The Music of Chance

Jul 28, 2010 K.D. Oliveros rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Recommended to K.D. by: 1001 Must Read Books for Men; 1001 Books You Must Read Before You Die (2006 to 2010)

Shelves: 1001-core

Pennsylvania in the 80's. 33-y/o Jim Nashe is a bum newly divorced dad who inherited almost US$200,000 from his dead dad who he did not see for almost 30 years. He resigned from his work as a fireman, bought an expensive Saab (car), threw a couple of parties, left his 4-y/o daughter Juliette to his sister Donna and drove around aimlessly across the USA. He likes music (he plays the piano) so he has lots of cassette tapes (this is in the 80s) in the car. The long drives while the music is on seem...more Pennsylvania in the 80's. 33-y/o Jim Nashe is a bum newly divorced dad who inherited almost US$200,000 from his dead dad who he did not see for almost 30 years. He resigned from his work as a fireman, bought an expensive Saab (car), threw a couple of parties, left his 4-y/o daughter Juliette to his sister Donna and drove around aimlessly across the USA. He likes music (he plays the piano) so he has lots of cassette tapes (this is in the 80s) in the car. The long drives while the music is on seem to bring him to another world. See the cover: it captures everything a child - because that really what he seems to be being a bum and aimless - driving a red sports car. Read the title: The Music of Chance. Music forms the integral mood in this novel. Auster made use of classical music and sounds to heighten emotions to important scenes in this book.

We know that books, unless they are audiobooks, cannot have songs or music. The way Mr. Auster does this is he mentions a song, tune or artist in a particular scene with the character probably listening to it. As I reader, if you are familiar with the song, tune or artist you recall it and as you read, it is as if you are with the character (or maybe you become that character) experiencing the sight and sound of the scene. It is what I then call the magic of literature: being transported straight to a literary fictional world while in reality you are just sitting on the armchair or lying in bed. With music, it is like being in the movie. It is just wonderful.

This is my 3rd book by Paul Auster. Early last year, I read his The New York Trilogy a.k.a. NYT and I was struck by his brilliance in interrelating his characters and plots in those three well-written stories. It was my first time to read a book like that so I gave it a 5-star rating and promised myself to re-read it in the future. A couple of months back, I read his Invisible as it is a newly added book in the 2010 edition of the 1001 Books You Must Read Before You Die. The distinctive Auster style is still there: straightforward, no-frills, no-pretentions, no-philosophical agenda writing is still there but the plot is different from NYT as it deals with incest. So, I have to give it another 5-star rating. Using "3-novel rule": you can tell a writer if he is formulaic by reading 3 of his works. For Auster, he is definitely not formulaic. Music does not have the mistaken identity plot in NYT, no incest plot in Invisible. The same distinctive writing style is there. But the theme, plot and characters are totally different.

His work does not have any of those stream-of-consciousness, roman-a-clef or other literary terminologies. His characters cannot talk to cats, cannot fly, cannot smell all the odors in his surroundings. He does not use big words that will prompt you to open a nearby dictionary in the middle of the night. He does not surprise you with big quotation that will prompt you to fold the corner of the page. He does not make you cry. He does not make you laugh.

Auster is just straightforward storyteller. His characters can be you or me. Easy read but his vivid imagination and believable plot do the trick. You will cry or laugh but you will perhaps dream. No wonder that this 1001 book is also in the 100 Must Read Book for Men.

If there is a new author whose work you may want to sample soon, try Auster. Chances are, you will love him.

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Aug 10, 2012 Chris rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Another enmeshing, enticing, and enigmatic novel from Paul Auster, and one that features yet again a gent infected with the peregrine spirit, unconcerned about such typically weighty matters as steady employment, pursuing a family life, establishing communal roots, etc. This time the narrator, one Jim Nashe—a man who, upon receiving an unexpected inheritance, opts to abandon his young family in order to aimlessly meander about the young country in the purpose of blowing the entirety of his stack...more Another enmeshing, enticing, and enigmatic novel from Paul Auster, and one that features yet again a gent infected with the peregrine spirit, unconcerned about such typically weighty matters as steady employment, pursuing a family life, establishing communal roots, etc. This time the narrator, one Jim Nashe—a man who, upon receiving an unexpected inheritance, opts to abandon his young family in order to aimlessly meander about the young country in the purpose of blowing the entirety of his stack—hooks up with an inveterate gambler, Jack Pozzi, and is persuaded to back him with the remains of his windfall in a poker play against a pair of old duffers whose didactic skills are held to be no match for this Hustler et ami. Alas, fate has played cruelly with these chumps who have dared to test her moods, and Jack and Jim shortly find themselves paying off their sizable gambling loss by means of labouring to build a stone wall across the breadth of the estate of the triumphant, and modestly triumphal, geezers. This is not merely a debt of money, but one of human honour, and there are strict observances and reparations that are expected ere it will be satisfactorily discharged. The loser duo aren't long in discovering the backbreaking requirements of the wall's construction, one that, paired with their room and board expenses, have stretched the debt's termination point unto a despairingly distant horizon. Pozzi chafes under the bonds of indenturement, while Nashe finds himself seeing deep channels carved in this lesson in fiduciary and existential mindfulness. When the tensions mount to the breaking point, not the least observant of readers will be surprised to discover that bad things are going to happen.

An absorbing and thoughtful read, if a touch elliptic whenever Auster slips too sartorially into the seamed passions of his postmodern graces. This microcosmic morality play examines the macrocosm that is the capitalist system—one whose constructs have so often been compared to that of a thinly-veiled slavery, and whose memes of debt, with all of the numerical explosiveness of compounded interest and back-burnered principal, chew-up temporally-alloted life in massive, grinding bites—as well as the costs and obligations that are paid-out and amassed in the pursuit of a freedom that can so often prove anything but; not least in the moral morass one can founder within when the question concerns the shirking of one's duties, the breaking of one's word, the strict observance of the law with no recourse to human feeling, pity, or generosity—whether one does indeed spoil the child when the rod has been spared—and how victories won and freedoms gained can pale in the chanced stopwatch measuring of an unmoved world. It was many years ago that I read this, and after I had seen the movie with James Spader and Mandy Patinkin, and I'm not certain that I could honestly state which one I preferred more. It was also my second Auster, In the Country of Last Things having been the gateway for me into his own sparse and abstracted and, post The Book of Illusions , overplayed and underperforming literary theatre.(less)

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Mar 06, 2012 Donna rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

In the early zeros, when I worked at the village IGA, Georges, one of the older baggers, came back from lunch with a stricken look on his face. He held up a receipt he found crumpled up by the bank machine across the street.
"Hey. Check!" he said, holding it too close to my face. "Balance $200,000 tabarnak! My life is fucking garbage and always will be fucking garbage."
An unhappy bagger can make for a long afternoon, so I examined the paper, clapped a chapped hand on his shoulder and said, "O...more In the early zeros, when I worked at the village IGA, Georges, one of the older baggers, came back from lunch with a stricken look on his face. He held up a receipt he found crumpled up by the bank machine across the street.
"Hey. Check!" he said, holding it too close to my face. "Balance $200,000 tabarnak! My life is fucking garbage and always will be fucking garbage."
An unhappy bagger can make for a long afternoon, so I examined the paper, clapped a chapped hand on his shoulder and said, "Only an idiot would leave $200,000 in a savings account."
This seemed to cheer him up a bit, and it gave us a good discussion topic for the rest of the day.
When Nashe, in Paul Auster's 'The Music of Chance' plops his $200,000 inheritance into a bank account, I know I'm in for a nervous read about a man will run out of money somewhere awful. Will it be fast? Will it be painful? Even when he's just driving the roads to nowhere in the beginning of the book, there's a lot of suspense over that money in the bank, and later, the glove box; sort of a fiscal musical chairs where I know from the start, Nashe is going to be 'out' in a big way.
This is my first Paul Auster book, and I thought it was damn clever the way he wove suspense out of something sitting somewhere and running out. Once the money is gone, he continues to build a good story from other things running out on Nashe; strength, energy, clarity of mind, liberty, companionship, until the end where he finds out what he is made of. And the verdict isn't bad. He's lost everything, but Nashe is made of adequate stuff. He also appreciates how:
"All of a sudden, the stones were turning into a wall, and in spite of the pain it had cost him, he could not help admiring it. Whenever he stopped and looked at it now, he felt awed by what he had done."
I've never understood gambling, but the stones turning into a wall is a familiar state of mind, and I like how Auster let it sneak up on me, his lovely voice pulling me along. Does he, perhaps, feel this every time he writes a book?
And how about this:
"As Nashe and Pozzi discovered, it was one thing to lift a sixty-pound stone, but once that stone had been lifted, it was quite another thing to lift a second sixty-pound stone, and still another thing to take on the third stone after lifting the second. No matter how strong they felt while lifting the first, much of that strength would be gone by the time they came to the second... Every time they worked on the wall, Nashe and Pozzi came up against the same bewitching conundrum: all the stones were identical, and yet each stone was heavier than the one before it."
This is the best book I have ever read about art, that's not about art. For what are great works of art, especially novels, made of? Heavy-lifting and geologic patience.
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Mar 05, 2009 Carlos Bennett rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Cuando era muy chico y en la televisión me dedicaba principalmente a ver el cartoon network, un día en la tarde puse HBO mientas comía pan con palta y empecé a ver una pelicula muy extraña. Habia dos tipos que viajaban hasta una mansión my tétrica para jugar poker con otros dos tipos mas tétricos aún que (por alguna razón) tenían una ciudad en miniatura construida dentro de su casa, y que entre otras extrencidades habían importado un castillo desde Europa (piedra por piedra: en el cesped enorme...more Cuando era muy chico y en la televisión me dedicaba principalmente a ver el cartoon network, un día en la tarde puse HBO mientas comía pan con palta y empecé a ver una pelicula muy extraña. Habia dos tipos que viajaban hasta una mansión my tétrica para jugar poker con otros dos tipos mas tétricos aún que (por alguna razón) tenían una ciudad en miniatura construida dentro de su casa, y que entre otras extrencidades habían importado un castillo desde Europa (piedra por piedra: en el cesped enorme de su mansión estaban amontonadas las piedras). Los dos tipos (los protagonistas) pierden la apuesta en el poker, y como no tienen tanto dinero para pagar tienen que quedarse trabajando como casi-esclavos, construyendo con las piedras del castillo una pared que cruzara el enorme campo de pasto verde en las afueras de la mansión.
Creo que fue la primera pelicula que vi con escenas de sexo implicito (era HBO a las 14:00 hrs no mas), con algo de violencia moderada pero sobre todo con un trasfondo super fuerte. La pelicula era rara. Me quedo pegadisima para siempre la escena en que Pozzi (el protagonista mas joven), después de que hubieran terminado parte del muro, caminaba por sobre él, feliz.

Tiempo después, cuando ya me gustaba mucho Auster y me había leído casi todos sus libros, uno de los últimos que agarré fue este, y ahi recién me di cuenta de que estaba leyendo esa película (Doh).

Este para mi es el mejor Auster. No soy un fanático de la primera época, la de la trilogia de Nueva York, cuando esta demasiado precocupado por existencialismos (a mi parecer) un poco baratos, con muchos artefactos literarios que parecen sacados de un libro de castellano. Tampoco me gusta la ultima época, desde Oracle Night (y sobre todo "Travels in the scriptorium"), en que lo unico que hace es mirarse el ombligo, escribir sobre-escritores-que-escriben-sobre-escribir y usar lugares comunes.

Pero para mi tiene un periodo dorado, principalmente: La Musica del Azar, Leviathan y El palacio de la luna (este ultimo, ocasionalmente lo considero como mi libro favorito. En la historia). Y podriamos colocar a lo mejor Mr vertigo. Estos son los libros en que pareciera que deja que las imagenes que tiene dentro fluyan, sin ponerse a interferir él. Imagenes como la ciudad miniatura de la pareja bizarra en La Musica del Azar, o Pozzi feliz corriendo sobre el muro. O el viaje de M.S. Fogg a pie a través de l desierto americano en el Palacio de la Luna. O las estatuas explotando en Leviatán. O las 36 pruebas a las que es sometido el protagonista de Mr Vertigo por el maestro Yehudi.

Auster tiene muchos detractores, y creo que muchas de las cosas que se dicen son ciertas. Los personajes son a veces increiblemente similares en todos los libros, y es cierto que su existencialismo a veces puede ser un poco adolescente y reiterativo, y que incluso a veces apela a la mistificación, sin realmente crear misticismo. Pero a mi en lo personal, que no leo los libros de literatura como ensayos, me parece que es el es escritor mas talentoso de su generación (teniendo en cuenta que el mas talentoso no siempre es el mejor). Un "natural".

El mayor argumento que puedo dar es que ya pasaron varios años desde que me leí el libro, he leído desde entonces varios libros de Philip Roth, de McEwan y otros que supuestamente estan dos o tres pasos mas arriba en el canon oficial... y todavia me acuerdo mucho más de Pozzi corriendo sobre su muro.

Recomiendo mucho este libro; es realmente hermoso. (less)

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Feb 18, 2009 Craven rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

This book left with so much thinking to do and had so many philosophical metaphors that I ended up pushing it on my friends, fully thinking that I had their best interest in mind. But when I actually, thought about it I realized that what I really wanted was someone to discuss the book with. I wanted to talk about the characters and the metaphor and what it was all really trying to say.
Yeah, this is a fabulous book. It deals with existentialism, freedom and captivity, chance and coincidence and...more

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Jul 24, 2007 Joe rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition Recommends it for: paul auster fans, obviously.

auster has a tendency for ambiguous, detached endings that leave you with several questions unanswered.. and for the stories in the ny trilogy i think it works perfectly, but for this book it kind of left me a might disappointed. he starts to tell a real straight forward story, and it almost seems as though he ran out of ideas towards the end, left a lot of really important questions unanswered, and frantically put together a closing chapter. besides that... it was an entertaining read. the char...more

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Nov 28, 2008 Chris rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

A high school friend, Joe, suggested this to me when I mentioned that I was reading another Paul Auster novel ( In The Country Of Last Things). Looks... different. Half-price Books also had a ridiculously beautiful copy of The New York Trilogy that I wanted, a lot, but it was sixty dollars. I instead almost settled for an action figure called Bibleman, but decided to wait. I'll probably buy a few for gag gifts around Christmas time... I've got nerdy friends who paint miniatures and whatnot who...more

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Dec 06, 2012 Mjhancock rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: fiction

Nashe, firefighter turned almost obsessively into compulsive drifter, is wondering what to do with his dwindling funds when he runs into Pozzi, a young gambler with plans but an unfortunate lack of funds. The two join forces to start up a poker match with eccentric millionaires Flower and Stone, and wind up dealing with more stones than they were expecting. Like most Auster books, the plot isn't really the important part; it serves to string together various absurdities and present metatextual c...more Nashe, firefighter turned almost obsessively into compulsive drifter, is wondering what to do with his dwindling funds when he runs into Pozzi, a young gambler with plans but an unfortunate lack of funds. The two join forces to start up a poker match with eccentric millionaires Flower and Stone, and wind up dealing with more stones than they were expecting. Like most Auster books, the plot isn't really the important part; it serves to string together various absurdities and present metatextual considerations. My previous Auster experience is with the New York trilogy: City of Glass, Ghosts, and the Locked Room. This book is no City of Glass, but, then, few things are. While it doesn't quite reach the same level of higher meaning aligned with narrative collapse, it is a little more coherent (and especially more so than the abstractions of Ghosts and Locked Room.) The two big themes of the book are the ones stated in the title: music and chance. And, possibly, the music of chance, which seems like an oxymoron--music is deliberate, and chance, by definition, is not (unless you're John Cage). The question, then, is can we string together meaningless events and coincidences into something larger, or is it all a mess that randomly verges on meaning? That's the question Auster asks in this book, and, appropriately, there is no clear answer. Wisely, Auster centers the whole thing on Nashe's perspective, and, given that he's a fairly likeable character, that works pretty well. (It's interesting that most of the summaries of the book give equal weight to Pozzi; I've got nothing against Pozzi, but it always felt very clear to me while reading that this is Nashe's story.) I think I liked the early stages of the book the best, when Nashe has gone through some rapid, life-changing ups and downs, and decides to cut all ties and just drive randomly throughout the country. There's something about the desire for cutting all ties that's very appealing--at least, in the way Auster presents it. The book never really came together for me, though; while it's hard to fault a book about randomness for having a fairly random plot, it still felt a bit off, when all was said and done.(less)

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Nov 14, 2012 Filias marked it as to-read · review of another edition

Shelves: 2012

«Cuando Jim Nashe es abandonado por su mujer, se lanza a la vida errante. Antes ha recibido una inesperada herencia de un padre que nunca conoció y que le permitirá vagabundear por América en un Saab rojo, el mejor coche que nunca tuvo. Nashe va de motel en motel, goza de la velocidad, vive en una soledad casi completa y experimenta la gozosa y desgarradora seducción del desarraigo absoluto. Tras un año de esta vida, y cuando apenas le quedan diez mil dólares de la herencia, conoce a Jack Pozzi,...more

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Jul 18, 2012 Roland rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

My first go-round with Auster, and after reading The Music of Chance I'm sure there will be more. The Music of Chance is a compelling and thought-provoking read, often exploring existential questions and giving the reader much to consider.

The central characters, Jim Nashe and Jack Pozzi, are flawed and at times unlikable characters but Auster's narrative makes them sympathetic enough, especially considering the back luck and "chance" losses they incur. A seriously high-stakes poker game with a p...more

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Jul 11, 2012 Yashar Yashmi rated it 2 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: novel, review

خب؟ آخرش که چی؟!‏

سوال بالا، سوالی است که می تواند تمام ارزش این کتاب را توضیح دهد، جواب این سوال می تواند حکم به بی ارزش بودن این کتاب بدهد و یا برعکس، دو ستاره ی نازنین را به آن عطا کند. ‏

بر خلاف بسیاری که پل استر را پست مدرن می دانند من نمی توانم او را یک پست مدرن تمام و کمال بخوانم. فی الواقع، روش و مشی او بیشتر بازی و سیخونک کردن دنیای مدرن است تا شکستن آن. با این حال، وضیع و چینش این کتاب نظر من را تغییر داد:‏

اول از همه این که اسم کتاب به شدت بی مسمّاست و در عین حال حاوی بالاترین مفاهیم موج...more خب؟ آخرش که چی؟!‏

سوال بالا، سوالی است که می تواند تمام ارزش این کتاب را توضیح دهد، جواب این سوال می تواند حکم به بی ارزش بودن این کتاب بدهد و یا برعکس، دو ستاره ی نازنین را به آن عطا کند. ‏

بر خلاف بسیاری که پل استر را پست مدرن می دانند من نمی توانم او را یک پست مدرن تمام و کمال بخوانم. فی الواقع، روش و مشی او بیشتر بازی و سیخونک کردن دنیای مدرن است تا شکستن آن. با این حال، وضیع و چینش این کتاب نظر من را تغییر داد:‏

اول از همه این که اسم کتاب به شدت بی مسمّاست و در عین حال حاوی بالاترین مفاهیم موجود در کتاب است. ژانر های کتاب در همه حال در حال تغییر و تبدل هستند و علاوه بر این ها پایانی قابل تامل کتاب را به پایان می رساند. ‏

انسان سرگشته ی مدرن؟! زندگی بر باد رفته ی مکانیکی؟! لزوم وجود معنا (دیوار)؟! مرگ به عنوان اخرین راه حل؟! محتوای کتاب را همین مفاهیم رقم می زنند. اما آیا باید از این کتاب به ظاهر پست مدرن لطف محتوا و مفهوم مستقیم داشت؟ چند وقتی است که من درگیر این موضوع هستم که ما نباید لزوماً از یک اثر هنری انتظار پیام را داشته باشیم و صد البته فهم محتوا اجتناب ناپذیر است. به بیان دیگر، ما باید از چند ساعتی که برای این کتاب می گذاریم لذت ببریم، به پایانش برسانیم، از پایان آن هیچ نفهمیم [ و شاید شگفت زده شویم] و در نهایت کتاب را به گوشه ای بیافکنیم و به سراغ زندگی مان برویم. کتاب «موسیقی شانس» پل استر تجلی همین ایده است: در عین این که همه چیز جدی است، لکن آن را جدی نگیر و خودت را درگیر هنر نکن؛ هنر خودش با تو بازی خواهد کرد. ورق های هنر اعداد ریاضی نیستند که قابل پیش بینی باشند. پس اگر دیدی همان طور که انتظار نداشتی پیش نرفت؛ آن را به حساب ضعف هنر نگذار. ‏

موسیقی شانس هیچ نیست جز ساعتی خواندن و توجه نشان دادن به چیزی که تقریباً کاملاً بی اهمیت است.بذل توجه به همین بی اهمیتی است که هنر را می سازد... همین!!!‏

1391/4/19

ستاره (از پنج ستاره): دو ستاره ی تمام

روایت داستان یک دست نیست و مشخصاً در این باره عمدی وجود دارد، کتاب ژانر های خودش را مرتباً عوض می کند، شخصیت پردازی ناش فوق العاده است و در عوض دو مرد میلیونر بی هیچ دلیلی در داستان رها شده اند ( بر خلاف همه که سرنوشتشان مشخص است)، گاهی اوقات حس می کنم من هم باید مانند ناش خودم را غرق در جاده کنم و در نهایت، صرفاً دیواری برایم در جایگاه معنا قرار بگیرد‏(less)

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Jun 08, 2012 Carlos rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: papel

Cuando Jim Nashe es abandonado por su mujer, se lanza a la vida errante. Antes ha recibido una inesperada herencia de un padre que nunca conoció y que le permitirá vagabundear por América en un Saab rojo, el mejor coche que nunca tuvo. Nashe va de motel en motel, goza de la velocidad, vive en una soledad casi completa y experimenta la gozosa y desgarradora seducción del desarraigo absoluto. Tras un año de esta vida, y cuando apenas le quedan diez mil dólares de la herencia, conoce a Jack Pozzi,

...more

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Feb 07, 2012 Travis rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

A man inherits an amount of money amounting to a few years salary, buys a new car, and sets off on a year long road trip. When he's about to run out of money, he meets a young poker player. The man stakes him for a big game. They lose, end up with a debt, and pay it off by building a wall in a meadow.

That's about it for the plot in this one. The pacing zips along at the beginning, but once they get to the meadow and start building the wall, it drags, perhaps necessarily.

Of course there's more...more

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Jan 03, 2012 Scott Foley rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

In The Music of Chance, Auster provides an utterly unpredictable story focusing upon Jim Nashe, a firefighter who inherits an unexpected sum of money and begins driving cross-country for no real reason. As chance would have it, he happens across a self-proclaimed poker savant just as Nashe is in danger of running out of funds. The poker aficionado, Jack Pozzi, guarantees Nashe he can multiply Nashe's capital if only Nashe will back him in a big, upcoming game with a couple of millionaire dunderh...more

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Jan 05, 2011 Lesliemae rated it 2 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Recommended to Lesliemae by: Sara Cohan via Paul Van Gerresten

This review has been hidden because it contains spoilers. To view it, click here. A quick read. Auster is a very good story-teller, but throughout the story I kept having visions of Kafka. In fact, I've mentally judged The Music of Chance as very Kafkaesque. Not Kafkaesque in the superficial sense of uncanny bureaucratic entanglements but in the Kierkegaardian sense of a divine order that eludes human comprehension. There is this major difference: where Kafka and Kierkegaard hypothesize a deity essentially separate from humankind, Auster posits a kind of cosmic current with w...more A quick read. Auster is a very good story-teller, but throughout the story I kept having visions of Kafka. In fact, I've mentally judged The Music of Chance as very Kafkaesque. Not Kafkaesque in the superficial sense of uncanny bureaucratic entanglements but in the Kierkegaardian sense of a divine order that eludes human comprehension. There is this major difference: where Kafka and Kierkegaard hypothesize a deity essentially separate from humankind, Auster posits a kind of cosmic current with which human beings could conceivably flow - the flow of music, the flow of riding a winning streak, driving the open roads the flow of just staying on building a brick wall, the flow of fate. This is reiterated with stultifying clarity over and over through the character of Pozzi, a professional card hustler, that believes "Once your luck starts to roll, there's not a damn thing that can stop it".

The interesting intersection in this novel is the space between which belief and chance create a tension that mirrors the tension surrounding doom and violence. At the heart of the book is a growing sense of chaos, and that is what Jim Nashe is trying to avoid while flirting with what it means to be free. Jim Nashe takes to the road, and for three months explores his need to continue driving, listening to music, and ultimately flowing from one moment into the next. Jim is without anchor when in a "chance encounter" he meets Pozzi. Throughout their conversations, transactions and final decisions about going to a poker match, Nashe seems desperate to find some reason to stop driving and settle down. His winning ticket seems to Pozzi - and in a sense it is. With the loss of the match, Nashe and Pozzi become indentured labourers. Their single task is to build a wall and pay their debt. However, as time passes - each senses that what they are actually prisoners of Flower and Stone (the eccentric millionaire gamblers to whom they lost $30,000).

WIthout getting into all the nuances of the plot and how the tension builds (aka: the City of the world model, the barbed wire, the gun, the (fatal?) beating), it seems as though the wall as a central metaphor is actually the wall that Nashe observes in Stone's City of the World model. The wall is located in the model within the jail. The jail is highlighted as a work/reform centre that organizes and regulates the utopic values of the world. Against this wall are two men who are about to be shot. Are Nashe and Pozzi building their own demise? In fact, there is also an oblique reference to the labour of building the wall as "the work will set them free" - which is the slogan above the gates of Auschwitz. This is where I think that I reading of Kafka's The Trial might be useful for this book.

On his thirtieth birthday, a senior bank clerk, Josef K., who lives in lodgings, is unexpectedly arrested by two unidentified agents for an unspecified crime. The agents do not name the authority for which they are acting. He is not taken away, however, but left at home to await instructions from the Committee of Affairs. After numerous bureaucratic entanglements and diversions - K has to show an important client from Italy around the Cathedral. The client doesn't show up, but just as K is leaving the Cathedral, the priest calls out K's name, although K has never known the priest. The priest works for the court, and tells K a fable, (which has been published separately as Before the Law) that is meant to explain his situation, but instead causes confusion, and implies that K's fate is hopeless. Before the Law begins as a parable, then continues with several pages of interpretation between the Priest and Josef K. The gravity of the priest's words prepares the reader for an unpleasant ending.

On the last day of Josef K's thirtieth year, two men arrive to execute him. He offers little resistance, suggesting that he has realised this as being inevitable for some time. They lead him to a quarry where he is expected to kill himself, but he cannot. The two men then execute him. His last words describe his own death: "Like a dog!"

It seems by the end of The Music of Chance, Nashe is in a similar predicament as Josef K. Will he survive, will he be killed by Floyd and Murks (as he believes Pozzi was), or does he simply need to say, "I've had enough it's time to stop this." and leave the estate? The underlying message seems to be one of what it means to have free will and what that will means when one either is incarcerated (Pozzi sense of the situation) or believes himself to be (Josef and Nashe).

These are just my first disjointed thoughts about the novel - there are still many unanswered questions and thoughts.

My reaction is one of preference. Having read both Kafka and Auster - I prefer Kafka.

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Dec 23, 2010 R. rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

J'étais de mauvaise humeur et je ne trouvais rien à lire. Après avoir ouvert plusieurs livres, lu les premières pages et aussitôt reposé le livre, j'ai décidé de revenir aux fondamentaux. Direction l'étagère réservée aux romans de Paul Auster et sélection d'un roman au titre évocateur sans être pompeux ni aguicheur — comme l'on en voit malheureusement de plus en plus — La musique du hasard. Comme le laisse supposer le titre, le hasard joue un rôle central dans ce roman. Vous savez, celui qui vou...more

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Nov 11, 2010 Tyler Jones rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: poker

My favourite Paul Aster novel - and not just because it has poker in it.

Jim Nashe, a Boston firefighter, is as solid a guy as there is. But when he unexpectedly comes into a fair sized inheritance the routine of his life is overturned by the possibilities of what he can now do. He quits his job, buys a nice car and drives all over America, leaving his fate to chance and his decisions to the whim of the moment. When the money starts to run out however, Jim can't bring himself to return to his for...more

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Sep 16, 2010 Parksy rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

4.5

Very cool. Very good psychological thriller with thoughts of justice and revenge.

From Publishers Weekly
Compulsive traveler Jim Nashe finances an epic poker match for a self-proclaimed jackpot winner. "In his lucid, captivating yarn, Auster quietly raises disturbing questions of servants and masters, of loyalty, freedom and the inexplicable urge to kill," said PW .
Copyright 1991 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From Library Journal
This insightful novel is a taut study of the self-contradictory m...more

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May 05, 2010 Bob rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

My Paul Auster marathon (involving much sacrificed sleep) continues. This one opens "For one whole year, he did nothing but drive, traveling back and forth across America as he waited for the money to run out" which is characteristic; sometimes the characters are sitting in their apartments without moving for a year until the money runs out, sometimes they are driving aimlessly across the country, sometimes they are driving purposefully, blowing up small patriotic emblems as they go, but this ex...more

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Aug 06, 2011 Matthew added it

A friend spoke to me once of "concretizing the metaphor" when trying to write evocative and symbolically pregnant prose. Auster manages to do that very effectively in almost all of his works, and The Music of Chance is no exception. No one reading this work could help but be struck by the three cases of concrete metaphor on display here. The first is Stone's City of the World. The second is Flower's museum of unwanted objects, but the third and most compelling is surely The Wall. William Jenning...more

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Jan 31, 2013 Sine rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Recommended to Sine by: Sinem

ilk paul auster deneyimim olması açısından önemliydi. aslında bu aralar yeni kitap alma veya başlama niyetim yoktu ama ivan ilyiç'in ölümü ve daha öncesinde okuduğum kitaplar yüzünden ince memed'e adapte olamadım. o yüzden araya daha standart, yöresel olmayan dile sahip, akıcı bir kitap almak istedim. sinem sağ olsun bunu tavsiye etti. bu vesileyle paul auster'la da tanışmış olduk.

paul auster gibi günümüzde herkes tarafından kalburüstü yorumlar alan yazarlara başlamaktan biraz çekinirim. murakam...more ilk paul auster deneyimim olması açısından önemliydi. aslında bu aralar yeni kitap alma veya başlama niyetim yoktu ama ivan ilyiç'in ölümü ve daha öncesinde okuduğum kitaplar yüzünden ince memed'e adapte olamadım. o yüzden araya daha standart, yöresel olmayan dile sahip, akıcı bir kitap almak istedim. sinem sağ olsun bunu tavsiye etti. bu vesileyle paul auster'la da tanışmış olduk.

paul auster gibi günümüzde herkes tarafından kalburüstü yorumlar alan yazarlara başlamaktan biraz çekinirim. murakami de bu çekincemin taze ve güzel bir ispatı. bunun sebebi de bu kadar iyi yoruma rağmen "klasik" olmadıkları için okuyacağım şeyin yorumlardaki kadar iyi olacağının bir garantisinin olmaması tabi. neyse ki auster böyle sonuçlanmadı.

kitabın en iyi tarafı akıcı olması. hem uğraşacak işlerimizin olması, hem de twitter gibi sosyal medyanın konsantrasyon süremizi iyice düşürmesi kitap okumayı çok zorlaştırıyor; ki taparcasına kitap seven biri olarak söylüyorum bunu. o yüzden kitabın kendine çekmesi büyük başarı. twitter ve tez gibi faktörler olmasa iki, hatta bir günde bile bitirirdim. hikaye çok orijinal. hani ucundan bile olsa sizin düşünemeyeceğiniz bir şeyi düşünmüş yazar. bu olayı seviyorum. insanın algı sınırlarını zorluyor. standart "ben olsam ne yapardım" düşüncesine kapıldığınızda, bu tür kitaplarda kendinizi daha çok zorluyorsunuz. bir de olayların bağlanma şekli güzel. tam bir olaya alışıp hafiften sıkılmaya başladığınızda kurgu yön değiştiriyor. hiç bunaltmıyor. karakterler de aynı şekilde hem orijinal, hem de inandırıcı. kendinizi birçoğunun yerine koyabilirsiniz.

geçen gün sinem ve yazgülü'yle buluştuğumuzda rus edebiyatıyla ilgili konuşmuştuk. özelinde rus edebiyatı ve genelinde klasikler, insanın zevklerini yükseltiyor ve pek bilmediğiniz kitaplara ve yazarlara "bak iyi değilse okumayalım, zaman az, kitap çok" tavrı geliştiriyorsunuz. işte bu, o kıymetli vaktinizi harcamaya değer bir kitap.

iki cümle yazacağım, blog yazısına döndü. (less)

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Sep 23, 2012 Renato rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: 2012, romances

É como comer farinha à colherada: uma pessoa fica cheia de qualquer coisa que não sabe bem o que é, tem sempre algo para mastigar na boca, mas a refeição é tudo menos saborosa. O uso do poker, de viagens sem destino, do acaso e da coincidência, parecem marcas de uma preocupação com uma forma de ver a vida muito particular: as coisas são mais ou menos aleatórias e inesperadas, o indivíduo é a vítima da vida e da sua “música”; só que estas metáforas todas estão camufladas numa aparência de realism...more É como comer farinha à colherada: uma pessoa fica cheia de qualquer coisa que não sabe bem o que é, tem sempre algo para mastigar na boca, mas a refeição é tudo menos saborosa. O uso do poker, de viagens sem destino, do acaso e da coincidência, parecem marcas de uma preocupação com uma forma de ver a vida muito particular: as coisas são mais ou menos aleatórias e inesperadas, o indivíduo é a vítima da vida e da sua “música”; só que estas metáforas todas estão camufladas numa aparência de realismo, escondidas por uma narrativa muito tradicional. A sensação com que fiquei é que tudo é de facto aleatório, incluindo os acontecimentos, as personalidades e as suas motivações; tudo muda consoante o presente, os acontecimentos aparentemente absurdos levam as personagens para novas emoções e objetivos, sem que a história que sustenta toda essa filosofia seja emocionalmente relevante, lógica, ou coerente. O narrador omnisciente oscila entre um conhecimento enciclopédico deste universo sem norte e a psicologia do herói vista ao microscópio: Jim Nashe é descrito com tanta clareza que deveria parecer-nos um homem existente; em vez disso não passa de uma projecção, de uma metáfora, de um conjunto de emoções contraditórias e acidentes de percurso. Acho até que toda a descrição psicologicamente muito próxima que o narrador faz dos seus estados de espírito procura fornecer ao desgraçado uma tridimensionalidade que na verdade não existe. Por que toma as decisões (geralmente idiotas) que o conduzem à desgraça? Por que umas vezes protege uma quantia de dinheiro que deixou à filha pequena e noutras se esquece que ela sequer existe? Por que é que o plano de escape de uma personagem quando se encontra ameaçada por dois multimilionários é “fugir e ir à esquadra de polícia mais próxima” quando a mesma personagem, cem páginas antes, argumentava que ir à polícia seria inútil porque “estes tipos com dinheiro podem tudo”? Por que se lamenta vezes e vezes sem conta sobre a sua posição (está prisioneiro de um trabalho que deve terminar para pagar uma dívida que contraiu de forma estúpida, suicidaria e irrealista) mas ao mesmo tempo não leva a cabo as acções mais óbvias para dela se escapar? Este sentimento de bússola avariada deve contribuir para o tema total do livro, mas privou-me de qualquer satisfação mais básica no que toca a identificar-me (ou sequer compreender devidamente) as personagens, e torna a presença do autor tão óbvia que a história nos parece um artifício; nada existe por si só, tudo nos é posto à frente por um narrador omnisciente e sabichão. Mas para um livro com pretensões tão filosóficas e metafísicas (segundo consta, elas estão lá; boa sorte para as encontrar), a escrita parece-me verdadeiramente pobre e simplista: está apinhada de lugares-comuns (daqueles de revirar os olhos; o desespero de uma mulher é descrito desta forma: “rompeu num choro convulsivo ali mesmo na cama, o rosto enterrado nas mãos e as costas magras sacudidas por espasmos violentos, incontroláveis”; a descrição de uma prostituta: “havia nela qualquer coisa de gasto, de vencido, uma tristeza que transparecia no seu sorriso (...) aquele era o olhar de alguém que já tinha visto demasiado”), os diálogos são uma banalidade, (“- Aquele tipo gordo desembolsou montes de massa por causa desta cena e eu, quando vim, pensava que era para foder com os dois. Por tanto carcanhol, até fodia um cão se fosse preciso”) e os pequenos momentos de foreshadowing são os mais tristemente óbvios de sempre (“Mas também é verdade que amanhã posso estar morto. Nunca se sabe o que nos espera.”). E o final? Coerente com o resto do livro: aleatório, injustificado, injustificável. (less)

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Nov 15, 2011 Alice rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Having read and loved Invisible, also Paul Auster, I was excited about reading his other works. This was the next one I happened to see at the library. I did not like it nearly as much as Invisible. I can see how Auster's style and mastery of character deepened by the time he wrote Invisible, a much more recent book than The Music of Chance. This did have an intriguing story: how one's life can turn on a dime -- or a poker game. I did, though, find some of this novel not quite believable, and by...more

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Dec 28, 2012 Kathleen rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Auster’s skill as a storyteller never ceases to amaze me. No matter what he writes about, I am generally enthralled from the first page. Even in the case of those of his novels I haven’t much cared for, he never fails to bring his characters to life in a very convincing manner. I remember them as though they were people I’d actually met—and there are a great many of them I would’ve enjoyed meeting.

The Music of Chance centers on a string of coincidences that cause a chain of events that bring tog...more

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Oct 26, 2012 Mark rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Paul Auster, for me, is the best writer in the United States and as good as any writer operating in Europe too. Crystal clear, economical, thoughtful and subsumed in the rich tradition of American literary reality writing, Auster is a writer's writer, a Go-To writer for any novice pensmith.

Music of Chance is amongst his best books. A nihilistic and traumatised fireman escaping a disastrous event gives a lift to a poker-playing hustler who persuades him to hand over the stake money for a big gam...more

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Aug 30, 2010 Linawings rated it 1 of 5 stars · review of another edition

I was interested to get to know Paul Auster because I quite like the style of "What I loved" by Siri Hustvedt, who is his wife. I was told by the old lady owner of a small bookshop where I like to buy books, that the wife although not that famous, can really compete the husband. Well, the "Music of chance" may not be his best book, and although well written, I didn't like at all the main thesis! I was even angry and furious after I read it. The topic of chance always interested me, but this book...more

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Oct 05, 2011 Sunsethours rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

So far i like it. Auster succeeded in his experiment with the writing. It pleases me to read and live with his character, to understand his feelings throughout his acts not by direct description of the feelings themseleves.
Predictable ending.
But still great book

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Dec 06, 2012 Debbie Robson rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition

This is the first Paul Auster book I have been a little disappointed and there's two reasons. Firstly the smaller "stage" of this book - for a lot of it just two to three main characters. From reading this earlier book I have discoverd that I much prefer the interweaving of a larger cast of characters that people his later novels. The second reason is that I skipped over five early books (beginning with Moon Palace) in my reading of Paul Auster's novels. I am only now going back to reading the m...more

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Jun 25, 2012 Mircalla64 (free Liu Xiaobo) rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Jim è un uomo che si è lasciato la sua vita alle spalle
vagabonda con la sua auto
spendendo l'inaspettata eredità di suo padre
Jack è un giocatore di poker professionista
che una notte ha avuto una spiacevole avventura
il caso li mette insieme
e sempre lui li trascina lontano
troppo lontano rispetto al punto di partenza
la sensazione che ci sia qualcuno a dirigere i loro movimenti e
che essi non siano realmente padroni delle loro vite
si amplia fino a fagocitare tutto
e quando sono troppo lontani non potr...more

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Aug 14, 2009 Jason rated it 4 of 5 stars

I picked this up at the library after spotting it randomly on a shelf. I had seen the movie a while back and enjoyed immensely. It was far enough back however that I did not remember all of it. So it seemed a like a good idea the book. I'm glad I did. I'm pretty sure I'll have to get a copy for myself sometime in the future.

All that being said this is not a book to read if you are looking for something uplifting. As the title states it's about chance and the role it plays in our lives. In the bo...more

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