Most Helpful Customer Reviews
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6 of 8 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Short, simple, but profoundly moving, 1 Sep 2008
Whether through its shortness of length or through the familiarity with typical Paul Auster subject matter, there seems to be a tendency in other reviews here so far to underestimate the true worth of the author's latest novel. Man in the Dark may indeed appear short and simple on the surface, but the importance of its subject matter and the emotional depth it covers is nonetheless remarkable.
Through August Brill, the man in the dark, Auster tries to make sense of the world through the medium of the writer spinning ideas in his head. Yes, that's nothing new with Auster and there's certainly a sense of post-modern reflection on the nature of writing and the duty of the writer, but as with Brooklyn Follies and his collection of True Tales Of American Life, Auster is interested in ordinary people and the impact of the exceptional or significant moments on their lives.
Those significant events affecting American people today are alluded to in the book's references to Iraq and the Twin Towers. It's not Auster's intention to confront such grand events, however significant they might seem, but to reduce them to the smaller scale in considering how people learn to deal with such experiences. That does not make Man In The Dark a lesser work. Through memories, shared experiences of joy and suffering, through the fictions they create and the movies they watch, his characters struggle to make sense of an absurd world ever more inclined to bring new unspeakable horrors. Auster masterfully brings these all together into a profoundly moving piece that is richer in meaning and worth than its apparent brevity suggests.
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5 of 7 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
The weird world of Paul Auster rolls back into town, 27 Aug 2008
The first half of the book has an alternative universe thing going on which kept making me think of a high school kid trying to rewrite Terminator it was just so cringey; I think intentionally bad and overdramatic dialogue, plus an old man, August Brill, lying in bed inventing it all.
Yet in the second half, the story became for me much more moving, about family, forgiveness, and the redemptive power of stories. Brill and his grief-stricken granddaughter Katya watch old movies together and re-tell the plots later; the story of Brill's own complicated marriage emerges during a long dark night chat with Katya.
There are chunks of the story missing as far as I'm concerned - I wanted to know more about Miriam, Brill's daughter! - and it won't go on my list of his best books ever, but by the last few pages, I was weeping (as usual with his books) and I found it in the end incredibly moving. Don't miss it if you are a fan, but be prepared for that weird meta-science fiction slant to start with...
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4 of 6 people found the following review helpful:
2.0 out of 5 stars
A collection of anecdotes, 27 Sep 2008
Marginally better than his last, but this colection of bits and pieces, and a semi-novel that he appears to have got bored with, just add to the impression that Paul Auster has really lost his way, or can't be bothered any more, which is a real shame.
The set up is interesting. The narrator is a 70 year old who is spinning stories to himself at night because he can't sleep. One of these stories concerns an alternative America where 9/11 never happened and there is a civil war instead. This scenario makes up the novel-within-the-novel, and we're instroduced to its characters, one of whom is given the task of killing the alternative world's creator - the narrator.
This might have been interesting, but it's really a device for Auster to play with SF ideas of alternate universes and histories. Dozens of hack SF writers have done this, and better. It's an irrelevance, there to pad out what is a very very slim story indeed.
Even this story, slim as it is, is padded out with irrelevancies, anecdotes from some of the characters, background data that would be fine if it were his synopsis or notes for a novel, but very annoying that it's sold as the novel itself.
Then we have the conclusion, the interminable dialogue (done in that horribly trendy no-speech-marks style) between the narrator and his grand daughter, all building up to the novel's horrific conclusion. Which demonstrates - what? The irrelevance of fiction itself? That would explain the pointless novel-within-the-novel. Or just that Paul Auster has now resorted to throwing a few ideas together and calling it a novel.
This might sound harsh, but Paul Auster has produced so many fine novels that have engrossed me for days and lingered in my mind long afterwards that it's very disappointing to read the skimpy fare of his last two books. I always buy him in hardback, but this might be the last time.
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