Leviathan (FF Classics) [Paperback]

I'm a big Auster fan and this is probably my favourite book of his. It grips from the start as the story of Ben Sachs told through the eyes of his friend Peter Aaron. Its a great story and the characters are well drawn. The terrorism theme is unusual for him, and has echoes of American Pastoral by Philip Roth- both books have friends and family struggling to come to terms with a radical acquaintance.
Auster uses the statue of liberty as a fitting allegory for the establishment and for the way people settle for less, in a world bereft of truth, meaning or ideology. Ben Sachs is an unforgettable character, but what lingers is the compromised muddied relationship between Aaron and Sachs, and the things left unsaid and undone.

Benjamin Sachs story is "conveyed through the eyes of his friend Peter Aaron, a novelist who discovers in the book's opening pages that Sachs has died in a mysterious bomb explosion. Aaron sets out to write the definitive version of Sachs's story before the FBI can formulate theirs." Benjamin Sachs is a writer, a philosopher, a man with loyalties and passions. But more than that Benjamin Sachs is a questioner - he questions his own nature and psychosocial make up, he tests himself and probes deeper to understand who he is and also the nature of humanity, fate, destiny and chance. He is willing to give up his wife, career and practical reason in his search. Many incidents in this book can be criticised as unreal - the seemingly simple triggering of Sachs "series of fateful events" and the many coincidence that pop up to escalate these events, however far from building a sense of unreality I feel they render a state of hyper reality - how many times have you said "if I told you, you wouldn't believe it". Here Auster has told it and in a manner in which we can see this mans wrenching search into himself. Indeed many of the events are based autobiographically on Auster's own life. I particularly love the passages outlining Sachs efforts to alienate his wife - to get her to leave him rather than the other way around, Sachs attempts to "innocently" touch Maria and the deepening of Aaron's friendship with Sachs to the extent that he wishes to slip into his skin - to sleep with Sachs wife, oh these and many more threads I found wonderfully and unnervingly real.
This book has been much read due to its "anti-establishment" content, yet I feel this book is less to do with the macrocosm of the American nation and more to do with the microcosm of mans struggle with his self and of the freedom imparted by the near death experience. Auster himself has quoted the Greek saying. `Judge no man's happiness until he is dead' in relation to this work. Sachs bombings of Statue of Liberty replicas can be on the surface seen as anti-establishment statements but what is more then can be seen as Sachs blowing up fear - stultifying fear, as first witnessed in his mothers experience on climbing the stature of liberty. 'The Phantom of Liberty' being less a terrorist of the state and more a man in search of his own liberation.
This book should also be read by fans of contemporary art in particular the Artist Sophie Calle - whose works Auster weaves into the story through the character of Maria.
In my reading so far I find this book to be a rare gem - a psychological narrative with action. I'm off to buy the rest of his works.
The Artist

Auster's book is written from the point of view of Peter Aaron, writer, and is his biography of his friend, political writer turned activist, Benjamin Sachs. Aaron uncovers Sachs' life, their shared history in New York, lovers, friends, and what drove his friend to become so alienated from and opposed to corporate America.