Travels in the Scriptorium: A Novel
by Paul Auster
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Read in March, 2007
recommends it for:
Readers who enjoy Borges, Eco, and Calvino
Before Travels in the Scriptorium, I’d never read Paul Auster. Now I have to read everything he’s written.
Travels in the Scriptorium was an impulse buy based on the cover. I found an advanced readers copy at work. It was that simple. The book turned out to be anything but.
An elderly man wakes up in a simple room. He is being monitored. He’s essentially locked in. He can’t remember his past. He doesn’t know where he is. Over the course of one day, nurses and mysterious visitors...more
Travels in the Scriptorium was an impulse buy based on the cover. I found an advanced readers copy at work. It was that simple. The book turned out to be anything but.
An elderly man wakes up in a simple room. He is being monitored. He’s essentially locked in. He can’t remember his past. He doesn’t know where he is. Over the course of one day, nurses and mysterious visitors...more
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recommends it for:
absolutely no one.
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The first third of Travels in the Scriptorium is strange, ala Margaret Atwood. Why is this man caged up in this little room, and why is he being drugged? Who is he? During the course of the one day encompassed by this novel, visitor after visitor drops in and imparts a small nugget of information, which, as they accumulate, begin to fill in this picture. By the end of the second third, light begins to dawn on the reader, and the last third, to the finish, though still strange, is slightly...more
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Read in May, 2008
Paul Auster is one of my favorite authors. Or at least, I keep telling myself that. Ever since I read City of Glass and was so awed, and then read the entire New York Trilogy, I've decided Paul Auster is fantastic. But the truth is, I've hardly liked any of his other books. I thought Book of Illusions was rather disappointing, without much conclusion, and too much unnecessary sex. As Auster gets older, these problems seem to multiply in his books.
In Travels in the Scriptorium, I was looking...more
In Travels in the Scriptorium, I was looking...more
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Read in June, 2008
I'm not the biggest Paul Auster fan. In fact, I've never really read any of his other books. I got attracted to this book because of its odd cover and a recommendation from another person new to Auster's worlds and he loved it.
This is a terrible place to start for any Auster virgin because from what I can gather, its a bunch of in-jokes from characters that were in his previous novels. Like all meta-fiction, things take a turn for the absurd and questions of truth, art and honesty run aboun...more
This is a terrible place to start for any Auster virgin because from what I can gather, its a bunch of in-jokes from characters that were in his previous novels. Like all meta-fiction, things take a turn for the absurd and questions of truth, art and honesty run aboun...more
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Read in April, 2008
recommended to Ammon by:
Heather
After reading other reviews, I feel it's important to comment: this novel (like much of Auster's "metaphysical" work) needs to be contextualized in twentieth century literary theory, interpreted through a particularly noir-ish and mystery-heavy lens. In particular, readers might want to investigate a little in the the notion of the "death of the author" (associated most closely with Roland Barthes but also with the analytic idea of the "intentional fallacy.")
The...more
The...more
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Read in January, 2008
recommends it for:
Paul Auster fans, people who like quick reads
Okay, well I read this entire book (90 pages) within a few hours in the Barnes & Nobles. Truth be told, I read it there for two reasons: (a) I have been told to read something by Paul Auster by a few people and (b) I didn't want to pay $16.00 for it.
(My daughter read the Guiness Book of World Records for Kids, lol)
It's an interesting story within a story. The writing, initially, is pretty solid, pretty tight. But the story is hard to keep interested in. A lot of the plot is a de...more
(My daughter read the Guiness Book of World Records for Kids, lol)
It's an interesting story within a story. The writing, initially, is pretty solid, pretty tight. But the story is hard to keep interested in. A lot of the plot is a de...more
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16 comments
recommends it for:
people who love allegories drenched in symbolism
i didn't enjoy this book at all. at least it was short, but it still took me a long time to read.
anybody who wanted to look through my book collection and tell instantly how much i liked a book can just turn it sideways and see how many of the pages are dogeared. i vandalize my books horribly. this book only has one dogeared page in the whole thing, for the phrase:
"viewed from the outermost reaches of space, the earth is no larget than a speck of dust. remember that the next time y...more
anybody who wanted to look through my book collection and tell instantly how much i liked a book can just turn it sideways and see how many of the pages are dogeared. i vandalize my books horribly. this book only has one dogeared page in the whole thing, for the phrase:
"viewed from the outermost reaches of space, the earth is no larget than a speck of dust. remember that the next time y...more
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Read in April, 2008
Let me preface my (brief) review with this: I had some serious issues with the first book in Auster's City of Glass (in the New York Trilogy). I felt the MacGuffin of the detective story failed, because it never ceased to be interesting in the face of the later developments in the main character's life.
This was not the case with Travels in the Scriptorium. It's a bizarre mystery that works on multiple levels. It's also an incredibly egocentric work -- not in an arrogant way, but in the wa...more
This was not the case with Travels in the Scriptorium. It's a bizarre mystery that works on multiple levels. It's also an incredibly egocentric work -- not in an arrogant way, but in the wa...more
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Read in April, 2008
This story is rather simple. A old man wakes up in a small, locked room, but cannot remember who he is or how he got there. Throughout the day he is visited by various people he has a special connection to, people he sent out on missions. He feels incredibly guilty about what he has done to these people. There is also a mysterious text on the desk in the room. The text tells a story about an alternate version of the early United States, a story Auster fans will recognize from a previo...more
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Read in May, 2008
recommends it for:
A haunted man enclosed in a plain white room searching for his identity.
I enjoyed the mystery of this book and didn't mind being pulled along through its labyrinth-like corridors--that is, if a labyrinth can exist within the walls of a plain, white room--or perhaps within the confines of one man's head--that head being Auster's or one of his many other writer characters? I think the book can be interpreted several different ways, and that's why I'm giving it 4 stars and not 2. The ending is not pat or tidy, but it has enough resolution to make it satisfying. I choos...more
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Auster's latest is more like his earliest novels in the spareness of the language, mysterious backstory, slipperiness of knowledge. It is also composed of characters from his previous novels, so I don't know how a new Auster reader would find it. One interesting parallel with his early work, specifically "Moon Palace": In the earlier book, understanding is prevented because the protagonist cannot physically get to the place where the needed information existed (he discovers that a cave...more
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Read in April, 2008
It was almost a chore to get through this book, which was my first disappointing read from Paul Auster. The novel tells the story of a few days (or was it just one day?) in the life of a man (named by the narrator "Mr. Blank") who wakes up in a bare white room, with no recollection of how he arrived there. The novel trudges along at a deliberately slow pace as he reads a manuscript lying on a desk in the room ("Did he write it?" the reader wonders), and thumbs through 8x10 ph...more
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Has a copy to sell/swap
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Read in January, 2008
i was stopped multiple times in public by strangers commenting on the cover of this book, "hey...is that paul auster??" "fucking A, it is," i replied.
this book was my first introduction to the highly-praised paul auster, and it was NOT enjoyable at all. in fact, it aggravated me. the synopsis was actually quite intriguing; an old man with no identity or memory of anything, confined in a room with nothing but a typescript to figure out who he really was. in fact, i STI...more
this book was my first introduction to the highly-praised paul auster, and it was NOT enjoyable at all. in fact, it aggravated me. the synopsis was actually quite intriguing; an old man with no identity or memory of anything, confined in a room with nothing but a typescript to figure out who he really was. in fact, i STI...more
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Read in February, 2008
Paul Auster does more of what he loves he to do- which is put the blank page in the forefront. A white sparse room and a man with no memory of who he is or why he's there, has been and will continue to be both a time honored plot device and a cliche. Alex Garland's Coma springs to mind as a recent book to make nearly the same moves in a similar setting - but Paul Auster's take blows Garland's away. One might argue that Auster has played with memory and identity in too many of his previous novels...more
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Read in February, 2008
My first Paul Auster read was the New York Trilogy. I was in awe of the three novellas in that book. With Travels In The Scriptorium, Auster returns to the novella form. The book is a Auster style mystery. It is not a typical whodunit type mystery. Rather it is an unfolding of plot that keeps the reader both clueless and captivated. In this book an old man awakens in a room with no memory of where he is or why he is in this situation. As the subject tries to piece together any and all facts, the...more
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Read in October, 2007
I've read most of Auster's oeuvre, my favorite of his novels being Mr. Vertigo, a tale of magical realism that I'd recommend to anyone interested in reading Auster for the first time.
Travels in the Scriptorium is a typically Austerian work, which is to say it is at once mysterious, metaphysical, allegorical and self-referential. It is a quick, easy read but definitely a book for those who've read Auster before, so I really can't recommend it for everyone. Prerequisite re...more
Travels in the Scriptorium is a typically Austerian work, which is to say it is at once mysterious, metaphysical, allegorical and self-referential. It is a quick, easy read but definitely a book for those who've read Auster before, so I really can't recommend it for everyone. Prerequisite re...more
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recommends it for:
People who have read and enjoyed other Auster books
First things first: I am an Auster fan. I’m not sure I’d have been able to enjoy this book were I unfamiliar with his work. Yes, its gotten mixed reviews. Yes, it is self-referential. (Honestly, is this a surprise to anyone? Get over it.) Worth reading for Auster-philes? Without a doubt.
The issues Auster takes on in this novella (really, it’s only about 150 pages) are familiar to his readers: questions of identity, memory, the nature of narrative, among others. The writing is...more
The issues Auster takes on in this novella (really, it’s only about 150 pages) are familiar to his readers: questions of identity, memory, the nature of narrative, among others. The writing is...more
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Read in January, 2008
I can't believe I'm giving a PA book two stars, but this is pretty bad. This is the equivalent of one of those "specials" sitcom producers make where they recycle the best bits and pratfalls of the past five season's shows. I can't imagine anyone who is familiar with Auster's better writing would think this book was a good idea. I wonder if it was a contract-fulfillment obligation and he needed to throw something together quickly? The story within the story is pretty bad too. A ...more
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Read in July, 2008
recommends it for:
people interested in experimental fiction
If you're not familiar with Paul Auster, this may not be the best place to start (I would highly recommend NY trilogy and City of Glass) but it follows the main tenants of experimental fiction very well...questionable main character and awareness of the characters as characters also. I just finished this one today and it's difficult to talk about without completely ruining the premise. As a criticism, I found it was too short and that it could have been another 100 pages easy with a more devel...more
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