Auggie Wren's Christmas Story: Amazon.co.uk: Paul Auster, Isol: 9780805077230: Books

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Review

"Thoroughly enjoyable...Auster's subtly crafted portrayal of the mechanics of reality is eminently realistic in its complexity and flaws." --This text refers to an alternate Hardcover edition.

Book Description

An illustrated Christmas gift book edition of a classic short Paul Auster tale. --This text refers to an alternate Hardcover edition.

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Customer Reviews

9 Reviews

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5.0 out of 5 stars (9 customer reviews)

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26 of 28 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars The making of 'Smoke'., 5 April 2005

By

Jan Dierckx (Belgium, Turnhout) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)

This review is from: Auggie Wren's Christmas Story (Hardcover)

Auggie Wren runs a store where you can buy tobacco and magazines. One day a youth steels a few paperbacks and Augggie Wren runs after him. The young man loses his wallet and Auggie stops to pick it up. He looks in the wallet and finds the address
of what turns out to be the grandmother of our young delinquent. ( I can't tell anymore without spoiling the plot ).

Film director Wayne Wang was seduced by this little story and it was he who persuaded Paul Auster to write the script for "Smoke". (1994).

The present edition of "Auggie Wren's Christmas Story" has two parts. The first part is a kind of introduction and uses a scene from the film where Auggie shows his photo collection to Paul. Even in this introduction reality and fiction are intertwined to become one and the same.(And isn't this the true value of literature, to erase the borderline between dreams and every day reality ?).
The second part is the story like it was told by Harvey Keitel in "Smoke".
At the end Paul Auster says: " As long as there's one person to believe it, there's no story that can't be true."

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3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Auster's Classic Brought To You In Tactile Covers!, 11 Oct 2009

By

O. P. Dawson (London , United Kingdom) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)

This review is from: Auggie Wren's Christmas Story (Hardcover)

The story contained in these pages is a short one, yet featuring the colourful character of Auggie Wren, Brooklyn cigar store proprietor, it overflows with meaning, optimism and humanity. Fans of Auster will nod at the author's traditional appearance in his own work, casting as he does, some doubt about whether the story is a "true" one or merely another work of fiction. "Auggie Wren's Christmas Story" exists in that uncertain, unknowable hinterland between Auster's reality and the reader's. Beautifully bound and illustrated, for existing disciples of Paul Auster, this is a neat and welcome trinket that will sit proudly in the collection. For newcomers, both the tale itself and the accompanying images drawn so playfully by illustrator "Isol" will serve as a useful entry point for the ambiguous worls of the author.

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1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars An exercise in seeing, 6 Oct 2010

By

Naikeri Z (London) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Auggie Wren's Christmas Story (Hardcover)

Arrived and read it in the few minutes after. It resounded with the many times random, imperfect encounters (in the corner of a cafe, or a bus or a plane) have led to something "other" in my own existence. Often we look and don't "see". Or we don't look. Auggie Wren is a call to attention, to "seeing" through the tenuous fabric of life and maximising, relishing, the hand it deals you. The question is: when, and how, do we start to see the pattern/s in things, in our own life? Are occasional glimpses enough? Do we always need a mentor a-la-Auggie Wren?

I love the wicked mystery, the delighted smiles of someone (Auggie) that searches for, has glimpsed, that something "other". And who, like the narrator, hasn't had that fortuitous encounter that has left them wondering who that person, that stranger, was, if they and their story were actually real? Life is a jigsaw puzzle with lots of pieces missing (but a few in place).

The illustrations added to that sense of a certain path or order found in the middle of chaos, but the text is more than rounded enough in itself.

Beautifully brief and simple.

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Most Recent Customer Reviews

5.0 out of 5 stars Lovely Christmas Gift
Fascinating illustrations - lovely book. Good to see the Short Story format being taken so seriously.

Published on 8 Feb 2010 by M. Archbold