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Winter Journal

3.82 of 5 stars 3.82 · rating details · 1,365 ratings · 268 reviews

From the bestselling novelist and author of The Invention of Solitude, a moving and highly personal meditation on the body, time, and language itself

"That is where the story begins, in your body, and everything will end in the body as well.

Facing his sixty-third winter, internationally acclaimed novelist Paul Auster sits down to write a history of his body and its sensatio...more

Hardcover, 240 pages

Published August 21st 2012 by Henry Holt And Co (first published 2011)

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Mar 07, 2013 Jacob J. rated it 5 of 5 stars

Shelves: biography-memoir, favorites, local-mn, 2013

You think about that already, at twenty-five, how many people have not made it to this point, and what’s more, how many people were never born at all; how many single cells who, if only they had won the genetic lottery instead of you, may have written something more timeless than The Odyssey, discovered elusive cures for what ails humanity, or on the flip side, to be fair, destroyed more lives than Pol Pot. It is useless to speculate on these matters because time is unconcerned with what might h...more

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Oct 21, 2012 Israel Carlock rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Es el primer libro que leo de este autor, y la experiencia ha sido enriquecedora. No pienso que haya leído a un extraño, a alguien ajeno, la sensacion se asemeja más a encontrarse a un hijo de vecino del que no habia sabido nunca nada ni preguntado nada y de buenas a primeras cuenta de forma personal el transcurrir de su vida, sin más interés de compartir lo humano que todos tenemos. Hace que el lector se sienta dentro del protagonista y del autor, de los dos a la vez. Es una prosa simple, senci...more

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Apr 14, 2013 Susan Oleksiw rated it 5 of 5 stars

Paul Auster turned sixty and felt the need to take stock. Where have you come from? Where are you going? How much longer will you stand in the window late at night and wonder? What has your life been inside the body you received?

Auster begins with his early years, with the snippets that have stuck in his memory, before sinking more deeply into feelings, sensations, and wonderings that carried him through his life. Written in second person rather than first, which gives both writer and reader a c...more Paul Auster turned sixty and felt the need to take stock. Where have you come from? Where are you going? How much longer will you stand in the window late at night and wonder? What has your life been inside the body you received?

Auster begins with his early years, with the snippets that have stuck in his memory, before sinking more deeply into feelings, sensations, and wonderings that carried him through his life. Written in second person rather than first, which gives both writer and reader a controlled distance on the experiences and confessions (of which there are few, delivered as neutral observations), Auster moves through his life by recalling the places he has lived. Each address is given, the motivation for moving there, the layout of the room or apartment or house, the significant event or events that occurred while living there. Auster is rarely emotional though he sometimes has a temper, but he is honest about how he feels about certain things. A drive in a snowstorm is vivid but not needlessly dramatic, and the ending, arrival at their destination, a quiet satisfaction.

Auster could write about taking out the garbage and I would be entranced. But for the skeptical among readers, I suggest turning to a sentence that begins on page 204. It is one of the most unobtrusively sinuous and beautiful arrangements of words I have ever encountered. It begins with a simple statement of where the writer is, "You are in Northfield," and ends with an understanding that he and his girlfriend will marry, but along the way the reader learns about the town of Northfield, Jesse James, Auster's favorite spot in the area, a breakfast cereal, the railroad that runs through town, and the apartment they would seek on their return to New York. The writer begins with the outer world, and through touching on other things that draw Auster's attention and interest, as well as affection, takes the reader into the most intimate part of his world. It is a beautiful, even austere progress from outer to to inner worlds. Auster's intelligence, his genius, isn't flashy but it is stunning.

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Feb 18, 2013 Joselito Honestly and Brilliantly rated it 4 of 5 stars

Paul Auster, I am almost sure, hasn't read the last book I reviewed here at goodreads: "Mental Efficiency" by Arnold Bennett, despite his boast that he and his wife have thousands of books on their shelves. Having reached the age of 64, and with a seemingly constant intimation of mortality (HIS mortality), Paul Auster steps aside for a while to look at himself and the life he has lived so far. He quotes Joubert: "The end of life is bitter." And then another one by Joubert: "One must die lovable...more Paul Auster, I am almost sure, hasn't read the last book I reviewed here at goodreads: "Mental Efficiency" by Arnold Bennett, despite his boast that he and his wife have thousands of books on their shelves. Having reached the age of 64, and with a seemingly constant intimation of mortality (HIS mortality), Paul Auster steps aside for a while to look at himself and the life he has lived so far. He quotes Joubert: "The end of life is bitter." And then another one by Joubert: "One must die lovable (if one can)." At the last page, he sees himself standing by the window looking out at the grey air with no visible sun and he hears himself asking: "How many mornings are left?"

WINTER JOURNAL. "Winter" being a metaphor for one's last days. There's a big X-mark on the book's cover, a very common symbol for the end, or the cessation of something, the crossing out of what once were. In the second person, singular. Paul Auster, at a distance, addresses himself, looking at Paul Auster when he was a boy, recalling his earliest memory, when he was a young man, an aimless wanderer, a struggling writer, his sexual escapades (several with prostitutes), his first failed marriage, his second one (successful, so far, with a writer as brilliant as he is), his children, his mother who died, one happy day, of a heart attack; his father, who died one happy day too, while having sex with his girlfriend, also of a heart attack. The many he had known who had passed away. The active and athletic body he had in his youth; his present occasional ailments (some of them scary); his brushes with death (including that one with a huge fishbone stuck in his throat, causing him to throw up lots of blood).

Is this a good thing, stopping for a while and thinking about what you've done so far vis-a-vis your inevitable end? I say yes. Especially in the case of Paul Auster who managed to produce a book because of it, a very well-written and enjoyable book which I read with much interest and enthusiasm in a mere two days, most likely a bestseller (especially after this favorable review) and earn him more money for his retirement. More than this, however: Arnold Bennett said in his book "Mental Efficiency" that this is good and he declared this not at 64 but at the much younger age of 40--

"And lo! I, at the age of nearly forty, am putting to myself the old questions concerning the intrinsic value of life, the fundamentally important questions: What have I got out of it? What am I likely to get out of it? In a word, what's it worth? If a man can ask himself a question more momentous, radical, and critical than these questions, I would like to know what it is. Innumerable philosophers have tried to answer these questions in a general way for the average individual, and possibly they have succeeded pretty well. Possibly I might derive benefit from a perusal of their answers. But do you suppose I am going to read them? Not I! Do you suppose that I can recall the wisdom that I happen already to read? Not I! My mind is a perfect blank at this moment in regard to the wisdom of others on the essential question. Strange, is it not? But quite a common experience, I believe. Besides, I don't actually care twopence what any other philosopher has replied to my question. In this, each man must be his own philosopher. There is an instinct in the profound egoism of human nature which prevents us from accepting such ready-made answers. What is it to us what Plato thought? Nothing. And thus the question remains ever new, and ever unanswered, and ever of dramatic interest. The singular, the highly singular thing is--and here I arrive at my point--that so few people put the question to themselves in time, that so many put it too late, or even die without putting it."

Arnold Bennett's approval of Paul Auster would stop there, however. The former was not the type of person who would stare out the window and ask how many days he has left, project himself towards his end and pronounce it bitter, or imagine himself a decrepit invalid shitting on his pajamas all day and despairing because he will die not lovable. Read "Winter Journal" because Paul Auster has had a very good life (so far, maybe unknown to him) and he wrote about it very well. But if you are looking for wisdom, something that would help you get by in this volley of spears that is life, get hold of this masterpiece by Arnold Bennett, older by 92 years, and savor the emanations from this great mind who still speaks of life long after he had died--

"If I were a preacher, and if I hadn't got more than enough to do in minding my own affairs, and if I could look any one in the face and deny that I too had pursued for nearly forty years the great British policy of muddling through and hoping for the best--in short, if things were not what they are, I would hire the Alhambra Theatre or Exeter Hall of a Sunday night--preferably the Alhambra, because more people would come to my entertainment--and I would invite all men and women over twenty-six. I would supply the seething crowd with what they desired in the way of bodily refreshment (except spirits--I would draw the line at poisons), and having got them and myself into a nice amiable expansive frame of mind, I would thus address them--of course in ringing eloquence that John Bright might have envied:

"Men and women (I would say), companions in the universal pastime of hiding one's head in the sand,--I am about to impart to you the very essence of human wisdom. It is not abstract. It is a principle of daily application, affecting the daily round in its entirety, from the straphanging on the District Railway in the morning to the straphanging on the District Railway the next morning. Beware of hope, and beware of ambition! Each is excellently tonic, like German competition, in moderation. But all of you are suffering from self-indulgence in the first, and very many of you are ruining your constitutions with the second. Be it known unto you, my dear men and women, that existence rightly considered is a fair compromise between two instincts--the instinct of hoping one day to live, and the instinct to live here and now. In most of you the first instinct has simply got the other by the throat and is throttling it. Prepare to live by all means, but for Heaven's sake do not forget to live. You will never have a better chance than you have at present. You may think you will have, but you are mistaken. Pardon this bluntness. Surely you are not so naive as to imagine that the road on the other side of that hill there is more beautiful than the piece you are now traversing! Hopes are never realized; for in the act of realization they become something else. Ambitions may be attained, but ambitions attained are rather like burnt coal, ninety per cent of the heat generated has gone up the chimney instead of into the room. Nevertheless, indulge in hopes and ambitions, which, though deceiving, are agreeable deceptions; let them cheat you a little, a lot. But do not let them cheat you too much. This that you are living now is life itself--it is much more life itself than that which you will be living twenty years hence. Grasp that truth. Dwell on it. Absorb it. Let it influence your conduct, to the end that neither the present nor the future be neglected. You search for happiness? Happiness is chiefly a matter of temperament. It is exceedingly improbable that you will, by struggling, gain more happiness than you already possess. In fine, settle down at once into LIFE. (Loud cheers.)

"The cheers would of course be for the refreshments.

"There is no doubt that the mass of the audience would consider that I had missed my vocation, and ought to have been a caterer instead of a preacher. But, once started, I would not be discouraged. I would keep on, Sunday night after Sunday night. Our leading advertisers have richly proved that the public will believe anything if they are told it often enough. I would practise iteration, always with refreshments. In the result, it would dawn upon the corporate mind that there was some glimmering of sense in my doctrine, and people would at last begin to perceive the folly of neglecting to savour the present, the folly of assuming that the future can be essentially different from the present, the fatuity of dying before they have begun to live."

The score: Arnold Bennett vs. Paul Auster-- 1 - 0.(less)

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Feb 09, 2013 Uwe Hook rated it 4 of 5 stars

I found this memor very interesting in many sections and a bit boring in others - but the interesting parts really make it worth the read. It is like a dairy and jumps from one subject to another. It is very touching to follow his aging process and he can write beautifully. At first it was disconcerting that he uses the second person (you) instead of the first person (I) but it quickly seems very natural. I orginally had a bit of trouble getting into it and put it down for a while but eventually...more

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Jan 01, 2013 Judy rated it 3 of 5 stars

I am a fan of Paul Auster's writing (The Brooklyn Follies, I Thought My Father was God, etc.) so I eagerly snapped up this book. However, I find myself conflicted. Written in his mid-60s, Auster reflects on his life and revisits memories, including those that bring pain as well as those that are more pleasurable. Like true memories, the recollections flow with no regard to time or space. Last week, his children, a childhood accident, his first marriage, incidents in high school years, the memori...more

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Dec 27, 2012 Jorge Martins rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Quero começar por dizer que este livro de Paul Auster não é para toda a gente, na medida em que, nem toda a gente gosta de ler as memórias de um escritor ou, muito menos, de ler sobre a sua iniciação sexual com uma prostituta, sobre quantas vezes se masturbava…
Este Diário é, talvez, uma conversa de si para si em frente ao espelho, é mais uma reflexão sobre a sua vida como se não fosse dele, como se o escritor não fosse ele próprio e estivesse a contar a história da vida de outra pessoa. Existe u...more

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Nov 20, 2012 Jim rated it 5 of 5 stars

I hadn't been familiar with Paul Auster's work before I heard an interview with Terry Gross on 'Fresh Air' - but I've found a new soul mate and I shall be reading more.

'Winter Journal' is an entertaining, somber, funny and sensitive memoir, with philosophical ruminations that address a wide range of episodes and aspects of his life from childhood to the present, through his world travels and many addresses: from soul-shaking, life-altering chance encounters, horrible accidents, illnesses, and ne...more

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Nov 01, 2012 Paul Gleason rated it 4 of 5 stars

Let me begin by stating the obvious: Paul Auster is one of the greatest living writers of English prose. His sentences are so good that they're almost contradictory. They contain both a seamless architectonic structure AND a musicality that make ANY book that he writes a privilege to read and a reminder of the possibilities of the English language.

Winter Journal is another of Auster's nonfiction texts - and, to my mind, it's his second best, right behind the absolutely brilliant and life-changin...more Let me begin by stating the obvious: Paul Auster is one of the greatest living writers of English prose. His sentences are so good that they're almost contradictory. They contain both a seamless architectonic structure AND a musicality that make ANY book that he writes a privilege to read and a reminder of the possibilities of the English language.

Winter Journal is another of Auster's nonfiction texts - and, to my mind, it's his second best, right behind the absolutely brilliant and life-changing (for this reader, at any rate), The Invention of Solitude.

What Auster pulls off here is difficult, unprecedented, and hard to describe. He writes about the life of his body, exploring all the suffering and joys that having PHYSICALITY brings. Unlike Lawrence (about whom, I'm sure, Auster probably doesn't care all that much), Auster doesn't focus on just sex. He also doesn't focus on pain, as two of his greatest heroes and biggest influences - Kafka and Beckett - do.

Auster, on the other hand, relies on memory to access the deepest reaches of his bodily experience of sixty four years. In so doing, I guess, his method is very similar to Proust's. (In the pages of Winter Journal and in many of his other writings, Auster comes across as one of the biggest Francophiles who ever lived!). But, as you know, Proust's novel portrays memory almost impressionistically, as if it were a tone poem written by Debussy.

I guess what I'm arguing is that there's a realism in Auster that shifts his work away from the French tradition and places it firmly in America. His body comes into contact and develops its identity - its scars and orgasms, tastes and smells - through products, situations, traditions etc. that belong to the United States.

As I write this review, I'm realizing that maybe Auster's major accomplishment in this text is his portrayal of the creation of an American body.

I'm also realizing that Auster's American body - like our own bodies (if we're from America) - is the house of memory.(less)

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Oct 09, 2012 Jsavett1 rated it 5 of 5 stars

As some of our best writers anxiously reach old age, we get to bask in the glow of their epiphanic struggles. For a recent example of this phenomenon in verse, see John Updike's beautiful collection entitled Endpoint. As for Paul Auster's Winter Journal, I only have tremendous praise and gratitude.

The book avoids the sentimental pitfalls of many memoirs through its non-traditional and quite pleasing organization and through its initially bizarre 2nd person point of view
Organized as a sort of phe...more As some of our best writers anxiously reach old age, we get to bask in the glow of their epiphanic struggles. For a recent example of this phenomenon in verse, see John Updike's beautiful collection entitled Endpoint. As for Paul Auster's Winter Journal, I only have tremendous praise and gratitude.

The book avoids the sentimental pitfalls of many memoirs through its non-traditional and quite pleasing organization and through its initially bizarre 2nd person point of view
Organized as a sort of phenomenology of his body, Auster takes us through a series of vignettes interrelated in clever or surprising ways. There are a series of stories separated by decades but which all deal with having to urinate. I found the section of stories about places Auster has lived particularly interesting; no doubt, he's called quite a number of shady hovels home, but it made me think back fondly and humorously to all the dorm rooms, graduate school apartments, hotel rooms, and houses I've lived in over my own 36 years. What's compelling about Auster's recollections is his naked honesty (admitting that there was a part of him that was happy his mother died), and poetic diction. There was nary a page that went by without by without earning a post-it flag or other marginalia. To pick even a couple of the most beautiful is impossible.

Initially, Auster's choice to speak of himself as "you," is jarring and odd. But quickly, the wisdom of his choice becomes clear: his anecdotes are simultaneously particular and universal. His use of "you" begins teasingly to feel like you're the one being written about and that these loves, pains, losses, panic attacks, driving accidents, and marriages are communal.

To be honest, I haven't liked much of what I've read from Auster. I LOVED the movie Smoke which he wrote, but I've often found his novels a little cold and flat. All the more reason I recommend Winter Journal: I wasn't PLANNING on liking this book. The reason I picked it up was because of its glowing reviews and, frankly, Auster won me over. I'm debating whether to revisit his other books, but for now, I'm happy to recommend Winter Journal without reservation. While I'm not in my 60s as is Auster, at 36, I frequently feel the same "in between-ness" as my aches and pains increase, my metabolism decreases, and I find myself neither young enough for sustained frivolity nor old enough to qualify for communal empathy or a sense of accomplishment. So buy with confidence; if NOTHING else, the book will send you down your own roads of recollection and appreciation.

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Sep 23, 2012 Michael rated it 4 of 5 stars

Shelves: memoir-biography

Barely four stars. More like 3.75.

Was of two minds about this book. For the first half or so found it gripping and masterly, and I was reminded that my favorite of Auster's books are his nonfiction. Really, The Invention of Solitude, The Art of Hunger, and The Red Notebook are touchstones of a sort for me. But I've never much cared for his novels aside from The Music of Chance, the title of which is pretty much the skeleton key for his entire body of work.

Years ago, a friend was reading The New...more

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Sep 09, 2012 Dave rated it 4 of 5 stars

Paul Auster was my favorite author when I was in my 20s, especially when I was living in New York City. Reading his stories made me feel like someone nearby understood my loneliness, or maybe even that someone felt worse than I did. His characters often took extreme actions that frightened and fascinated me.

Now, 20 years later, we both have aged, and I read this journal in a weekend (far more rapidly than I usually read). "Winter Journal" provided a window into Auster's life that was both compel...more

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Aug 31, 2012 Tony rated it 2 of 5 stars

Shelves: biography

WINTER JOURNAL. (2012). Paul Auster. **.
I used to be a reader and collector of Paul Auster’s works. Now I use my local library’s system and am just a reader after my disappointment in his last few books. It looks as though I’m on my way to not becoming a reader any more, too. This, his latest, is his stab at an autobiography/life journal written in the second person. He starts off with his earliest memories – admitting that they might be memories told to him by his relatives – and moves on up t...more

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Aug 27, 2012 Grady rated it 5 of 5 stars

On Aging and the Finite

Paul Auster is a hero among readers of his works, actually a hero among contemporary writers in general as is book always both challenge and entertain the reader, and finishing one of this books offers that rare sensation that you have been through an important experience. In WINTER JOURNAL Auster is in a reflective mood and while many of the great writers have offered a review of their lives, their works, their development as an artist and their finally coming to grips wi...more On Aging and the Finite

Paul Auster is a hero among readers of his works, actually a hero among contemporary writers in general as is book always both challenge and entertain the reader, and finishing one of this books offers that rare sensation that you have been through an important experience. In WINTER JOURNAL Auster is in a reflective mood and while many of the great writers have offered a review of their lives, their works, their development as an artist and their finally coming to grips with the fact that age is marching toward death, Auster elects to place the reader in his shoes, feel the realities as he views them and the result is far more than a memoir or a reflection on his philosophy than a conversation with one of the great men of letters.

Auster's gifts as a writer of creative impulses are present throughout this rather short book. He epiphany that he is aging is written with a darkly comedic range: 'Until no, no X-ray has revealed any damage to your lungs, no blood test has revealed any devastation to your liver, and so you forge on with your vile habits knowing full well that they will ultimately do you harm.' He discusses the aging body with remarkable acuity, taking the reader into the space and times of his life that formed his character and his talent and these stories of his past, while at times bordering on the self-indulgent sharing of information we could do without, he seems in the course of his writing to recognize that history while important is not the topic at hand: 'Perhaps it is just as well to put aside your stories for now and try to examine what it felt like to live inside this body form the first day you can remember being alive until this one.'

For those who are approaching the years of aging this book will be at once comforting and challenging. Auster is unafraid to elicit visceral responses from his reader - 'This body is a catalogue of sensory data. What one might call a phenomenology of breathing.' He is unafraid to undress and display his own scars from life, scars often self-induced by habits and indulgences that threaten this time in this life. But again in reference to his honoring of memory as an aspect of our daily mental exercises he reminds us that the corporal changes that occur with the passage of time or the origin of our ability to continue on with the life we have left. And for Auster and his career with words he summarizes `Writing begins in the body, it is the music of the body.' The journey in which he accompanies us allows us to see as we perhaps have not viewed the world before, and traveling with Paul Auster as a companion is always a pleasure.

Grady Harp
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Aug 09, 2012 Bob Mustin rated it 4 of 5 stars

You pick up memoir such as this one expecting...what? A life laid out chronologically? The failures of parenting - yours and that of your parents? Confessions and dirty linen? The titillation of romantic escapades? Saucy comments about other writers, editors, or reviewers? The summation of a life lived well or poorly?

Auster gives you some of that, but what stands out to you is the writing: the fluid, run-on style in which sentences can last half a page, paragraphs that go on interminably, but wi...more

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Aug 04, 2012 John rated it 3 of 5 stars

Shelves: biography-memoir

Alas This Isn’t “Angela’s Ashes”

“Winter Journal” is replete with Paul Auster’s exceptional prose; a memoir that will remind his most devoted fans of his fiction. However, for those seeking to understand his literary craft, they won’t find it in this mercifully terse memoir. In a year that has seen the publication of very good to great autobiographical essay collections from the likes of Rick Moody (“On Celestial Music: And Other Adventures in Listening”) and William Gibson (“Distrust That Parti...more Alas This Isn’t “Angela’s Ashes”

“Winter Journal” is replete with Paul Auster’s exceptional prose; a memoir that will remind his most devoted fans of his fiction. However, for those seeking to understand his literary craft, they won’t find it in this mercifully terse memoir. In a year that has seen the publication of very good to great autobiographical essay collections from the likes of Rick Moody (“On Celestial Music: And Other Adventures in Listening”) and William Gibson (“Distrust That Particular Flavor”), “Winter’s Journal” reads as a work of nonfiction in which the author seems more intent in displaying his literary craft, not in offering readers something fascinating and profound of note with regards to understanding that author’s entire body of work. Both Moody and Gibson’s recently published books give readers ample opportunities to understand them both as people and as writers; instead, I think some will be as bewildered as I was upon finishing “Winter Journal”, which I must regard as an enigmatic work of nonfiction written by someone often hailed as among our finest contemporary American writers of fiction. In stark contrast with Auster, I have derived better understanding of the personal motivation behind the literary craft of writers as diverse as Michael Chabon (“Maps and Legends”), Jonathan Franzen (“The Discomfort Zone”), and Pete Hamill (“A Drinking Life”), as well as Rick Moody and William Gibson, from reading their memoirs and nonfiction. Without question, Auster is at his best in recounting the life and death of his mother, in writing that will resonate with those readers familiar with Frank McCourt’s “Angela’s Ashes”; Auster is at his worst in offering a chronological history of his current and former residences that often read as passages almost devoid of emotion, instead of using those pages as a means of providing readers ample insight into his raison d’etre for writing. Needless to say, “Winter Journal” is a memoir not worthy of comparison with “Angela’s Ashes”, but rather instead, remains but a poor shadow of it.
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Jan 02, 2013 Suzan Bond rated it 4 of 5 stars

Such a lovely book from an amazing writer. Although it's a memoir it's not written in the traditional sort. First, it's written in the second voice. It's almost as if the writer is talking to himself and we're granted the chance to listen in. I largely like his approach from this perspective. Second--it doesn't have the traditional scene structure you may expect from a more traditional memoir. You jump from scene to scene or bit to bit sometimes without much segue. What's really great about this...more

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Oct 11, 2012 Lorenzo Lara rated it 5 of 5 stars

Este párrafo, muy al comienzo, revela las intenciones de este excelente libro de Paul Auster, que nació exactamente el mismo año que yo (1947)
Speak now before it is too late, and then hope to go on speaking until there is nothing more to be said. Time is running out, after all. Perhaps it is just as well to put aside your stories for now and try to examine what it has felt like to live inside this body from the first day you can remember being alive until this one. A catalogue of sensory data. W...more

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Aug 31, 2012 Elizabeth Moeller rated it 4 of 5 stars

This is a memoir that is unlike any other that I have read. Paul Auster examines his life from a multitude of seemingly mundane angles. First he thinks about all of the ways that he has experienced his body, the joy he felt in using his body to play baseball as a child, the ways his body has compensated for his inability to express grief by shutting down and causing him to endure panic attacks when his mother dies.

Auster then considers all of the addresses at which he has lived, and what the sp...more

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Aug 15, 2012 Doreen rated it 4 of 5 stars

Shelves: elle

I'd never really cared for Paul Auster before this book. He was a big favorite of an ex of mine, but said ex tried to get me to read Haruki Murakumi first and that ended poorly. Also, I was aware that Auster and his wife, Siri Hustvedt, formed a mutual admiration society, and I found the one book I read of hers, The Enchantment of Lily Dahl, to make for dreary reading.

As a matter of fact, the parts of Winter Journal that I found least enthralling were the ones where he quoted her at length. It's...more

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Aug 04, 2012 Cynthia rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: books-read-in-2012

“Winter Journal is written in the second person. Though I can understand why he wrote his memoir this way it felt awkward to have the word ‘you’ in almost every sentence. Writing in the second person just sounds contrived to me. I know a lot of people dislike it but I thought “Winter Journal” would have read much easier in the first person which I believe is more conventional for personal essays. Knowing Auster that’s probably exactly why he didn’t take the path most traveled.

I enjoyed his refer...more “Winter Journal is written in the second person. Though I can understand why he wrote his memoir this way it felt awkward to have the word ‘you’ in almost every sentence. Writing in the second person just sounds contrived to me. I know a lot of people dislike it but I thought “Winter Journal” would have read much easier in the first person which I believe is more conventional for personal essays. Knowing Auster that’s probably exactly why he didn’t take the path most traveled.

I enjoyed his references to literature and how they were personal to him professionally and emotionally. He also includes a long section where he lists the numerous addresses where he’s lived with a bit about what was going on in his head and in his life at that time. A well done device.

I felt especially touched by his chronological accounts of his feelings towards girls/women both collectively and individually. He writes very touchingly about his two marriages though I feel some reserve in these passages. There is a sense of accumulating maturity and coming to peace, accepting self and thus being able to accept others.
He didn’t include much about his two children though that was most likely both purposeful and understandable. What must it be like to have Paul Auster as a dad??? Also sweet and brutally honest were his accounts of both his parent’s deaths as well as some insights into his mom’s personal life beyond being a mother and how that affected him. I respect his clarity and his ability to gaze without flinching. It can be hard to ‘allow’ our parents to be people first rather than only mom and dad.

I’m still contemplating the big bluish-purple X that spans most of the cover. Does it signify, at 63, most of life is past? Beyond this point there be dragons so don’t go there? Does he consider himself in extra innings to use his lifelong love or baseball as an analogy? He’s almost lived past the age at which his father died which was 68. He’s also lived past some of the people he’s known. Does the X signify extraordinary which would fit his life, age, and writing in many ways. I hesitate to say it but is he suggesting that extreme age is a form of pornography in the sense that it ain’t pretty but it’s still a privilege to go there? I continue to contemplate.
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Apr 09, 2013 Joseph Muniz rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition Recommends it for: paul auster readers

Shelves: 52-weeks-52-books, favorites

diario de invierno / paul auster. 12 / 52
Con emotiva sorpresa leo este diario en donde Paul Auster muestra cuan real son las actividades de un escritor de prestigio... en ocasiones me hago la ilusión de que se vive en "otro mundo" al ser escritor, cuando en el día a día es lo que también viven: cambios de casa, accidentes, vacaciones, comidas familiares, enfermedades...

quedo en verdad maravillado con la lectura del libro, puede ser que se deba leer primero alguno de sus otros trabajos para desfr...more

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Oct 13, 2012 Kent Winward rated it 4 of 5 stars

I enjoy Auster's writing and voice and this was a pleasant romp through aging. Pushing 50, aging has been on my mind and Auster dissects his 64 years, by journal-ing about his body and life. The novelistic memoir is one of my more favorite genres if I enjoy the novelist.

I enjoyed his rumination on hands and feet for example: "Passports do not contain pictures of hands and feet. Even you, who have lived inside your body for sixty-four years now, would probably be unable to recognize your foot in...more

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Aug 02, 2012 Jill rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

The first hint we have of what Paul Auster has in store for us is the title itself: Winter Journal, not Winter Memoir. Memoirs – the best of them – are not personal narratives, but rather plot lines or themes that bind moments together. Journals – or diaries – are far more intimate and, one might say, confessional.

The second hint is the tense that Paul Auster uses: second person, not first. Throughout the journal, he consistently uses “you”; it is the author having a conversation with his younge...more The first hint we have of what Paul Auster has in store for us is the title itself: Winter Journal, not Winter Memoir. Memoirs – the best of them – are not personal narratives, but rather plot lines or themes that bind moments together. Journals – or diaries – are far more intimate and, one might say, confessional.

The second hint is the tense that Paul Auster uses: second person, not first. Throughout the journal, he consistently uses “you”; it is the author having a conversation with his younger self. The effect is mesmerizing and almost voyeuristic: it’s almost as if we, the readers, stumbled into Mr. Auster’s home and overheard some of his deepest fears and secrets.

“We are all aliens to ourselves,” Mr. Auster writes, “And if we have any sense of who we are, it is only because we live inside the eyes of others.” Many moments of his existence come vividly to life. There are poignant moments: the death of Paul Auster’s mother, a time that begins with a numbing and ends in a visceral howl, as “the more you feel your body changing, the less you feel that you are made of flesh and blood.” There are beautiful moments, too: many pages are a love elegy to his wife of 30 years, Siri Hustvedt, an excellent and acclaimed writer in her own right. And there are funny moments: a huge fight with an obstreperous Parisian neighbor, ending only when Paul Auster pulls out a certain psychological trump card.

This is an elegant retelling, a story of a life that has withstood 64 winters, at a time when a person begins to ask, “How much more is left?” It is an inventory of scars – both physical and mental – and an inventory of houses lived in and people encountered. For the lover of Paul Auster’s work – and I certainly am that – there are tantalizing hints throughout about themes and places that show up in his many fictional works: The Brooklyn Follies, Invisible Sunset Park, for example.

Just as Paul Auster focuses on themes of absurdism and existentialism in his work, he now shows how it applies to life…along with the real, the mundane, the poignant. I have always admired Paul Auster as a writer. Through Winter Journal, I now feel as if I know him a little better – as a flawed, imperfect, but quite likeable and introspective man.
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May 19, 2013 Rooja is currently reading it

Some times I like to buy books not because of the writer who I know or the story which I've heard about; but just because of sort of connection that I had with the book, immidiately after I saw it at the book store.
The connection this time was because of the picture of a young man on the cover page and the way he stared at me.

I am not a big fan of Auster (Lets say I wasn't till now). Indeed, I bought this book as a gift to my 32th BD , without knowing the story. Such a coincidence! Auster one m...more

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Nov 17, 2012 Shonna Froebel rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: favorites

A month before his sixty-fourth birthday Auster began writing this memoir. It isn't your standard memoir giving experience over time, but more stream of consciousness. Auster moves from memories of the origins of scars on his body, to the women he's loved, to places he has lived, among many other streams. He speaks from the heart, and his experiences are interesting. His stories show the how much he has thought about his experiences, connected different things that have happened in his life and...more

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Jan 14, 2013 Piperitapitta rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: autori-usa, biografico, letteratura-usa

Inventar(iar)si

Sei uno scrittore di successo, hai sessantaquattro anni, la tua vita ormai scivola dolcemente come una barca a remi nelle acque tranquille e prive di onde di un lago del Vermont.
Poi un giorno inizi a guardarti indietro, a voltare la testa, e decidi d'un tratto di mettere un po' di ordine tra le tue cose, di catalogare, chissà perché, la tua esistenza.
«Vivere per raccontarla», disse e scrisse Gabriel Garcia Marquez nella sua autobiografia, e tu sei indubbiamente uno che può raccont...more
Inventar(iar)si

Sei uno scrittore di successo, hai sessantaquattro anni, la tua vita ormai scivola dolcemente come una barca a remi nelle acque tranquille e prive di onde di un lago del Vermont.
Poi un giorno inizi a guardarti indietro, a voltare la testa, e decidi d'un tratto di mettere un po' di ordine tra le tue cose, di catalogare, chissà perché, la tua esistenza.
«Vivere per raccontarla», disse e scrisse Gabriel Garcia Marquez nella sua autobiografia, e tu sei indubbiamente uno che può raccontare al mondo e dire che ha vissuto.
E così inizi a raccontare, inventariare, catalogare, riporre i tuoi ricordi divisi per argomenti, ad attaccare a ciascuno di loro un'etichetta: alle scuole che hai frequentato, alle case che hai abitato, alle persone che hai amato, a quelle che hai dovuto lasciare, a quelle che ti hanno lasciato, a quelle con le quali ti sei scontrato, a quelle che ti hanno vinto e a quelle che si sono lasciate vincere.
È un lavoro da certosino, il tuo, a tratti persino un po' noioso, ma lo fai con pazienza e dedizione, perché è la tua vita, perché vuoi lasciare tutto in ordine.
«Col corpo capisco», scriveva altrove David Grossman, e anche tu lo sai e capisci, tu che cataloghi sensazione dopo sensazione, che ripercorri la scoperta dei tuoi sensi di adolescente, le tue palpitazioni improvvise e incontrollabili di adulto, le tue paure di uomo che si prepara ad aprire la porta per entrare in quella che sarà, lo sai bene e la temi, l'ultima delle tue stagioni su questa terra: l'inverno.
Ma non è solo un diario d'inverno il tuo, non ancora, e nonostante si respirino e siano palpabili la malinconia, il rimpianto, la paura dell'oblio, c'è ancora troppa vita in te, troppo desiderio di continuare a vivere l'amore, l'emozione, l'incanto, per lasciarsi andare al consuntivo finale.
Piuttosto, credimi, il tuo è ancora un catalogo per quattro stagioni, l'ultima delle quali è ancora tutta da scrivere, e da vivere, e il momento per tirare i remi in barca non è ancora giunto, dammi retta, anche se l'odore della depressione arriva persino fino a me, attraversando l'oceano.
Dammi retta, combatti, e solo alla fine, quando volterai l'ultima pagina, potrai dire, con le stesse parole che Romain Gary usò per concludere la sua splendida autobiografia, «Ho vissuto»; o invece, come suggerisci, prendere in prestito le splendide parole del filosofo francese Joseph Joubert e dire che «Si deve morire amabili (se si può)», se potrai.
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Nov 16, 2012 Bennett Gavrish rated it 4 of 5 stars

Grade: B

L/C Ratio: 80/20
(This means I estimate the author devoted 80% of his effort to creating a literary work of art and 20% of his effort to creating a commercial bestseller.)

Thematic Breakdown:
50% - Memoir
20% - Aging
15% - Family
10% - New York
5% - Paris

I first got hooked on Paul Auster's writing when I read City of Glass in a college English course. Ever since then, I've found him to be one of the most innovative and engaging voices in modern American literature. For the most part, that geni...more

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Aug 09, 2012 Anna rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: books-of-2012

This was the first novel that I have read by Paul Auster even though I have always been intrigued by his other books. I enjoyed Winter Journal and would definitely recommend it to anyone who is intrigued/curious or would like to know more about Paul Auster. Initially, I was a little put off about the style of writing as he does write this novel in second person. While it is a little disconcerting at first, I quickly found myself adjusting. My favourite part of the novel is probably when he was g...more

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Mar 25, 2012 Roberto rated it 5 of 5 stars

At the age of 64 Auster decides to write a journal about his own physical history, as if his own body were writing a memoir of being Paul Auster, which is quite touching don't you think? He recalls the cuts, bruises, kisses, panic attacks, intimacies, illnesses, and near fatalities that have made up his physical life. He recalls the houses and the rooms he has inhabited. Lots of snow storms. It is a book swamped with deaths, ponderings on his own death, remembrances of his mother's death in part...more

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About Paul Auster

Paul Auster is the bestselling author of Sunset Park, Invisible, Man in the Dark, The Book of Illusions, The Brooklyn Follies, and The New York Triology, among many other works. His books have been translated into forty-three languages. He lives in Brooklyn, New York.

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Quotes from Winter Journal

“You think it will never happen to you, that it cannot happen to you, that you are the only person in the world to whom none of these things will ever happen, and then, one by one, they all begin to happen to you, in the same way they happen to everyone else.” — 19 people liked it

“عندما اكتب لا تهمني الغرفة التي أشغلها. المساحة الحقيقية للكتابة هي الصفحة أمام انفي، عندما اكتب كل الغرف تصبح خفيّة” — 7 people liked it

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