paul auster's NEW YORK TRILOGY and paul auster.

I think they add up!

I get all the things I get out of Paul Auster and MUCH MUCH MORE from Murakami.

his autobiography is interesting (uh the early one - for some reason I have in mind that he wrote another) if only for the details about being a struggling writer.

I think martin is thinking of the music of chance? I didn't think either film was super, but they were both nice. yes, I bet auster did have fun.

haha: thought I may as well make it a trilogy.

I've read the Beckett trilogy as well, and there is truth in the comparison, but to call the differences just details is a pretty gross exaggeration. I think one important difference is their attitude to some final meaning, or towards silence, which may be characteristic of Beckett being sort of on the cusp of Modernism and Postmodernism whereas Auster is firmly the latter, but they are different sorts of writers in many ways.

nb : I am in general suspicious of DOGS (but but BUT if this is Auster I suspect the dog will be Kafka-dog-esque).

i re-read moon palace this spring and found it slighter than i remembered it at age 19

Music of Chance is a close second, with its fine, unexpected ending and Moon Palace is warm and uplifting. The Invention of Solitude is also very interesting, while Hand to Mouth, his autobiography, pretty much confirmed everything I'd thought about his life from reading NYT and MofC., though unlike Invention, I'm not sure if it's of more than academic interest, ultimately.

Timbuktu, Mr Vertigo and In the country of Last Things are all eminently avoidable, though.

I recently heard Paul Auster and Salman Rushdie trading riffs in an NPR interview. They both have such wonderful speaking voices. It made my year.

I get all the things I get out of Paul Auster and MUCH MUCH MORE from Murakami

i feel the exact opposite. Murakami is fun but it all just evaporates as soon as you close the back cover. NYT is haunting in the best sense.

I don't remember what other Auster I've read but it's all downhill after City of Glass.

I should rereread NYT, now, to get me back into reading!!!

if not, I will take the one I gave to cook, three years ago, and read it, tomorrow

Also I think he hates him.

I liked some of New York Trilogy, that's all I read. It was a bit ponderous.

I did used to live in Paul Auster's old apartment in berkeley. I confirmed this with him the one time I met him at a signing. It was a shitty apartment!

I don't hate Paul Auster, I just find most of his books really frustrating and disappointing (NYT aside, which I love; I also really like the Music of Chance and In the City of Lost Things).

I don't think any of the NYT tries to be "vulgar" in the way that the Beckett trilogy does. They really are very different books, even though yes they do have some similarities. But noting the similarities and then faulting COG for not being fulfilling in the same way as Molloy is ridiculous! That's like faulting it for not rhyming.

new york trilogy is really good. I had only read music of chance before. I get this sense of him painting work and routine as sinister and evil enemies within, it's very real and really resonates. there's a real deflation about these destructive single minded characters in the books. man I should have read New York Trilogy when I was in depths of illness/depression.

and of course yeah, the style, especially in the second part of the trilogy with all the colours for names. so clever but not done in an annoying way.

Recently got the Folio Society edition of this. Very lovely presentation.

kinda hate this dude

especially in the second part of the trilogy with all the colours for names. so clever but not done in an annoying way

yeah, my wife flew into fits of rage when she read the trilogy, especially because of the name thing. go figure.
i can't really call myself a fan, i thought it was a good "read" but also got the sense that the stories were excercises or formulas more than something that really engaged.

i just read his new one. it is a little frustrating and auster is too visible (although not in any meta author-as-character way, which was maybe true of his last book i hear). i really enjoyed leviathan.

Leviathan is the only Auster I gave up on, I got so annoyed with the narrative voice in that one, I was just like: Tell the Goddamn story! All the Sophie Calle stuff is the best stuff in the book anyway!

really? it's so compelling; it's the last i'd think of if wondering about narrative voice, especially in light of the ponderous recent stuff. i enjoyed reading it anyhow. the hector man one, too.

grizzly old recently injured bereaved new yorker re-enters world one pained step at a time is sure paying off as auster's premise.

It's weird, I don't think there's that much depth to the books, but I still really enjoy them. I mean in some ways it's like the height of an airport novel or something. You'd finish an Auster book in a day IME. That's also cos they're incredibly compelling though.

It really fits the stories too, you become temporarily immersed and obsessed with these obsessed characters. I can remember tearing through "The Music of Chance" on a car journey a year or two ago.

Any other authors like this?

i'm interested in the new one after having gone through a period of really not caring for most of his novels; around mr. vertigo they just got very obvious to me. I adore NY3, Music of Chance, and Country of Lost Things though, I think those are some of the best "post modern" lit I've ever read, I just find them incredibly good. The drop off around Leviathan and afterward was very disappoiting to me. But the rap on the new one seems to be that it's not just a return to form but maybe even a betterment? If so I'm in.

I think he's generally a bit underrated because he's easy to read, but I haven't really found anything that matches up to New York Trilogy. I'm in a bit of a period of not caring as well, but I even enjoyed Leviathan and The Book of Illusions which are among his lesser novels.

Any other authors like this?

David Mitchell. If you like Auster and Lost (which you do) then read Ghostwritten next. Murakami as well I suppose but then everyone says Murakami.

hmm might be the new one today...I need these books to tide me over when work leaves me too shattered to climb "The Magic Mountain"

might buy even

no no no david mitchell is a million times better and more interesting than auster or murakami

i really hate auster's fauxhemian pathetic loser protagonists. GET A JOB

In this economy?

Yeah David Mitchell is much much better than both Auster and Murakami but he's coming from a similar place.

i really hate auster's fauxhemian pathetic loser protagonists

B-b-but most of his protagonists are unemployed writer types just like you!

David Plante takes his Beckett influence in a different direction, but the blurring of dreamlife/reality is similar.

Moderately enjoyed NYT, enough to grab another Auster two yrs later at least, halfway through Mr. Vertigo and enjoying it A LOT. I guess I am corny. Also, it reminds me of a TV movie I saw as a kid, poss. Disney, starring W1l Wh3aton as Young Houdini. (may even be called Young Houdini) Only vaguely remember YH as Natty Gan rip off with added prestidigitation.

Paul Auster's New York Trilogy is, in all but its details, totally ripped off from Samuel Beckett's "Molloy"/"Malone Dies"/"The Unnameable" trilogy. I actually read it initially right after I'd read the Beckett and thought WAIT a second... haven't trusted anything by Auster since.

― Douglas, Thursday, December 5, 2002 1:05 PM (6 years ago) Bookmark

This; I too couldn't get through more than 20 pages of City of Glass before deciding it was a third rate Beckett knockoff. But having not read any Beckett in a while, I might be disposed to read this with a more favorable disposition.

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Yeah David Mitchell is much much better than both Auster and Murakami but he's coming from a similar place.

― Matt DC, Saturday, 11 October 2008 14:21 (7 months ago) Bookmark

i reckon he will devolop better into a better writer than auster but he still hasn't written anything that can match ny3. 3 of mitchell's books are better than anything from auster other than ny3 which still trumps them all. no9 dream is kind of a failure though. auster seem to have used all his good ideas in ny3 and everything else seems to be an excercise in trying to recreate that book.

i didn't suggest ban you tho, honest.

I prefer No 9 dream to Mitchell's other books - had me gripped unlike Cloud damn Atlas.

i read NYT last year and to me i thought all 3 stories started awesome (i/e based on a great idea) but didn't really deliver. still enjoyed it though. the last one with the strange old guy walking patterns in the city (while the other is watching him) could be a movie about obsession.

Cloud Atlas is incredible, Auster wishes he could write something that good.

The latest Auster (man in the dark) is horrible again, btw.

This is off topic, I guess, but what would you folks recommend I read of Mitchell's? I liked PARTS of Ghostwritten but found the resolution to be some sort of third-rate PKD pastiche, and it honestly kind of ruined it for me :\

Like Auster, haven't read anything but the New York Trilogy and Music of Chance. Music of Chance is definitely a book that grabbed me and compelled me to finish it quickly (one or two nights iirc) but I have forgotten virtually everything about it now, just a few years later.

those are the two best auster books (I like in the country of last things too).

I really, really recommend Cloud Atlas by Mitchell, I think it's his best novel. Black Swan Green was good too. Both are better than Ghostwritten and No. 9 Dream.