Leviathan (Contemporary American Fiction)
by Paul Auster
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Read in November, 2007
recommends it for:
other cool dudes
This was recommended to me by my cool dude friend who knows how to hold a plot in his mind. He works in linear, logical ways, and even when he takes some creative risks in his own work, it's never weird, because it is upheld by this *structure* that just makes sense.
I respect this, a lot, because I am plot-challenged. A point gets made in my mind, and it expands and spreads and connects with other points, but point-to-point-to-point I get lost if it's not something I can work with immedi...more
I respect this, a lot, because I am plot-challenged. A point gets made in my mind, and it expands and spreads and connects with other points, but point-to-point-to-point I get lost if it's not something I can work with immedi...more
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Read in May, 2008
I can't remember the last time I read a book that was so emotionally draining as Paul Auster's Leviathan. I have been reading it at work for the last week or so, and finally in the home stretch of the last hundred pages today, I started walking around with my head down and my coworkers kept asking if I was okay. That's a feat to behold.
Auster's books are some of the most finely crafted works I have ever had the pleasure of reading. Maybe the stories don't always get wrapped up cleanly, or...more
Auster's books are some of the most finely crafted works I have ever had the pleasure of reading. Maybe the stories don't always get wrapped up cleanly, or...more
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Read in April, 2008
MehI am not quite sure what to make of Leviathan. I was not the biggest fan, but I am not sure if this sin is due to the writing, or if it is a book, static as a book must be, which has missed its time for me specifically. The very first page talks about a man blowing himself up, mentions the author's ties to him, and then spends the rest of the book tracing Sachs's (the demolished one) life story, riddled with neurosis and ennui to the point where he made his bombastic decision.
On the one h...more
On the one h...more
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Read in April, 2008
I had such a good feeling about Auggie Wren's Christmas Story that I picked up this book too. Didn't want to go through withdrawal or anything.
I'm not sure how I feel about this book. I liked it a lot at first because it is a mystery or sorts where a man has been blown up and the narrator knows how and why and the book will unravel it. I liked the tone of the novel too, something about it reminded me of Wallace Stegner but somewhat darker. However, somewhere in the middle of the book I h...more
I'm not sure how I feel about this book. I liked it a lot at first because it is a mystery or sorts where a man has been blown up and the narrator knows how and why and the book will unravel it. I liked the tone of the novel too, something about it reminded me of Wallace Stegner but somewhat darker. However, somewhere in the middle of the book I h...more
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Read in June, 2008
As usual, Paul Auster captivates me, I read this after The Book of Illusions - which should also be read. I thoroughly enjoyed the premise of Leviathan. Especially as French artist, Sophie Calle's work mystifies me; Leviathan is as much based on her work, as it is a weaving of that fact and Auster's fiction.
In my Sophie Calle collective artbook, she credits one piece of work to Auster - she had taken a leaf out of a character in his book, who abides by a chromatic diet. That is, based on the...more
In my Sophie Calle collective artbook, she credits one piece of work to Auster - she had taken a leaf out of a character in his book, who abides by a chromatic diet. That is, based on the...more
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Read in May, 1998
The first Auster novel I read. It was another case of
"I should be studying for this exam, but instead I'm going to read." The exam in question was second semester general chemistry, and clearly everything turned out all right.
The protagonist of this book is a writer named Peter Aaron. In Timbuktu, a man named Paul Auster owns a dog who can write on the typewriter. In the City of Glass, there is a private detective named Paul Auster who plays an important role. I made the mi...more
"I should be studying for this exam, but instead I'm going to read." The exam in question was second semester general chemistry, and clearly everything turned out all right.
The protagonist of this book is a writer named Peter Aaron. In Timbuktu, a man named Paul Auster owns a dog who can write on the typewriter. In the City of Glass, there is a private detective named Paul Auster who plays an important role. I made the mi...more
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Read in October, 2007
A story of New York literati best friends in the 1970s and '80s. Books are written, marriages fall apart and one guy kinda loses his shit. The other guy eulogizes him, a la Steinbeck's story of Ed Ricketts in the extended intro to "The Log of The Sea of Cortez."
My mp3 player is broken, but I didn't care because I had this book to keep me company on the train. I even held off dinner to read the last twenty-five pages of these beautiful, meticulous words.
So why the paltry three...more
My mp3 player is broken, but I didn't care because I had this book to keep me company on the train. I even held off dinner to read the last twenty-five pages of these beautiful, meticulous words.
So why the paltry three...more
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Read in April, 2008
i just noticed that next to 'my review' goodreads says 'what i learned from this book.' i guess what i learned from paul auster's leviathan is that unlike similar writers who mix genre with magic realism (murakami, lethem, etc), auster grounds his books equally in experimentalism and humanism. all of his books, even his strangest, have sympathy for the people in the novel. leviathan is probably the biggest mix of the two. not as emotional as auster's new stuff, and not as strange as city of glas...more
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Read in July, 2008
Although I haven't included any major spoilers as such, I'd recommend reading Leviathan before you read any of its reviews or synopses at all, including this brief one. Go in blind as I did, and you'll get more from it I reckon.
Phenomenal. I never thought New York Trilogy could be topped but this blows it away. Never have I cared so much for a book's protagonist as I did for Benjamin Sachs.
Auster covers all his usual ground, weaving his story around writers, coincedences, private detecti...more
Phenomenal. I never thought New York Trilogy could be topped but this blows it away. Never have I cared so much for a book's protagonist as I did for Benjamin Sachs.
Auster covers all his usual ground, weaving his story around writers, coincedences, private detecti...more
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Read in June, 2007
I normally enjoy Paul Auster's books; Mr. Vertigo ranks among my all-time favorites. While Leviathan has an interesting premise, it falls flat in its execution.
I was easily drawn in within the first couple chapters, but later realized that it was simply because there were so many unknowns. As the story progressed, it became harder and harder to focus; the increasingly disjointed writing didn't help. I found myself skipping ahead just to get it over with. The "twists" ...more
I was easily drawn in within the first couple chapters, but later realized that it was simply because there were so many unknowns. As the story progressed, it became harder and harder to focus; the increasingly disjointed writing didn't help. I found myself skipping ahead just to get it over with. The "twists" ...more
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Read in June, 2007
I've read a lot of Paul Auster's nonfiction and enjoyed it. His fiction is another matter - this book must have some of the worst dialogue ever, and the scenes feel very forced in general.
However, this book contains the phrase "The Eden of her buttocks."
Really, though, I should say that it is a page-turner. But it's a page turner because the author withholds a lot of information from the reader until near the end of the book. It's not worth reading it to get to the end of the ...more
However, this book contains the phrase "The Eden of her buttocks."
Really, though, I should say that it is a page-turner. But it's a page turner because the author withholds a lot of information from the reader until near the end of the book. It's not worth reading it to get to the end of the ...more
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Read in October, 2007
i originally got this book because i was writing a paper on sophie calle and the artist in it is based on her. i did not like the introduction to the artist, maybe having written a paper on sophie i am too aware of her work and tired of it, but it was such a boring summary of what she has done. it was his part in the cat and mouse game with her, but did it have to be that blatant? aside from that, however, i quite like auster's writing style. can't explain why right now, but held me. this w...more
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i can't describe the plot lines of paul auster books because the plots are so not the point in his books. his books are comprised of a couple hundred moments, feelings, and expressions that you have encountered in your everyday life so often that you barely noticed that they could be explained. "paul auster"moments occur like little explosions through out my day- more so while I'm readin gone of his books- this is a good one to start with....one of the themes in the book is about, sur...more
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I started this just before seeing his movie, "The Inner Life of Martin Frost", which was epically bad and almost turned me off of him forever. But this book was great - there's a reason people keep giving him money to make movies, and it must be in the hopes that eventually he'll turn out something as beautifully unsettling and claustrophobic as his fiction. His main dictum: "We can never know anything about anyone." It takes quite an author to build compelling characters on ...more
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Read in November, 2007
A man blows himself up somewhere in Wisconsin. Paul Auster's narrator stitches together the events that lead up to it.
This is my second favorite of Paul Auster's books that I've read so far (behind The New York Trilogy). Leviathan is more accessible than a lot of his other ones. It's more plot-driven than Oracle Nights, more focused than Book of Illusions, and infinitely darker than The Brooklyn Follies. If you've never read Paul Auster, this one's a great place to start.
This is my second favorite of Paul Auster's books that I've read so far (behind The New York Trilogy). Leviathan is more accessible than a lot of his other ones. It's more plot-driven than Oracle Nights, more focused than Book of Illusions, and infinitely darker than The Brooklyn Follies. If you've never read Paul Auster, this one's a great place to start.
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Read in October, 2007
recommends it for:
people who already like paul auster
this book started out really strongly, with amazing characters and curious intersections between them, but i don't feel that that strength carried through to the end. i have been told by someone who really likes paul auster that this is not necessarily the book to start with, so i'll give him another chance. didn't hate the book, in fact i liked it, but it wasn't the best thing ever. i do like his simple and unpretentious prose (for the most part).
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Read in June, 2007
Not exactly what I hoped for. It starts off with a bang (har har) but soon after the intriguing first chapter drifts into kind of bland relationship drama and some narrator yakking on and on. I didn't think the stories of the book built up for the ending. They just seemed there to fill the space between the opening teaser and the rather dull finale. Not to say it was unenjoyable or a waste of time, but it just didn't live up to it's promises for me.
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One of my favorite Paul Auster books and the first that broke away from the "literate fantasy" themes of Mr. Vertigo and The Country of Last Things, and embraced pure literate storytelling. Auster's still in this genre is always honest, but quirky. Complex, but revealing. His subtext is magnificent and always leaves you asking questions of the book even after it's long been put away. If you want to read Auster at his best, give this one a try.
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Read in April, 2007
recommends it for:
mystery/thriller buffs looking for something more
i'm not a huge fan of this genre of fiction -- thrillers/mysteries, i suppose -- and at first the voices felt kind of stilted. but the story drew me in and by the end the characters were fully realized -- auster has a nice sense of human nature and he expresses it well. quick and enjoyable, but better than what you might normally call a page turner, which it also is. very good plane/vacation/commuting reading.
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Read in January, 2004
This is the Paul Auster book that most closely resembles the beauty of the screenplay for "Smoke"- pieces of ordinary lives drawn together to make a strange end. The pieces about Sophie Calle - and how then she re-incorporated the fake Calle into her own art - are fascinating and fantastic, and Auster avoids here some of the precious bits of some of his other books that can get dangerously close to whimsy.
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book data (includes all editions)
avg rating (all editions): 3.88 (1101 ratings) avg rating (this edition): 3.88 (995 ratings) number of reviews: 76popular shelves
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"-Significa que no puedes vivir sin los demás -dije-. Cuando están ahí en carne y hueso, el mundo real es suficiente. Cuando estás solo, tienes que inventarte personajes, los necesitas para que te hagan compañia."
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