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Book reviews for "Auster,_Paul" sorted by average review score:

I Remember
Published in Paperback by Penguin USA (Paper) (April, 1995)
Authors: Joe Brainard and Paul Auster
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A Great Handbook for 'Writers' Block'
I saw this book recommended by one of my favorite authors, Michael Cunningham (he wrote THE HOURS). Michael teaches a Creative Writing course at Columbia University and I'm sure he implores his students to read this one. It is an easy, simple read of "I REMEMBER..." lines of memories from the 1940s and 1950s. It is a 'must read' for any writer who has writers block as it will spur new ideas into one's head, encouraging one to write their very OWN 'I Remember' lines. I really enjoyed it, relating and laughing several times--I ended up finishing it in one day as a break from another book.

Unsung but not forgotten
Yes, and we remember you, Joe. Lovely man (not that I ever knew the geezer) and the originator in this work of the Je me souviens format for which Georges Perec (of the pretentious/ludicrous Oulipo group)is always given credit. Did Georges discover Joe via Harry Mathews? Anyways, he wouldn'ta minded. An American original; pity he never turned his hand to opera libretti. When can we expect the Collected Writings please?

Brilliant!!!
I didn't think it could be done, but Joe Brainard has managed to keep me interested through a book-length poem! It's all about the pop culture references and those universal moments of feeling just plain odd. Every stanza begins with "I remember", but he manages not to make it boring at all.


The Story of My Typewriter
Published in Hardcover by Distributed Art Publishers (13 September, 2002)
Authors: Paul Auster and Sam Messer
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A Good Coffeetable Book
If you are a typewriter fetishist or a Paul Auster devotee, then you will find a justification for buying this book. That said, I must say that the book is a bit too thin, both in volume and content, to justify a purchase for most people. This book is mostly about Sam Messer, an artist friend of Auster, who became infatuated with Auster's Olympia portable typewriter (those who are curious about the specific model name/number, it looks to be a SM 9). Over the period of twenty years or so, he painted the typewriter. The paintings are intimate and beautifully done; the best ones feature Auster in the composition. These are perhaps the loveliest depictions of a typewriter you'll find out there, and if you are a typewriter aficionado, you will love this book. Paul Auster provides a perfunctory anecdotal history of his typewriter, and at reaching the end of the book, I empathized with him (and many other writers like him) who attach illogical but mysterious significance to a writing instrument. The book is handsome, and a breezy read; you can read the whole thing in fifteen minutes - perfect for your houseguests.

Amusing Coffeetable Book, Not Much More
If you're a typewriter fetishist or Paul Auster devotee, this book is definitely worth it. I am a bit of both, so the book is quite an endearing eyecandy for me. This slim volume is really the work of Sam Messer, an artist who became enamored with Auster's Olympia portable (I think SM 8 or 9) and decided to paint it everytime he visited. The paintings are quite good, as a matter of fact. Auster provides a quick, anecdotal history of his typewriter, and if you are a writer, you will empathize how he or anyone can grow so enamored with a writing tool.

Is this a book worth adding to your collection with paid money? Yes, if you are into Auster and you believe in the superstitious mythical powers that all rational and intelligent writers place in their writing machines. In my personal opinion, this piece belonged in a nice art magazine.

If you want to get a book that Auster's work intersects with art, check out "Double Game", a collaborative effort by Sophie Calle and Paul Auster. There is no finer blending of fact/fiction, art/literature in contemporary literature.

The best book I have ever bought!
Anyone who enjoys a good Paul Auster story or the briliant paintings of Sam Messer will love this book. I am an artist myself and I recomend this to anyone who is at all interested in Messers work. The typewriters are beautiful. I want to buy this book for everyone I know.


An Art of Desire.Reading Paul Auster.(Postmodern Studies 21)
Published in Paperback by Rodopi Bv Editions (January, 1999)
Author: Bernd Herzogenrath
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A complicated Dance of Theory and Fiction
This, the first book-length study of Auster's works, proves to be a both demanding and rewarding affair. Make no mistake, this is definitely scholarship at the highest level and not a book for high-school kids doing a paper on The New York Trilogy.

Even for readers well-versed in contemporary literary theory and literature there is work to be done, and if you have a problem with a theoretical approach to literature then stay miles away from this book - unless you really are an avid Auster-fan: then you should feel obliged to at least give it a go.

But if you are interested in witnessing how theory, in this case of the post-structuralist vein (in particular Lacan and Derrida), and literature - four of Auster's core works (City of Glass, In the Country of Last Things, The Music of Chance and Moon Palace) may cross-fertilize each other - this is definitely a book to read.

For students (post-graduates in particular, I guess) and scholars working with Auster this book is indispensable. The chapters on the genre-affiliations preceding every close reading are for the most part interesting, in particular in connection with Moon Palace which is seen as a novel written in the picaresque mode. The close readings following these generic definitions are very thorough and eye-opening, and the Lacanian approach often leads to stunningly original interpretations, forcing the reader read Auster in a new light. I thoroughly recommend this study - the effort is rewarded with insight and inspiration.


Beyond the Red Notebook: Essays on Paul Auster (Penn Studies in Contemporary American Fiction)
Published in Hardcover by University of Pennsylvania Press (October, 1995)
Author: Dennis Barone
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Stroyteller? Absolutely!
Paul Auster? Well known author, a novelist. No, it's better if we inspect this writer without any restrictions. Because he is unmeasureable. Essays and fiction. Beyond the Red Notebook: Essays on Paul Auster, this is one of the best essaycollections i've ever read. Although it is not a fiction, you can still notice that he is discussing about the same problems as he does in he's novels. All these essays are each one involved with a self-seeking. Like Auster is trying to prove that his standpoints in novels are true. I would compare Auster with Susan Sontag. Sontag's style is similar to Auster's one. So this book is a good one in two aspects: composition and the essays itself. So, why I put only 4 stars. Well, it always seems to me in every book that there could be something more. But this is a great book, no doubt about that.


Disappearances: Selected Poems
Published in Paperback by Overlook Press (May, 1989)
Author: Paul Auster
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Distances
Bluntly, Auster's poetry is obscure. It can be difficult to read and, at times, seem opague. However, these words in their silence somehow remain within the reader's mind: in a sense, they haunt. And in this haunting, in this persistence, they demand a certain attention and a certain physicallity. They seem not only to exist within the spaces of the page but within the "absence of book," to quote Blanchot, a writer whom Auster both admired and translated. These poems force us to consider those things we usually don't, to see the world in a way that often perplexes the very perception of the world. They make us think other. But this is not an other of exclusion but an other of embrace: through these words, we embrace the other, we confuse the commonly held notions of what it means to live, to move, to breathe, to experience, in relation to the world. As Auster himself said of the painter Jean-Paul Riopelle: because he "understands that the body is what sees, that there can be no seeing without motion, he is able to carry himself across the greatest distances--and come to the places of nearness and intmacy..." Such is the case with Auster's own poems: "Not even the sky. / But a memory of sky, / and the blue of the earth / in your lungs..." The poems yield a meaning worth the time needed to explore them. Although he has found a great clarity, depth and audience with his novels, which is unquestionably his best work, these poems shouldn't be over-looked as they far too often are, both by fans of his work and critics.


Ghosts (New York Trilogy Series Vol 2)
Published in Paperback by Penguin USA (Paper) (July, 1987)
Author: Paul Auster
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Chandler by way of Kafka
An intriguing novel of the surreal. Under the guise of detective fiction, Auster creates a study in humanity and its composite elements, weaving an intriguing web of deception and misdirection in which names are unimportant.

There are sentences in this book which entire other books could be based on. Thankfully, this is one time where an author chooses brevity and wit over quantity. (Perhaps the only criticsm could be he takes this to a whole other extreme and makes it too brief).

Recommended for fans of Beckett and Kafka.


Translations
Published in Paperback by Marsilio Pub (June, 1997)
Author: Paul Auster
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The translation of Philippe Petit is worth the price of the
Philippe Petit's "High Wire", incredible lessons challenge our ideas of life, safety. spirituality and magic. His greatest fear is not falling; it is not being able to step out on the wire.


In the Country of Last Things
Published in Paperback by Penguin USA (Paper) (May, 1988)
Author: Paul Auster
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Existential, man.

For the love of god, will someone please confiscate Paul Auster's copy of Diamond Dogs? A substandard dystopic work that wears its less-than-profound philosphical ruminations on its sleeve, In the Country of Last Things is Auster's longest title and worst book ( the best would be Leviathan, in case you're wondering. ) Here, as in the New York Trilogy, his writing is far too Livres de Poche -- meaning spare and vague, like all Camus-influenced French fiction. Worse, he has no talent for imagery, which means that this book in no way approaches Riddley Walker as a post-holocaust vision, despite what the inside jacket says. ITCOLT isn't even as good as Martin Amis's sister novel Other People. I just really didn't care for all the high-concept ideas ( such as The Runners, who run in packs until they collapse and die. ) Too cute, far too cute. Avoid.

Rawster
Although this may not be Auster's best book, it still provides many Austerisms to satisfy and hold you for the short amount of time it will take you to read this novel. This well told journey of a woman in a strange place does start off a little slow but once Auster's slanted supporting cast is introduced, it rolls from there. Auster's use of these slightly skewed characters is once again genius when splintered in with his trademark "coincidences". Auster has an unusual talent that translates into unusual stories with unusual characters that vice grip you into submission. This is an earlier, rawer example of Paul Auster, which only shows how his style has developed and matured into the force it is now. Like I said, this may not be his best, but Auster's worst is still better than half the junk that's printed today.

A Masterwork
I'm a great fan of Paul Auster and read this book in two sittings over the weekend (Fri/Sat here in Israel). At a crossroads in the book I took a nap and dreamed of all the possible resolutions of that particular chapter. When I awoke and continued I found that Auster resolved the situation in a totally unexpected way. He always surprises the reader.

Wonderful from many viewpoints: existential, post-holocaust, futuristic. I also think that his spare writing style was very capable indeed of painting a visual and emotional landscape.


Lulu on the Bridge
Published in Paperback by Anagrama (December, 1998)
Author: Paul Auster
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Didn't read the script but saw the movie, so....
In a word, it truly stinks. The "twist" ending would be just passable in a student film; here, from the author of The New York Trilogy, it's a colossal embarassment. When Willem Defoe went into "Singin' in the Rain," I almost hid under the sofa. Ouch.

No way -- this is a trite, familiar bit of Twilight Zonery
Paul Auster is an exceptional writer and capable of great work-- for example, all of LEVIATHAN, MOON PALACE, and THE MUSIC OF CHANCEare excellent novels. TIMBUKTU, his latest, has plenty to recommend it as well.

But he's also capable of producing dreck (for instance, his close-to-unreadable novel MR. VERTIGO), and this script is in the dreck category.

Has the man never read "An Incident At Owl Creek Bridge"? Well, Ambrose Bierce used the gag at the core of this film many, many years before Auster did. Borges used it, too. That by itself is fine -- the fact that Homer wrote about war doesn't mean no one else should ever again -- but seems to think his gag is clever, orginal, and not telegraphed, when nothing could be further from the truth. (Frankly, the only reason I was in suspense until the end was that I couldn't believe that Auster would [re-]use such an obvious gag.)

LULU ON THE BRIDGE is crap. Pretentious writing, familiar ideas. Don't be suckered.

If you are a fan of the film.... YES!
I love the film. Now I can "take" the film with me
anywhere I want with this screenplay. I cherish
every word. I also love the fact that some of the
edited scenes are in the dialogue too. I just wish
the pictures could be in color. Other than that,
a must for any FAN of the film! "You can't live if
you don't eat, right?" "Right."


Timbuktu
Published in Hardcover by Henry Holt & Company, Inc. (May, 1999)
Author: Paul Auster
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Doggie Dilemmas, Writ Large
Mr. Auster has never been one of my favorite writers. Mr. Vertigo and The Music of Chance are too cutesy--too "written," for my taste. I've always preferred my writers a little crazier, a bit less cerebral, a bit more visceral. My father gave me this book, and I read it because some students of mine in a fiction class were trying to write stories from a dog's point of view. (It was very helpful for the class.) I was surprised that I liked it as much as I did, but I had the same problem with it that I had with the rest of his books. He's not satisfied with just getting inside the dog's head (which he does, with occasionally delightful results--"...it was more than just love or devotion that caused Mr. Bones to dread what was coming. It was pure ontological terror."), but then he has to comment on it in the cutesy voice of his close-3rd person narrator: "How was [Mr. Bones] to know that those missing parts had been responsible for turning him into a father many times over?" It's as if he's condescending to his pooch protagonist. Poor Mr. Bones. I felt for him at the end of the book, when Mr. Auster forces him into a denouement that he doesn't deserve. Still, the book has some great moments, and I actually liked the crazy Mr. Christmas, whose schizophrenic monologues are like something out of Beckett.

It comes as no surprise.
This book requires two different reviews depending on whether or not the perspective reader has previously read any Auster.

If you haven't, this book is a fine, interesting read (forget the Kirkus dog/god thing, you won't find "pure corn will cure porn" anywhere else). Auster is a modern master. The book will do you good as long as you can forgive Auster's careless application of his style of prose to every charcter's voice in the novel (well, most of them).

If you have read more than three Auster books, you should know by now that Auster basically comes up with pretty much the same plot in every novel. The details and the subtlties vary, but this book is basically a mixture of The Music of Chance and parts of the New York Trilogy. If you read this expecting to find something completely new, you'll be disapointed. I think that's why so many people have reacted badly to Mr. Vertigo (which was an excellent book). Auster has a number of brilliant ideas in Timbuktu. There are only two major problems with the text. First, the point of view is not even slightly a dog's point of view. Don't be fooled. Auster isn't even close to being consistent with Dr. Bone's voice (Ingloosh...English setter?) Ok, next, as pointed out, the forty pages or so spent in suburbia are very disenchanting, but one can argue that a suburban landscape requires suburban plot and imagery...cest la guerre.

BTW, if this book comes even close to being a best seller, I'll personally get a tatoo of Santa Claus on my arm. This is far from a sellout.

An interesting from Auster. A compelling read.
This book is an interesting departure for acclaimed novelist Paul Auster, an author who has moved far in his literary career. Beginning with Kafkaesque tales of New York landscapes and dark futures in "The New York Trilogy" and "In the Country of Last Things", Auster's darker earlier career peaked with "The Music Of Chance"-- an excellent book of (once again) Kafka-like opression, mixed in with chaos theory and a compelling tale of servitude, depression and love. After this period, and his amazing screenplay "Smoke", Auster seems to have begun his great-American-allegory phase. The book "Leviathan" works as a bridge into his greatest work (And farthest departure) "Mr. Vertigo"-- a book about flight, the American spirit, the early twentieth century and the state of humanity that is like a Huckleberry Finn for the twentieth century. Within this phase falls his latest wor, "Timbuktu", a work that, while not as satisfying as "Mr. Vertigo" works on the same premise of taking what appears on its face to be cliched and ridiculous (learning to fly, a dog for a narrator etc.) and making an immensely serious, beautifully written book. While this book is not nearly the meisterwerk that Mr. Vertigo was, it is still entertaining, refreshing, inventive and delicate. A story told with immense care and beauty.


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