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Oracle Night
by
Paul Auster
Several months into his recovery from a near-fatal illness, thirty-four-year-old novelist Sidney Orr enters a stationery shop in the Cobble Hill section of Brooklyn and buys a blue notebook. It is September 18, 1982, and for the next nine days Orr will live under the spell of this blank book, trapped inside a world of eerie premonitions and puzzling events that threaten to
...more
Hardcover, 256 pages
Published
December 2nd 2003
by Henry Holt and Co.
(first published 2003)
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رواية داخل رواية
عندما تقرأ لأول مرة لبول أوستر لا يسعك بعد ذلك إلا البحث عن مجمل أعماله..متعة فائقة أن أتقرأ لكاتب يحترم عقليتك و يضع ذكاءك موضع المسائلة و الإختبار كأنه داخل إلى متاهة ذهنية و يريدك أن تعمل على حل عقدها و التكهن بالخطوة القادمة التى لن تقدر على التنبؤ بها أو حتى التفكير فيها..دائما توقعات صادمة تنهش فى لحم الحقيقة لتعرى ما هو مختفٍ تحتها
الرواية قائمة على تداعى السرد و تشابك الأزمنة و التقل فيما بينها من الماضى للحاضر و المستقبل و بالعكس ، و تداخل حياة الراوى- الذى يعمل بالأساس ك...more
عندما تقرأ لأول مرة لبول أوستر لا يسعك بعد ذلك إلا البحث عن مجمل أعماله..متعة فائقة أن أتقرأ لكاتب يحترم عقليتك و يضع ذكاءك موضع المسائلة و الإختبار كأنه داخل إلى متاهة ذهنية و يريدك أن تعمل على حل عقدها و التكهن بالخطوة القادمة التى لن تقدر على التنبؤ بها أو حتى التفكير فيها..دائما توقعات صادمة تنهش فى لحم الحقيقة لتعرى ما هو مختفٍ تحتها
الرواية قائمة على تداعى السرد و تشابك الأزمنة و التقل فيما بينها من الماضى للحاضر و المستقبل و بالعكس ، و تداخل حياة الراوى- الذى يعمل بالأساس ك...more
Oracle Night seems like one of Auster's more perfunctory novels. There is the usual blend of a narrator getting over some big personal tragedy, reflections on the power of language (writing especially in this case), recurring coincidences, a female love interest in trouble, etc. The opening conceit of the blank notebook and Sid's need to fill it has this really interesting, ominous vibe going to it. But Auster doesn't seem all that committed to really diving into it, and by the end of the book i...more
Jan 13, 2012
Shovelmonkey1
rated it
4 of 5 stars
·
review of another edition
Recommends it for:
Auster mind-meld fans
Recommended to Shovelmonkey1 by:
Auster, via all his previous work
Shelves:
bookcrossing-books,
read-in-2011
Every time I start a Paul Auster book I get twenty pages into it and think,
"That's it. He's finally over stepped the mark. He's jumped from the edge of the clever cliff and into the precipice of w*nky too smart and arty for his own good literature". And then, I am always proved wrong. Sorry Paul I judge you too harshly!*
Another excellent book with the trademark Austerisms. Convoluted, random, perhaps even a little too common place at times, writhing like a bag of snakes the twists and turns had...more
"That's it. He's finally over stepped the mark. He's jumped from the edge of the clever cliff and into the precipice of w*nky too smart and arty for his own good literature". And then, I am always proved wrong. Sorry Paul I judge you too harshly!*
Another excellent book with the trademark Austerisms. Convoluted, random, perhaps even a little too common place at times, writhing like a bag of snakes the twists and turns had...more
15 likes · like · see review
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I don't know what to say about this book. I liked. If you look at how much I liked it w/r/t how low my hopes were before starting it, I guess you could say I really liked it. But all things being equal, I mainly liked it.
I think if I'd read this in college I would have wanted to write a paper about it. Although, maybe not because I feel like the book is in despearate need of critical exploration, maybe just because it seems like the kind of book that a college student could fairly easily write a...more
I think if I'd read this in college I would have wanted to write a paper about it. Although, maybe not because I feel like the book is in despearate need of critical exploration, maybe just because it seems like the kind of book that a college student could fairly easily write a...more
هذه اول رواية اقرأها لبول أوستر، احد اشهر كتاب امريكا المعاصرين، ولن تكون الاخيرة ان شاء الله...
شيقة جدا وذات حبكة قوية.. متداخله الأمكنة والازمنة...
تدور عن كاتب روائي يدعى "سندي أور" يشرع في كتابة رواية جديدة بعد تماثله للشفاء، مستخدما دفتر أزرق برتغالي الصنع، سيكون له فيما بعد سحرا ابداعياً على بطله
وينقلنا أوستر بين روايته هذه وبين نص الرواية التي يكتبها بطله "سندي" وبطلها الاخر "نيك بوين" وهو محررا في دار نشر في نيويورك
معاناة الكاتب ومخاض الابداع الروائي هما جوهر الرواية،
الأحساس بالزمن، الح...more
شيقة جدا وذات حبكة قوية.. متداخله الأمكنة والازمنة...
تدور عن كاتب روائي يدعى "سندي أور" يشرع في كتابة رواية جديدة بعد تماثله للشفاء، مستخدما دفتر أزرق برتغالي الصنع، سيكون له فيما بعد سحرا ابداعياً على بطله
وينقلنا أوستر بين روايته هذه وبين نص الرواية التي يكتبها بطله "سندي" وبطلها الاخر "نيك بوين" وهو محررا في دار نشر في نيويورك
معاناة الكاتب ومخاض الابداع الروائي هما جوهر الرواية،
الأحساس بالزمن، الح...more
I'm not exactly sure how to tackle my feelings on this book. Like a lot of American novels it sort of reads itself--the prose is quick and paced to have you turning the page. And Auster's endless vault of ideas helps to keep the pages moving as well, but there was something missing in this one I felt. Before this the only things I've read by him were The New York Trilogy (which is great) and the utterly fantastic introduction he wrote to Knut Hamsun's Hunger, but both of these seem to have a vis...more
2 likes · like · see review
رواية معاصرة بمعنى الكلمة (كتبها مؤلفها بول أوستر عام 2004). مع بداية الرواية لم أتوقع أن تكون الأحداث مشوقة إلى هذه الدرجة، تمزج بين رهافة الأحاسيس ورهبة التوقع وألغاز الحياة المعاصرة والتواصل مع خواطر الزمن. مع الاستمرار في صفحات الرواية كان الروائي يقدّم ما يكمّل الصورة في ذهني لأتوقع ما سيحدث أيضاً. الشخصيات الكثيرة ولكن المركَّزة على مدار سرد الوقائع أسهمت في شدّ عملية القراءة إلى الأمام، وقدّمت لي صوراً غير مألوفة عن مدينة نيويورك وطبيعة الحياة فيها وعلاقات الأشخاص معنوياً ومادياً. أستطيع...more
Aug 02, 2007
rebekah
rated it
5 of 5 stars
·
review of another edition
Recommends it for:
novel lovers
I was given this book, and assured that I would like it. And I did! This is the first time I have read an Auster novel and I found it to be a lovely piece of work, I started it and stopped for a moment to breathe, since I have no other books to read, I tried to savour it but alas! I couldn't I just had to read it in one sitting. Such is the the curse of the fast reader. I enjoyed it from start to finish and liked visiting a Brooklyn neighborhood I spent a lot of time in(my sister lived in in Car...more
1 like · like · see review
Marx once said "History repeats itself, first as tragedy, second as farce." Sidney Orr (narrator) and the author's alter ego John Trause, through the progression of this recursive and elliptical story gradually come to learn that their words have consequences. That they may unleash a blizzard of coincidences or an avalanche of catastrophe. Words create tragedy, both through hopes and fears. Life will not conform to the dictates of drama or fiction. When Bowen is locked in the basement vault of t...more
This is a book for/about writers.
At times, Auster's narrative voice is a bit muted and sparse for me, someone who likes Tom Robbins, but I did enjoy the way it skirts around magical occurrences without delving into the realm of the unbelievable. At times the plot devices are inventive, and illustrative of larger themes, other times it felt like Auster painted a character into a corner, and then just gave up.
I enjoyed the theme of altering (or trying to) the trajectory of your life based on a r...more
At times, Auster's narrative voice is a bit muted and sparse for me, someone who likes Tom Robbins, but I did enjoy the way it skirts around magical occurrences without delving into the realm of the unbelievable. At times the plot devices are inventive, and illustrative of larger themes, other times it felt like Auster painted a character into a corner, and then just gave up.
I enjoyed the theme of altering (or trying to) the trajectory of your life based on a r...more
Remember;what u think about expands….Wayne W.Dyer
فراموش نکنید به هر چه فکر کنید بزرگ می شود....وین دایر
بیشتر عادت به نت خونی دارم و کمتر پام به کتاب فروشی باز میشه . تولد برادرم
بود برای آدمای کتابخون چی بهتر از کتاب این شد که به قصد خرید مجموعه "کمدی
الهی" دانته وارد کتاب فروشی شدم . بعد از پیگیری کتاب و آگاهی از قیمتش از
خریدش منصرف شدم-شایستگی و عشق برادرم قابل قیمت گذاری نیست ولی... خوب
چه میشه کرد!!!! نگاهی به چند کتاب انداختم و از بین موارد توصیه شده توسط فروشنده
چند کتاب رو انتخاب کردم – "شب...more
New York, un écrivain, un carnet — un bleu et pas un rouge —, le hasard, une pointe de mystère et une mise en abîme, on est bien chez Paul Auster. Installez-vous confortablement et profitez de ce bon moment.
Tout le monde connaît l'histoire du gars qui sort acheter des cigarettes et qui ne revient jamais. Eh bien c'est un peu cette histoire, mais en plus subtil. Sidney Orr, le personnage écrivain de Paul Auster, va se lancer dans l'écriture d'un roman dont l'idée lui a été soufflée par son ami et...more
Tout le monde connaît l'histoire du gars qui sort acheter des cigarettes et qui ne revient jamais. Eh bien c'est un peu cette histoire, mais en plus subtil. Sidney Orr, le personnage écrivain de Paul Auster, va se lancer dans l'écriture d'un roman dont l'idée lui a été soufflée par son ami et...more
The novel plays on multiple nested levels: On top, Sidney Orr, a writer, telling two weeks of his life in 1982. He has had an accident and is currently on the road to recovery. After buying a notebook he takes up his literary activities again. He writes his story almost in a trance. It is about Nick Bowen, an editor who wants to start his life anew. A motif that Sid has stolen from the "Maltese Falcon". Nick, in the story, proofreads a book titled "Oracle Night". A book of the long-dead author S...more
A reasonably charming little novel by this New York author who's always been heavy on synchronicity, this volume not being an exception. On the downside, the book, at under 200 pages, takes a very long time to get going and then, at the end of it, I was still wondering whether it was all worth it.
Auster, though, is able to lucidly tell what could have been a quagmire of a story: The book is about a writer recovering from a major physical breakdown, who starts to write a story about a man who br...more
Auster, though, is able to lucidly tell what could have been a quagmire of a story: The book is about a writer recovering from a major physical breakdown, who starts to write a story about a man who br...more
Mar 08, 2012
Kyle
rated it
3 of 5 stars
·
review of another edition
Shelves:
adultery,
books-on-books,
death,
drugs,
eighties,
fiction,
literary-fiction,
meta,
marital-infidelity,
new-york,
prostitutes-pimps-madams,
subways
2003. This book started out amazing. It breathes New York City. It has a main character, a writer, named Sidney Orr, age 34, whom I really like. It tells Sidney's story over a few days in 1982, when his life is particularly crazy. It also tells several stories he's writing, one of which I found extremely compelling and wanted to get back to, but he never finishes that part. The story reaches a dead end. Some of the other stories were told such a way that it was like a writer was telling you abou...more
Sep 15, 2011
Elsje
rated it
4 of 5 stars
·
review of another edition
Shelves:
read-2004,
maandboek-boekgrrls
Ik las Paul Auster - Orakelnacht. In mijn biebje hadden ze niet de originele versie, dus ik las 'm in het Nederlands.
Wat een mooi boekje (206 pagina's, vrij wijd gedrukt)! Men zegt wel eens: wie schrijft die blijft. En dat is voor mij een beetje het thema van dit boek.
Het verhaal
De hoofdpersoon Sidney, een schrijver die herstelt van een ernstige ziekte, probeert zijn leven weer een beetje op orde te krijgen. Hoe doet hij dat: door te schrijven. Hij koopt een mooi schrift en op het moment dat hij...more
Wat een mooi boekje (206 pagina's, vrij wijd gedrukt)! Men zegt wel eens: wie schrijft die blijft. En dat is voor mij een beetje het thema van dit boek.
Het verhaal
De hoofdpersoon Sidney, een schrijver die herstelt van een ernstige ziekte, probeert zijn leven weer een beetje op orde te krijgen. Hoe doet hij dat: door te schrijven. Hij koopt een mooi schrift en op het moment dat hij...more
I'm an unabashed paul auster junkie, and I keep working my way through his full catalog, regardless of my opinions of whichever Auster I'm working on at the moment. Lately (i.e. the last few I've read) I've been reading Auster novels and thinking "Ok, this is NOT the one to start a new reader on." And Oracle Night is one of those. I don't think it would be necessarily the WRONG Auster to start on, but I'd recommend starting with one of his others first, unless this is the only one you can find....more
I like stories about writers doing writerly things because even though I know the writer is a character, you get to see the author writing the character who's a writer and is writing, and so gain an insight into that particular author's writing process. You know what I mean. "Oracle Night" is about a writer just like "City of Glass" is about a writer and like that book, "Oracle Night" is a pretty darn good yarn.
The story switches from the story of the main character as he recovers from his near...more
The story switches from the story of the main character as he recovers from his near...more
After a protracted, mysterious illness, fiction/screenwriter Sidney Orr buys a blue Portugese notebook and returns to writing (writes himself a life??), starting w/ a paratext loosely following on a story-w/in-a-story told in Hammet's "Maltese Falcon." Strange events ensue, making Sidney and the reader question future and past, premonition, love, trust, disappearance, and morality.
I personally LOVE Auster's methods, and I never tire of his puzzles. This is the kind of book that frustrates and ex...more
I personally LOVE Auster's methods, and I never tire of his puzzles. This is the kind of book that frustrates and ex...more
Probably not that many Auster readers start 2004's Oracle Night the second after finishing 1987's In the Country of Last Things, so don't notice that Boris Stepanovich, a significant secondary character in the latter, has a brief role as a cab driver in the former.
More noteworthy, and scary, is that Jacob, the late-adolescent gone wrong (not just a little wrong, either) mirrors the character of Mark in Auster's wife Siri Hustvedt's What I Loved - I hope this didn't really happen to them.
Suggesti...more
More noteworthy, and scary, is that Jacob, the late-adolescent gone wrong (not just a little wrong, either) mirrors the character of Mark in Auster's wife Siri Hustvedt's What I Loved - I hope this didn't really happen to them.
Suggesti...more
And here I am back with Paul Auster and my ongoing love/hate relationship with him. What keeps drawing me back to him is his treatment of writers and the craft of writing in his stories, and I feel, through reading Auster, that I'm gaining some new insight through his characters. There have been a few sour grapes in our literary relationship, but there's this overwhelming "What is he up to now?" feeling that brings me back.
So here we have Sidney Orr, just released from the hospital after recover...more
So here we have Sidney Orr, just released from the hospital after recover...more
2 likes · like · see review
A story within a story within a story, with intersecting characters. Fiction is interspersed with facts. It would have been confusing, but Paul Auster’s narrative ensured otherwise. Probably it was because of the many footnotes that explain certain events and characters...It was actually all good until the end. The story and the sub-stories have a lot of peaks, but why does it feel like I’m in a valley after I’ve finished the book? Is it the same case as the sub-stories in the book – for one man...more
As I read this book, I thought about writing a review. Through much of the book, I was in my usual "half star" mode...thinking it was 4.5 stars...not QUITE a five star but still a great read. Auster lost me (and the half star) towards the end...the final parts just felt dashed together, like he needed to solve the problem of ending the book and was just looking for a way out. In context, that has a bit of interest in itself, but it still let me down.
However, ending aside, I did very much enjoy t...more
However, ending aside, I did very much enjoy t...more
Having read Sunset Park with great pleasure, I was disappointed but not entirely surprised by the strangely twee quality of Oracle Night. Sunset Park was moving partly because of its restraint and the cohesion of its various narratives, but when enough people say “it’s different from any of his books before” you start to suspect that what came before relied less on the strengths of description and character and more on plot devices…or, if it’s 2013, you think that maybe prior works would involve...more
In a word, "bizarre"; better yet, call it Paul Auster's "bizarre bazaar" or collection of writing oft on the fringe.
No doubt about it, however, Paul Auster is one of America's greatest and most enduring authors, if not a bit of sphinx in his own right.
I am sooooo fortunate to have been introduced to Mr. Auster's works this year. He easily tops my list as best writer of the year; especially with "Invisible" coming out when it did.
This one curls around itself much like the movie, "The Player". The...more
No doubt about it, however, Paul Auster is one of America's greatest and most enduring authors, if not a bit of sphinx in his own right.
I am sooooo fortunate to have been introduced to Mr. Auster's works this year. He easily tops my list as best writer of the year; especially with "Invisible" coming out when it did.
This one curls around itself much like the movie, "The Player". The...more
No me sorprende lo deliciosa que se vuelve la lectura cuando se trata de Paul Auster, en cada una de las obras que he leído de él me ha atrapado de una manera tan inexplicable que sin duda es uno de mis autores favoritos.
La noche del oráculo en particular me sorprendió por la manera en la que se desarrolla, las historias dentro de la trama principal son increíbles y ese final que esperas y no llega me emociona mas.
Es un libro rápido pero cada palabra contiene un sin fin de significados que no lo...more
La noche del oráculo en particular me sorprendió por la manera en la que se desarrolla, las historias dentro de la trama principal son increíbles y ese final que esperas y no llega me emociona mas.
Es un libro rápido pero cada palabra contiene un sin fin de significados que no lo...more
Auster's favourite theme is randomness, chance. And we see it again in this novel, which is a story within a story within a story, told in Auster's favourite narrative style. Given that there is so much ground to cover in this short book, I'm not sure there is any other way but to "tell" this story. However, only the main story line heads towards any type of conclusion in this book, while the others stall midway, again, demonstrating randomness, perhaps?
I like this book because it deals with the...more
I like this book because it deals with the...more
Paul Auster is a master of creating characters, and here he has created some of his best. If he has a weakness, though, it is that his plots don't always give his characters enough to do. Like most, if not all, literary writers, Auster never gives us a plot just for the sake of giving us a plot. His goal for this novel, I believe, is nothing less than to tell us the story of Paul Auster as a writer. I think he's pouring out his soul here- this is why he writes, how it hurts, how he leaves it and
...more
Esta es una lectura deliciosa: un escritor que se encuentra bloqueado porque acaba de salir de un encuentro cercano con la muerte, está dando un paseo por Nueva York y encuentra una tienda misteriosa donde compra un cuaderno azul que le fascina. Una vez en casa, abre el cuaderno y se da cuenta de que en ese cuaderno sí puede volver a escribir así que comienza una novella. En su novela, el héroe decide cambiar de vida de la noche a la mañana. Lo deja todo y se compra en el aeropuerto un pasaje en...more
I'm not sure what to think about this book. I can't say I didn't like it at all, but I was far from being thrilled.
I found it hard to get into it, for the first 50 pages or so (that is to say, one quarter of the novel...). One thing that really got on my nerves fairly quickly were the footnotes, some of which spanned over 4 or 5 pages. They felt like artificial inserts, like information that wasn't so necessary to the narrative itself (and that didn't add much to the characters, on top of it), a...more
I found it hard to get into it, for the first 50 pages or so (that is to say, one quarter of the novel...). One thing that really got on my nerves fairly quickly were the footnotes, some of which spanned over 4 or 5 pages. They felt like artificial inserts, like information that wasn't so necessary to the narrative itself (and that didn't add much to the characters, on top of it), a...more
| topics | posts | views | last activity | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| The Rory Gilmore ...: Oracle Night by Paul Auster | 15 | 75 | Jan 31, 2012 08:02am |
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.
http://us.macmillan.com/author/paulau...
More about Paul Auster...
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“It always stimulates me to discover new examples of my own prejudice and stupidity, to realize that I don't know half as much as I think I do.”
—
49 people liked it
“Thoughts are real', he said. 'Words are real. Everything human is real, and sometimes we know things before they happen, even if we aren't aware of it. We live in the present, but the future is inside us at every moment. Maybe that's what writing is all about, Sid. Not recording events from the past, but making things happen in the future'.”
—
5 people liked it
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