much, so I'll just say it's a fun read. show less

between 1 and 1.5 stars. i haven't read much auster and nothing that i can remember in a long while. what i do remember from before, though, is not really understanding him, and that still holds. i don't get this. it helps to know that, from other reviews, apparently all of the people that feature in this book - well, maybe not mr blank? - are from his other books, and that even the title of this book is from something within another book of his. i don't know if knowing that helps to understand what he's doing or saying here, or if knowing those characters in other books helps to know them here. (because we don't really know anything here, in this book. it's all a mystery and a question of what is happening/who are these people and what show more are they doing/where are they/why/why/why.)

i don't know if we're supposed to be puzzling out who mr blank is and what he may have done. if we're supposed to suspect that he is the author trause. or if that even matters. maybe what auster is saying is more about what story and writing mean? (i'm not sure what he's saying they mean, but i think that's what he's getting at.) maybe also about who story belongs to? if mr blank isn't also trause, then can they both write the story? can anyone write the story?

i don't know. i don't get auster, i think. but at least this was mildly entertaining, in a perplexing but not frustrating way, and a quick read at that. it did, though, until close to the end, feel quite a bit like this was literary fiction for the sake of itself, and i didn't like that feeling. show less

Honestly, I'm torn.

On the one hand, this is typically beautiful austere... sorry, Auster prose. In a lot of ways, it's indeed a return to his earlier work; not just in style, echoing the high-contrast black and white of The New York Trilogy, the locked room, the trapped characters, the self-references: Paul Auster sits in a room in his apartment writing a novel about a writer who writes a novel about a man (Mr Blank) who sits in a room reading a novel about a man who sits in a room writing an account of his life to be used against him. Every now and then Mr Blank is interrupted by characters from earlier Auster novels, who apparently have been hired - and signed on all too willingly - to make his life hell, since that's what he did to show more them. (Not unlike what happens to "Bret Easton Ellis" in Lunar Park, only without social commentary, excitement or, well, much of a story.)

That's the other hand: in a lot of ways, this feels like "strictly for fans". If you're only a casual Auster reader you'll miss half of what happens over these 144 pages, and you'll probably be asking yourself what makes this anything but second-rate Beckett. Nothing wrong with that, I suppose, I wouldn't want Auster to pander to the general public, but... this might be a very clever novel about the process of writing, the fear of not being heard, the power of fiction to create. Or it might just be Auster jerking off in front of a first edition of The Locked Room as he desperately tries to come up with a story worth telling (as evidenced by the bland Brooklyn Follies). And I really don't know which. Dress for the ambiguity: show less

This is a tricky book to talk about for those who haven't read it. On the one hand, I think it's the sort of thing where it's probably best if you go into it knowing as little about it as possible. On the other hand, I think it's also the sort of thing where if you approach it with the wrong expectations, the result might be really frustrating. So, well, I'll say this: it opens with an old man sitting in a white room without knowing where he is or how he got there or even quite who he is. And I'll also say that if, based on that, you're expecting a plot or a puzzle to solve, you're likely to be disappointed. Because what this book is doing is something much more... abstract.

I'll also say that the conceit, which I twigged to gratifyingly show more early on, is one that appealed to me, and that in the end the whole thing worked for me, in its own strange way. Whether it should have worked quite that well, I'm not at all sure. As soon as I finished it, I started thinking back on specific details, wondering exactly what they might mean or if they actually meant anything at all.

Basically, it's an odd little literary experiment of a book, but an interesting and I think a worthwhile one. And it's short enough that it can (and probably should) be read in one sitting. show less

This novella was a bit less satisfying than other Auster's I have read. Still it was interesting, and I enjoyed the the story within a story as well. I think this is the first time that I noticed direct linkages to other works with the story within a story linked to Oracle Night.

This book is described as something of a puzzle; fortunately, the secret being easy to figure out doesn't detract from its enjoyment. The way the narration doles out pieces of the old man bit by bit, especially at the very beginning, is a pleasure to behold, and what the novella has to say about aging, memory, and the twofold power and danger of stories is magnificent.

If you’ve ever seen the television program called “The Twilight Zone”, you’ll have an idea of what an eerie read this book is. The feeling it gave me was the same.

As the story begins, we encounter an unidentified man, whom we shall call Mr. Blank, waking up in a room containing the bed on which he’s lying, a desk with piles of papers on it, and a chair. Mr. Blank has no idea where he is or even who he is. There are several things within the room which are labeled with a single word. He is not sure if he is a prisoner in this room or if he can get out. The window shade is down so he has no idea of what “out” would even be like. There are people who occasionally come into his room and then later leave. Mr. Blank thinks he show more might know them, but is not sure.

As the story progresses, we readers, along with Mr. Blank himself, attempt to discover his identity and the context of the environment in which he finds himself. He peruses the contents of the typewritten pages on the desk for clues to his own history or where he might be.

If this sounds intriguing to you, then grab this quick and engrossing read. If postmodern fiction is not your thing, you might want to skip it. For me, the bizarre ending of this book has me very much wanting to read more of Paul Auster’s works. show less