Paul WHO? – An Incomplete Overview of the Works of Paul Auster
The consumption of literature has been said to be dwindling for the last several decades now. That’s the only reason I can think of when it comes to the widespread ignorance regarding one of the 20th (and 21st) century’s greatest, most prolific authors – Paul Auster.
Quite well-known and lauded in Europe (especially France), the name Paul Auster seldom rings a bell with the average reader in the U.S. So, just so we’re on the same page, let’s get to know the man:
Paul Benjamin Auster was born in Newark, New Jersey, U.S., in 1947 and lived a life entirely dedicated to the literary craft. His list of formal credentials comes through the gates with B.A., as well as M.A. honors in English and Comparative Literature and runs on fervently with numerous literary awards gained over the course of his five-decades-long career (again, most of them coming out of Europe, not to neglect his election into the American Academy of Arts and Letters for Literature in 2006, though). Regretfully, his life ended a short while ago, in April of this year.
So now we have a beginning and an end, but as with any book worth reading, it’s what lies in between that matters most – and in Auster’s case, it’s a lot. So let’s dive into his extensive literary oeuvre and take a look at its many peaks and almost too few to mention valleys.
Obscurity – Of Impenetrable Poetry, Daddy Issues, and a Glass City
Like so many young writers before him, the twenty-something Paul Auster initially sees himself as a poet. He publishes works like Unearth (1974), Wall Writing (1976), Fragments from the Cold (1977) and Facing the Music (1980) directly into the void. He stumbles into the 80s broke, unknown and on the brink of abandoning writing altogether. Curtains up for a serendipitous dance performance! Although he never extensively elaborated upon this, Paul Auster has said that his transition from poetry to prose was inspired by a dance performance he attended at some point during the early 80s. Astonished by the discrepancy between the performance itself (mesmerizing, evocative, powerful) and the following talk by its choreographer (disconnected, dire, dead – Auster’s words), the author had the epiphany to lean more into prose writing. A lucky break for a man who would go on to base much of his writing on unlikely turns of events.
Auster’s first published work of prose (and minor breakthrough) The Invention of Solitude (1982) –still sticking to a writerly cliché– is primarily about his troubled relationship with his then already deceased father – a relationship burdened by indifference, emotional distance, and a lack of understanding on both parts. In the memoir’s second half, Auster explores his relationship with his then infant son. Another father-son relationship that would unfortunately end in disaster…
After gaining some minor success with the aforementioned memoir, Auster would strike it big with The New York Trilogy (1987) – the book he is, until this day, most known for (if at all… – looking at you, U.S.). The New Trilogy, as the name suggests, is composed of three books which are all loosely connected in terms of theme, setting, and tone. While all three are excellent in their own right, City of Glass, the trilogy’s first entry, is by far the most noteworthy of the three. If Auster’s bibliography is a city, City of Glass could be described as its stand-in Empire State Building/Eiffel Tower. It’s here where the author lays the groundwork for the rest of his career. A somewhat obtuse but not entirely inscrutable plot, a sharp focus on the twists and twirls of language, and a palpable sense of the individual’s forlornness in the machinations of the world that surrounds them. Themes of identity, language, and the random nature of chance –clear focal points of Auster’s oeuvre throughout his entire career– are successfully implemented and, for the first time, the broader literary world would take note. City of Glass is without a doubt Paul Auster’s major breakthrough and would pave the way for many outstanding works to come.
A copy of The New York Trilogy belonging to the wonderful Faber Firsts Series
Consolidation – Of Dystopia, Knocking on the Doors of the Literary Canon, and Canine Characters
After breaking through the opaque dome that surrounds the world of literary acceptance, Auster, ever industrious, began a prolific 12-year period in which he published six novels of remarkable quality, two underrated memoirs, as well as two screenplays (for the films Smoke and Blue in the Face). The follow ups to City of Glass, In the Country of Last Things and especially Moon Palace would serve to cement his quality as an often understated but sharp-minded storyteller who, while on the intellectual side, would never neglect to pour enough heart into his plots and characters. Characters like Anna Blume (the protagonist of his dystopic sophomore effort In the Country of Last Things) and Marco Fogg (the ever-so-lost college student and main character of Moon Palace) never fail to evoke a sense of lifelike humanness in their thoughts and behaviors. Moon Palace would go as far as to (depending on who your literature teacher/professor was) border on the American literary canon.
By the time the 1990s rolled around, Auster was still producing above-average writing of all kinds. The novels The Music of Chance, Leviathan, Mr. Vertigo, and Timbuktu would see the light of the world and none of them would disappoint. The author never failed to portray his characters as relatable human beings (or, in the case of Timbuktu, dogs), who, no matter how far-fetched their predicaments, will face them in a way the reader will be able to comprehend, often ending up rooting for them. Naturally, Auster, being as fascinated with the concept of chance and remarkably influenced by Kafka as he was, would often have his characters facing intangible, larger-than-life obstacles. Most of them, immensely difficult or, sometimes, impossible to overcome. However, with Auster it’s about the journey rather than the ending, anyway…
Flowers – Of Reaping What You Sow, an Inexhaustible Back Catalogue, and Tenacity Until the Very End
Upon entering the new millennium, while still mostly remaining in the shadows when it comes to the broader U.S reading public, Paul Auster had become a household name for those who know their way around literature. He would go on to receive dozens of literary awards, including outstanding honors such as the Prince of Asturias Award (Spain), his election to the American Academy of Arts and Letters (finally some tangible recognition in the US), and numerous other awards and nominations for individual works (most of them from Europe).
From the year 2000 until 2023, Auster would publish some of his most accessible work (Brooklyn Follies [2005] – a rather mundane story about a couple of Brooklyn misfits who try their best to find their place in this world), as well as some of his most obtuse outpourings (Travels in the Scriptorium [2006] – a short metanarrative that sees some characters of older works coming back to life in an outing of the distinctively postmodern trope of intertextuality within an author’s own work – a highly recommended read!).
Very accessible in comparison to other works – The Brooklyn Follies
Only seven years before his passing, the world would see Auster publishing his most ambitious novel, the opus 4 3 2 1 – an over 1000-pages-long iteration about the heavy influence chance can have on a human life. The main character, Archie Ferguson, is put through the ringer that a human life can be four times. All of them different from one another but still related in the sense that the books chapters (although in chronological order) are intertwined within the book (the first few years of life 1, followed by the first stretch of life 2, etc.) and fittingly named 1.1, 2.2, 3.4… This mostly stylistic choice, rather than being confusing, succeeds in pulling the reader into all four of Ferguson’s possible lives and will have one guessing as to what will happen next until the last page is turned.
For some, Auster’s magnum opus – 4 3 2 1.
Apart from his ongoing production of fictional writing, Auster never failed to take his
time to produce noteworthy non-fiction projects. Several memoirs serve as binoculars that allow the reader to peek into the man’s thoughts and feelings through his own words rather than through the mouths of his characters/narrators. Auster was, as any great writer, no stranger to letter-writing, either. In relation to this, Here and Now – Letters: 2008-2011 (2013) – an exchange of letters between Auster and J.M Coetzee, is another slightly neglected but highly recommendable read. Toward the end of his Life, Auster took the time to finalize two passion projects: Burning Boy: The Life and Work of Stephen Crane (2021) – a beautifully crafted, 800-page leviathan of a biography about the often overlooked American writer Stephen Crane, and his very last published work, a fervent essay about gun violence in the U.S., poignantly titled Bloodbath Nation (2023).
Paul AUSTER – Remember the Name
After mentioning the name Paul Auster dozens of times throughout this admittedly rather impassioned defense of a writer who (in my opinion) should be one of the most recognizable names on a global, historical scale of names of all nationalities and genres, I’d like to present you with a challenge: pick up any book with the name Paul Auster on the cover, read through it, and try to claim, in all honestly, that it’s not top-notch writing. My prediction: you won’t succeed.