The Book of Illusions: A Novel
by Paul Auster
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Read in December, 2003
Drawing obvious parallels between the character of Hector Mann and the character of David Zimmer, Auster explores redefinition of the self. In his own circumstance, Zimmer, a professor at a college in Vermont, gets a phone call one day that his wife and two children have been killed in a plane crash. He is left alone, and the weight of his grief leaves him to want to do nothing. He contemplates suicide from time to time. Then one day of mindless television watching something happens...he laughs ...more
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Read in July, 2008
recommended to El by:
Janice & 1001 Books You Must Read Before You Die (193/1001)
After a plane crash takes wife and two boys from college professor David Zimmer, his life is consumed by grief and guilt. In time he becomes interested in the silent movies of Hector Mann, an Argentinian movie star in the early 20th century who disappeared suddenly under mysterious circumstances. He turns his attention to filling his days with writing a book about Mann - his writing becomes a form of therapy for him (later he turns his attention to translating Chateaubriand's behemoth of an au...more
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Read in July, 2008
recommended to Alistair by:
my book club recommends it for: people who read the TLS or New york review of books
i have the impression that Auster writes very easily and could write all day long about anything and be very clever and knowing but i did not like this book and found it wordy , pretentious and facile .i think there are a lot of metaphors in the book which i probably missed entirely .
it is the story of Hector Mann a silent film star and director who disappears and David Zimmer who loses his wife and children in a plane crash and then embarks on a redemptive search for Mann and in doing so find...more
it is the story of Hector Mann a silent film star and director who disappears and David Zimmer who loses his wife and children in a plane crash and then embarks on a redemptive search for Mann and in doing so find...more
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Read in June, 2008
This was a mediocre book for the most part. The story showed occasional glimpses of promise, but for the most part was a thankless trudge. The ending, however, made me angry for having wasted time getting to it.
I don't really want to dwell on the story more than necessary, so let me just point out my biggest gripe:
The story concerns a silent film actor, Hector Mann, with a mysterious and tragic past. The story of his life is interesting. However, having the story filtered through the...more
I don't really want to dwell on the story more than necessary, so let me just point out my biggest gripe:
The story concerns a silent film actor, Hector Mann, with a mysterious and tragic past. The story of his life is interesting. However, having the story filtered through the...more
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Read in April, 2008
recommends it for:
Readers of contemporary post-modern fiction
Oh the beauty of jury duty...lots of uninterrupted reading time! This is only the second book of Paul Auster's I've read (after The New York Trilogy, which I absolutely loved). It's written in a more straightforward style than The New York Trilogy, in that it has one main plot and character and for the most part, you do not question the reliability of the narrator. But, as I've come to like about Auster, the story does not unfold in a linear way. There are actually multiple stories wrapped u...more
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مترجم: امیر احمدی آریان
تعداد صفحات کتاب: ۳۴۰ صفحه
به نظر من کتاب در ترجمه خیلی از ارزشهاش رو از دست داده بود... قسمتهایی از کتاب به طرز ناشیانه ای سانسور شده بود به طوری که خیلی وقتها اصلا نمی فهمیدین که چه اتفاقی افتاده و گاهی به اتفاقی در گذشته اشاره میکرد که اصلا در کتاب چیزی...more
تعداد صفحات کتاب: ۳۴۰ صفحه
به نظر من کتاب در ترجمه خیلی از ارزشهاش رو از دست داده بود... قسمتهایی از کتاب به طرز ناشیانه ای سانسور شده بود به طوری که خیلی وقتها اصلا نمی فهمیدین که چه اتفاقی افتاده و گاهی به اتفاقی در گذشته اشاره میکرد که اصلا در کتاب چیزی...more
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recommends it for:
jane fucking gruning
in short: moments of near-transcendence, but ultimately not worth the time.
+ + + + + + +
i get the impression that auster wrote this one straight through without any sort of revision, probably because working Book of Illusion into a stronger narrative seemed a herculean task (and maybe because he's reached a stage in his career where he feels he can forego the ego puncture of editorial intervention - it happens).
what he's presented instead of a masterwork is a sprawling mess of good ...more
+ + + + + + +
i get the impression that auster wrote this one straight through without any sort of revision, probably because working Book of Illusion into a stronger narrative seemed a herculean task (and maybe because he's reached a stage in his career where he feels he can forego the ego puncture of editorial intervention - it happens).
what he's presented instead of a masterwork is a sprawling mess of good ...more
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Read in January, 2008
recommends it for:
masochists
What I learned? I learned that I was right in assuming almost fifteen years ago that Paul Auster had jumped the shark. Enter Mr. Vertigo, exit talent.
I haven't read Auster in quite some time but felt I had held a grudge against an author I had once really adored whose work I felt had started to suck. And yet, no, his work kind of sucks.
Let us put aside for a moment the fact that Auster spends a fair number of the pages of this book describing, in minute detail, films - that's right som...more
I haven't read Auster in quite some time but felt I had held a grudge against an author I had once really adored whose work I felt had started to suck. And yet, no, his work kind of sucks.
Let us put aside for a moment the fact that Auster spends a fair number of the pages of this book describing, in minute detail, films - that's right som...more
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Read in April, 2008
Interesting but unconvincing.
Has the elements for a good book -- a historical mystery, parallel stories about trying to cope with impossible grief and guilt, complex thoughts on the nature of art -- but it just doesn't come together. The odyssey of Hector Mann, the vanished silent movie comic, is much more interesting than the present-day story, which fails because David Zimmer is a largely unsympathetic character who isn't compelling enough to make him bearable despite his many fault...more
Has the elements for a good book -- a historical mystery, parallel stories about trying to cope with impossible grief and guilt, complex thoughts on the nature of art -- but it just doesn't come together. The odyssey of Hector Mann, the vanished silent movie comic, is much more interesting than the present-day story, which fails because David Zimmer is a largely unsympathetic character who isn't compelling enough to make him bearable despite his many fault...more
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Read in May, 2008
This is only the second Auster book I've read, but the plot and themes here feel lived-in, familiar to the author, and some mild Googling makes me think this is true. There's a story-within-a-story structure here, with the within (the life of silent-film actor Hector Mann) being often great and far better than the without (professor David Zimmer, who researches Mann). Of course the structure is very much the point, with all sorts of parallels between Zimmer and Mann; it's just that Mann is a fan...more
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Read in January, 2007
i found this book in my street and started reading it right away. then i left it where i was cat-sitting and now, well i just want to get back to it.
paul auster is huge in france, which is partly due to my old sorbonne professor being in charge of the national exam program and always putting paul auster on the official reading list. thus, i read moon palace in 1998 when i was studying under professor badonnel for my masters. that was a long time ago, but i do remember it as a page-turner and ...more
paul auster is huge in france, which is partly due to my old sorbonne professor being in charge of the national exam program and always putting paul auster on the official reading list. thus, i read moon palace in 1998 when i was studying under professor badonnel for my masters. that was a long time ago, but i do remember it as a page-turner and ...more
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Read in September, 2007
Surprisingly good read. I was ensnared by the story's premise that the narrator (a literary scholar), after having lost his family in a tragedy, almost accidentally becomes so fascinated by a now-forgotten silent movie actor that he studies the few films remaining and publishes a book about said actor, now supposedly dead.
As a result he is contacted by a person claiming the actor is still alive, if only barely so, and that the actor would like to see him.
This leads up to an end of the st...more
As a result he is contacted by a person claiming the actor is still alive, if only barely so, and that the actor would like to see him.
This leads up to an end of the st...more
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I finished The Book of Illusions by Paul Auster about 2 in the morning...haven't felt so compelled to find out What Happened in a while. It's really three stories in one, two taking precedent. The narrator's tragic story of losing his family in an instant, repercussions of same, then accidentally nicking onto a mystery through a simple laugh caused by a man long thought dead that resurrects a man that desires death. Is the comedian/actor dead? Is the woman that visits perpetuating a hoax for so...more
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Read in June, 2008
Auster is often criticised for being self indulgent. For writing about writers. But with this novel I felt that I was the one being indulged. A great story, engaging and well told. I believed the characters, and whilst some critics say the plot was far fetched in places, I smile and know that imagination isn’t dead.
I had no previous interest in stars of silent film, but the novel held my attention throughout - the sign of good writing to me. Plenty of thoughtful meditations on the hum...more
I had no previous interest in stars of silent film, but the novel held my attention throughout - the sign of good writing to me. Plenty of thoughtful meditations on the hum...more
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Read in February, 2008
recommends it for:
Grief-striken wordsmiths and lovers of silent film trying to piece their lives back together
A surprising book that is riveting through to the final words. I say "surprising" because at first it's not clear as to what kind of book this is going to be. As with some of Auster's other work, the novel is told through a first-person narrator who happens to be a writer. We get long accounts of the book he is writing (about a silent filmmaker who went missing some years prior) and almost forget that there is a narrator involved, that we aren't reading a third-person account of this f...more
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This is likely my favorite Paul Auster book. I don't know if I want to write reviews of all of his books, but suffice it to say that this, like most of Auster's work, is another story of a man looking so hard at something outside of himself that he ends up looking too hard at things inside of himself as well, subsequently losing touch with reality.
This is the story of how the light touch of some form of lost art can become a hammer blow at the right moment and when wielded by skilled artist...more
This is the story of how the light touch of some form of lost art can become a hammer blow at the right moment and when wielded by skilled artist...more
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Read in November, 2006
Like typical Auster, easy to read but interesting questions to think about. I'll quote from a review that I think sums it up: "If a tree falls in a forest with nobody around, does it make a sound? At one point in his 10th novel, The Book of Illusions, Paul Auster briefly refers to this philosophical concept. If a man, however, lives a life that nobody else notices, did he really live? That's the real debate that he proposes with this novel." In this book Auster deals not only wi...more
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Read in June, 2006
This book was recommended (and, in fact, given to me) by Daniel.
Reading Auster is so immersive that I finished this in about a day and a half. Which, to be honest, wasn't that difficult since it is a relatively thin book. My point is, though, that Auster is one of those authors who successfully creates an entirely believable world that, although it is incredibly depressing for the most part, is enticing enough to keep you from the real world. Highly recommended.
Reading Auster is so immersive that I finished this in about a day and a half. Which, to be honest, wasn't that difficult since it is a relatively thin book. My point is, though, that Auster is one of those authors who successfully creates an entirely believable world that, although it is incredibly depressing for the most part, is enticing enough to keep you from the real world. Highly recommended.
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Read in July, 2005
recommends it for:
someone who's stranded in an airport for 24 hours
I just recommended this book to someone stranded in the Minneapolis airport. I had forgotten how much I liked it until I saw it sitting there quietly on the shelf, minding it's own business.
This is why real books are so much more awesome than ebooks--they come back to tickle your mind. That, and when you spill wine on them (like I did on my copy of The Book of Illusions) they don't give up the ghost in an electric funeral.
Anyhow. Take that, Minneapolis.
This is why real books are so much more awesome than ebooks--they come back to tickle your mind. That, and when you spill wine on them (like I did on my copy of The Book of Illusions) they don't give up the ghost in an electric funeral.
Anyhow. Take that, Minneapolis.
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Read in June, 2007
recommends it for:
very bored, determined people who would fight to finish anything
This is the most tedious read I have fought through in years. Instead of just giving up on it, I clawed my way to the very disappointing ending. Paragraphs are two and three pages long. Banal minutiae make up the bulk of this book, which inevitably offers little to the plot.
If this is to be his most celebrated work, Paul Auster is an overrated hack.
I left this book at the airport after I finished, hoping that it could be used to distract a wary traveler from the strange, sneezing child...more
If this is to be his most celebrated work, Paul Auster is an overrated hack.
I left this book at the airport after I finished, hoping that it could be used to distract a wary traveler from the strange, sneezing child...more
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