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Book of Illusions by Paul Auster
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Book of Illusions (original 2002; edition 2002)

by Paul Auster

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4,205782,788 (3.86)179
In this rich and emotionally charged work, a man's obsession with a silent film star sends him on a journey into a shadowy world of lies, illusions, and unexpected love. A man's obsession with a silent-film star sends him on a journey into a shadow world of lies, illusions, and unexpected love. Six months after losing his wife and two young sons in an airplane crash, Vermont professor David Zimmer spends his waking hours mired in a blur of alcoholic grief and self-pity. Then, watching television one night, he stumbles upon a clip from a lost silent film by comedian Hector Mann. Zimmer's interest is piqued, and he soon finds himself embarking on a journey around the world to research a book on this mysterious figure, who vanished from sight in 1929 and has been presumed dead for sixty years. When the book is published the following year, a letter turns up in Zimmer's mailbox bearing a return address from a small town in New Mexico-supposedly written by Hector's wife. "Hector has read your book and would like to meet you. Are you interested in paying us a visit?" Is the letter a hoax, or is Hector Mann still alive? Torn between doubt and belief, Zimmer hesitates, until one night a strange woman appears on his doorstep and makes the decision for him, changing his life forever. This stunning novel plunges the reader into a universe in which the comic and the tragic, the real and the imagined, the violent and the tender dissolve into one another. With The Book of Illusions, one of America's most powerful and original writers has written his richest, most emotionally charged work yet.… (more)
Member:koski
Title:Book of Illusions
Authors:Paul Auster
Info:Picador USA (2003), Paperback, 288 pages
Collections:Your library, 2010, 2005
Rating:*****
Tags:American literature, 2010 luetut, 2005 luetut

Work Information

The Book of Illusions by Paul Auster (2002)

  1. 10
    The New York Trilogy by Paul Auster (caflores)
  2. 00
    Flicker by Theodore Roszak (bluepiano)
    bluepiano: Another protagonist tracking down an old-time Hollywood figure.By no means a literary novel but nonetheless far more interesting than this one.
  3. 01
    Soldiers of Salamis by Javier Cercas (caflores)
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» See also 179 mentions

English (53)  Spanish (9)  French (5)  Catalan (3)  Italian (2)  German (2)  Dutch (2)  Norwegian (1)  All languages (77)
Showing 1-5 of 53 (next | show all)
This is a book about a man who survives the death of his family and spends a long time afterward falling apart. Some vestige of self preservation leads him to a project, watching all the old films of a particular silent-film actor Hector Mann, in the 1980s when such a project really would require travelling around the world to visit every film archive location and while most such archives still had the funding and space to maintain their collections. After a while he starts working on a book about the actor, and Auster's novel wanders off into a biography on the actor. When the novel returns to the main character, he is offered a chance to meet the actor, who is not in fact dead, but simply disappeared into a secret life. After being a complete asshole and nearly losing this opportunity entirely, he is forced at gunpoint, more or less, to go and meet the actor before the actor dies.

I suppose I liked this book well enough, at least to the extent that I was still engaged in the story by the end of the audiobook, always a good sign. I hated the main character, David, and had very little sympathy for him- why is it that middle-aged men in literature get away with being such assholes when dealing with grief, while they expect everyone around them, but especially women, to take care of them and excuse them all their awful behavior? (This is the second literary-fiction novel I've read this year on the theme of middle-aged men grieving the loss of close family, and that other fiction man was just as bad.) So, obviously, I didn't find myself relating well to David and his motivations and choices, and was constantly disappointed when he not only survived the book, but got away with all his crap. I suppose he learns a bit of a lesson about needing to snap out of it/grow up, right around when his girlfriend dies while he is once again so focused on himself that he fails to ask questions or listen when it is important. But the bit where he's improved, grown up, moved on, those bits are outside the scope of this novel.
This book is a bit hard to get into at first, launching as it does into a sort of literary criticism/literary biography style for so long early in the book, but the plot does come back eventually, and the biography bits are important to the overall story, even if they seem like irrelevant tangents at first. ( )
  JBarringer | Dec 15, 2023 |
"Unexpected," she said. "Imaginative," she said. Then thrust the book into my hands on Tuesday. I finished reading it Thursday night. Thus, the four stars -- the pages just kept turning.

I'm still pondering what Auster wants to say about grief, grief recovery, and women. Of the female characters, all will either cry or die, or do both. While I may not resonate with this portrayal of women, the story line, and stories within the story, worked well. Especially engaging of you enjoy film classics. ( )
  rebwaring | Aug 14, 2023 |
Ez a könyv végtére is arról szól, miképp lehet túlélni azt, amit nem lehet túlélni. Mert az ember, úgy fest, időnként hajlamos túlélni, még ha nincs is sok kedve hozzá. Belekapaszkodik valami marginális, piszlicsáré ügybe, mondjuk egy rég elfeledett egykori némafilmszínész rejtélyes eltűnésébe, és miközben ezzel foglalatoskodik, csodálatos módon a felszínen tartja magát. Ha pedig az anyaggyűjtés során valami különöset, valami váratlant talál, az szintúgy kész nyereség, hisz addig sem a whiskyt tolja Xanax-szal. Ez egy pszeudokrimi tehát - egy nyomozás leírása, amiben nem a kinyomozandó dolog a kérdés, hanem hogy maga a nyomozás milyen hatással lesz a nyomozóra, ebben a konkrét esetben: meg tudja-e váltani önmagát általa. És hogy meg tudja-e? Azt nem mondom meg. De nem Austeren múlik, az biztos. Auster, mint mindig, piszok jó. ( )
  Kuszma | Jul 2, 2022 |
[Please scroll down for English]

Na, azt hiszem, nagyjából sikerült végre feldolgoznom a traumát. Egy Auster-könyv, aminek egy része rendben van, a Hector-szál, de a keret, az valami borzalom. A nagyon idézhető idézetektől kezdve (már-már coelhós) a végtelenül olcsó húzásokig. Volt egy pont, ahol hangosan felkiáltottam, miszerint "what the actual fuck?!" (angolul olvastam) amikor a csaj bemászik az ágyába. Azt nem tudom, minden szülő rémálma-e a gyerekekkel és vele együtt zuhanó repülő, nekem már a repertoárom része volt, köszi, igen, pont így képzeltem, továbbra sem ülök velük repülőre. És más sem, ha addig élek is.

Ha ezt olvastam volna először Austertől, biztosan nem leszek rajongó. Szerencsére csak most került sorra, talán nem véletlenül maradt ki eddig. Amennyire emlékszem, Hector sztorija lehetne akár rendes Auster-regény is. Csak az a tetű keret, az húzza le. Lehet, olyan akar lenni, mint valami vacak film, minden klisével? Kétségbeesetten keresem a magyarázatot. Nem mintha Hector szimpatikusabb figura lenne. A halogató, döntésképtelen férfi, aki mindkét nőt tönkreteszi. És a saját magára kirótt vezeklésben aztán még egyet. Aztán további önbüntetéseket szab ki. Mert attól aztán helyrejön minden. Ja, nem, meg néhány életet tönkretesz. Way to go, Hector! Persze nem is kell annak lennie, hogy jó legyen a regény, csak baromira bosszant az ilyen.

Bírtam viszont a felismert utalásokat: Travels in the Scriptorium - ez egy másik Auster-könyv (2006), illetve The Inner Life of Martin Frost, ami az ő filmje (írta és rendezte is), 2007-ből. Csak a trailert tudtam megnézni, de az alapján ugyanaz a sztori, mint ebben a 2002-es regényben, csak nincs benne a „vakmerő húzás” meztelenség, vannak további szereplők és kétszer olyan hosszú.

Akkor most már megnézhetem, mit írtak a többiek erről. És akinek az első Austere volt, adjatok neki még egy esélyt, ez nem ő!

------------------------------------------------

So, I guess I finally managed to cope with the trauma caused by this reading experience. I'm a devoted fan of Auster and this book made me really angry. First, there were the very quotable quotes. Almost coelho-esque. Then that absolutely cheap twist where I said 'what the actual fuck?!' out loud when Alma got into his bed. Right to the my worst nightmare spelled out, thank you. Does every parent have this one?

Were this my first read by Auster, I wouldn't be a fan. Hector's story could be a proper Auster novel but the rest is just awful. Is it supposed to work like a cheap movie with all the clichés? I am desperate to find a proper explanation. Not to say that Hector was a more likeable character the man unable to make a decision until he ruins both women's lives. Then takes on a punishment he thinks he deserves and ruins one more woman. More self-punishing follows and guess what: it doesn't make everything right again. Instead, more lives ruined. Way to go, Hector! The protagonist doesn't have to be likeable of course, it could still be a great novel. But it isn't. (And I'm really pissed off by this kind of behaviour but that's just a sidenote.)

I thoroughly enjoyed recognizing the hints to other works: Travels in the Scriptorium (a later, 2006 novel by Auster) and The Inner Life of Martin Frost, a 2007 movie written and directed by him. I could only get my hands on the trailer but it seems to be same movie: no nudity, more characters and twice the length but the exact same scenes as described in this 2002 novel.

And now I'll go and check what all the others wrote about this book, it was a group reading way back in October. For those meeting Auster for the first time in this one, please, give him another chance, this is not what he's like! ( )
  blueisthenewpink | Jul 2, 2022 |
After his wife and two children die in a plane crash, Vermont professor Dave Zimmer passes several months in a daze of grief. Then one day, something he sees on TV makes him laugh for the first time since the tragedy. He had caught a glimpse of an excerpt from a silent film starring the actor Hector Mann, who he later learned had vanished at the height of his career and was never heard from again. Zimmer becomes fascinated, perhaps obsessed, with Hector Mann, and begins a quest to view and study all of Mann's existing films. Ultimately, Zimmer writes a book on Mann's films, but the mystery of Mann's disappearance remained unsolved.

Then, shortly after his book on Hector Mann is published, Zimmer received a letter purportedly from Mann's wife saying Hector would like to meet with him. Zimmer initially discounts this as a hoax, but developments proceed to show him otherwise.

This like most of the books by Auster I've read was eminently readable, and I'm always amazed at the inventiveness and creativity of his plots and the absolute reality of his characters. This was a most satisfying read, and I will continue to read the several Auster books I have remaining unread on my shelf, as well as any new ones I come across. Recommended.

4 stars ( )
1 vote arubabookwoman | Oct 27, 2021 |
Showing 1-5 of 53 (next | show all)
David Zimmer, professor in Vermont, verliest zijn vrouw en twee zoontjes bij een vliegtuigongeluk. Zes maanden lang brengt hij de dag door in een waas van dronkemanstranen en zelfmedelijden. Op een avond ziet hij op televisie een stukje van een verloren gegane stomme film, gemaakt door een komiek, Hector Mann. Voor het eerst in maanden moet hij lachen. En voor hij het weet heeft hij zich ingegraven in het leven van de mysterieuze Mann, die van de aardbodem verdween in 1929.
Zimmer schrijft de eerste serieuze studie van Manns werk en houdt zo het verdriet op draaglijke afstand. Een jaar na de verschijning van het boek krijgt hij een brief van iemand die beweert de vrouw van Mann te zijn. Hij wordt uitgenodigd Mann te komen bezoeken. Is dit een grap of leeft Hector Mann echt nog? Zimmer aarzelt. Dan verschijnt op een avond een vreemde vrouw aan zijn deur, en zij neemt de beslissing voor hem. Dat verandert zijn leven voor altijd.
Een met een adembenemende precisie en dwingende noodzaak geschreven roman, een boek dat de lezer onderdompelt in een universum waar het komische en het tragische, realiteit en verbeelding, geweld en tederheid samenvloeien.

*Auster is het beste soort import uit Amerika: een experimenteel schrijver die een groot publiek aanspreekt. - The Guardian

*Deze kunstieg en elegante roman zou weleens Austers beste boek tot nu toe kunnen zijn. - Peter Carey

*Een bedwelmend nieuw hoogtepunt in het oeuvre van Auster. - Jonathan Lethem
 

» Add other authors (12 possible)

Author nameRoleType of authorWork?Status
Auster, Paulprimary authorall editionsconfirmed
Bocchiola, MassimoTranslatorsecondary authorsome editionsconfirmed
Flothuis, MeaTranslatorsecondary authorsome editionsconfirmed
Gómez Ibáñez, BenitoTranslatorsecondary authorsome editionsconfirmed
Roseen, UllaTranslatorsecondary authorsome editionsconfirmed
Schmitz, WernerTranslatorsecondary authorsome editionsconfirmed

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"Man has not one and the same life. He has many lives, placed end to end, and that is the cause of his misery" - Chateaubriand
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Everyone thought he was dead.
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In this rich and emotionally charged work, a man's obsession with a silent film star sends him on a journey into a shadowy world of lies, illusions, and unexpected love. A man's obsession with a silent-film star sends him on a journey into a shadow world of lies, illusions, and unexpected love. Six months after losing his wife and two young sons in an airplane crash, Vermont professor David Zimmer spends his waking hours mired in a blur of alcoholic grief and self-pity. Then, watching television one night, he stumbles upon a clip from a lost silent film by comedian Hector Mann. Zimmer's interest is piqued, and he soon finds himself embarking on a journey around the world to research a book on this mysterious figure, who vanished from sight in 1929 and has been presumed dead for sixty years. When the book is published the following year, a letter turns up in Zimmer's mailbox bearing a return address from a small town in New Mexico-supposedly written by Hector's wife. "Hector has read your book and would like to meet you. Are you interested in paying us a visit?" Is the letter a hoax, or is Hector Mann still alive? Torn between doubt and belief, Zimmer hesitates, until one night a strange woman appears on his doorstep and makes the decision for him, changing his life forever. This stunning novel plunges the reader into a universe in which the comic and the tragic, the real and the imagined, the violent and the tender dissolve into one another. With The Book of Illusions, one of America's most powerful and original writers has written his richest, most emotionally charged work yet.

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Professore universitario e critico di prestigio, David Zimmer trascorre le sue giornate in uno stato di semicoscienza alcolica davanti alla tv da quando ha perso moglie e figli in un incidente aereo. Ma una sera un vecchio film comico del cinema muto lo scuote dal torpore: il regista del film, Hector Mann, è scomparso nel 1929 all'apice della sua carriera. Affascinato, Zimmer decide di ricostruire la vicenda e, dopo accurate documentazioni, pubblica un libro sull'argomento. Ma, a un anno dalla pubblicazione, una lettera spedita da una cittadina del New Mexico arriva a confondere tutte le sue conclusioni: è firmata dalla moglie di Mann e dice che il regista sarebbe lieto di incontrare il suo biografo.
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