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The Invention of Solitude

3.84 of 5 stars 3.84 · rating details · 2,753 ratings · 138 reviews

"One day there is life . . . and then, suddenly, it happens there is death". So begins THE INVENTION OF SOLITUDE, Paul Auster's moving and personal meditation on fatherhood. After the death of his own father, Auster discovers a 60-year-old family murder mystery that could account for the old man's elusive character. Later the book shifts from Auster's identity as son to hi...more

Paperback, 192 pages

Published January 30th 2007 by Penguin Books (first published 1982)

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Jul 04, 2012 Venus added it · review of another edition

Shelves: literature

بود. دیگر هرگز نخواهد بود. به خاطر بسپار...!
************************
... يك روز، زندگی هست.مردی مثلن،در سلامت كامل،نه حتي پير:بی هيچ سابقه يی از بيماری.همه چيز همان طور است كه بود،همان طور كه خواهد بود.هر روزش را مي گذراند،سرش به كار خودش است و رويايش منحصر به همان زندگی است كه پيش رو دارد و بعد ناگهان مرگ از راه می رسد...!

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Aug 18, 2012 hirtho rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: auster, best-of-my-2008-reading

Book II: The Book of Memory (from The Invention of Solitude*) Paul Auster paperback

Whenever I bought this, apparently I only read the first half about his father's passing, and assumed the second half was about him having a son, which it kinda is, but amongst lots of other things. But for whatever reason I didn't ever start that part so this is like unearthing a new lost Auster book (I have yet to read Brooklyn Follies or Travels in the Scriptorium, but from my understanding they are in Timbuktu...more

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Jan 16, 2008 Five rated it 5 of 5 stars Recommends it for: artfags

Shelves: favorites

At first, "The Invention of Solitude" had me thinking, “oh god…this is the ultimate ‘My (Famous) Upper-Middle/Ruling Class Parent/s Was Cold/Uber-Religious/Absent/Drunk Which Is Why I Chose to Live off My Inheritance in [Insert European City Name Here] While I Write this Amazing Memoir’ memoir.” Luckily, that (ahem) banal plot quickly morphs into a critical ancillary function supporting the memoir’s exploration of memory and its effect on knowing, story-telling and understanding.

"The Invention"...more At first, "The Invention of Solitude" had me thinking, “oh god…this is the ultimate ‘My (Famous) Upper-Middle/Ruling Class Parent/s Was Cold/Uber-Religious/Absent/Drunk Which Is Why I Chose to Live off My Inheritance in [Insert European City Name Here] While I Write this Amazing Memoir’ memoir.” Luckily, that (ahem) banal plot quickly morphs into a critical ancillary function supporting the memoir’s exploration of memory and its effect on knowing, story-telling and understanding.

"The Invention" treats memory as a constituent of our realties: landscapes, homes, cities, architecture, people, lives, culture, etc. For Auster, they are all partially a product of memory while they mirror the process of remembering: “It occurred to him that perhaps he was wandering in the circles of hell, that the city had been designed as a model of the underworld, based on some classical representation of the place. Then he remembered that various diagrams of hell had been used as memory systems by some of the sixteenth century writers on the subject” (84). Memory manifests itself everywhere, significantly.

This memoir attempts to examine the multiple dimensions of these entities while also exposing the processes and connections that occur in an act of recollection. In the attempt to do so, "The Invention" exhibits an almost stream-of-consciousness urgency in which the author, or narrator, tries to capture and document every connection and influence that seems relevant to an understanding. Therefore, the purposeful and recurring intertextuality in "The Invention" serves as a sustained/repetitious reminder of the deluge of coercion the human subconscious undergoes constantly. “It is not that it begins with the story. Rather, in the act of remembering it, he has become aware that something is happening to him. For the story would not have occurred to him unless whatever summoned its memory had not already been making itself felt. Unknown to himself, he had been burrowing down to a place of almost vanished memory, and now that something had surfaced, he could not even guess how long the excavation had taken” (77-78). In the narrator’s “long moment of inwardness,” his desperation to find and document all his triggers to recollection, he isolates himself. Subsequently, many parallels emerge with the story of his solitary father and grandfather, blurring the lines of memory and raising further questions about cultural and "familial" memory.

As a way of exploring the nature of recollection, the memoir interrogates the possession of truth: “The funeral director kept telling me how he had known my father “in the old days,” implying an intimacy and friendship I was sure had never existed. As I gave him the information to be passed on to the newspapers for the obituary, he anticipated my remarks with incorrect facts, rushing ahead of me in order to prove how well acquainted he had been with my father. Each time this happened, I stopped and corrected him” (66). At first, the narrator refuses to accept his father as a multi-faceted individual. He acts as sole proprietor of truth. If anything, I think "The Invention of Solitude" is successful in proving that there is no such thing.

Ultimately, this is a coming-of-age story and a dealing-with-loss story (in the true memoir sense), but it incorporates a meaningful exploration of what it means to live with and among memories. (less)

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Aug 17, 2012 Robin Edman rated it 4 of 5 stars

Parenting is a noble undertaking only when you do it nobly. Mr. Auster's father only accidentally contributed to making him the remarkable man that the author is. Shame on him.

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Aug 06, 2011 Matthew added it

This is Auster's first non-fiction work, and when I first opened it, I was curious to see how it would differ from his very distinct voice in fiction. The answer, not a lot. In fact if I were told that this was yet another of his early short novels, I could easily believe it. Auster is often a character in his own fiction, protagonists share his name, his vocation, his hometown and his circumstances. Reviewers often note seemingly important correspondences between the names of wives and children...more This is Auster's first non-fiction work, and when I first opened it, I was curious to see how it would differ from his very distinct voice in fiction. The answer, not a lot. In fact if I were told that this was yet another of his early short novels, I could easily believe it. Auster is often a character in his own fiction, protagonists share his name, his vocation, his hometown and his circumstances. Reviewers often note seemingly important correspondences between the names of wives and children in his novels and matchups to Auster's own life. For example, his first wife is named Sophie, his second Siri and he has a young son named Daniel, all names that frequently appear in his work.

In the first part of his debut work, Portrait of an Invisible Man, Auster tells the story of a writer, named Paul Auster, coming home to deal with the aftermath of his estranged father's death, who is also named Auster, a man barely present to his son throughout his life. "Invisible to others, and most likely invisible to himself as well". Paul Auster embarks on a reconstruction of his father's life from artifacts left behind after his sudden but quiet death, and in the process discovers a shocking family secret that may change his understanding of everything. The second part is called The Book of Memory and concerns many of the themes found in Auster's later works: the order of events, coincidence, the act of writing, absurdism and chance. It precedes The New York Trilogy by five years, but in the opening paragraphs one can already detect the latent forms that will fully emerge later, particularly in The Locked Room.

I found both of these works extremely moving and compelling. I also found myself musing on the difference between "the real Paul Auster" and the Paul Austers (or Peter Aarons, or A.'s, etc.) that appear in the pages of his novels. Is there a "real" Paul Auster? Do I know that one any better than the fictional ones? Does it make any difference? One thing I know for certain is that the more I read of Paul Auster, the more I realize that one can never truly be finished reading Auster. As soon as I complete one work and put it down, I want to pick it up again and continue the process.(less)

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Jan 25, 2011 Josephine rated it 2 of 5 stars

Paul Auster’s book was mentioned in something else I was reading; I liked the title, so I made a note of it in my day planner to put on hold at the library. (The older I get, the more I realize that there’s no point in assuring yourself that you’ll remember something; chances are, you won’t. It’s better to make a note of it before it fades completely from your mind.)

The first part, Portrait of an Invisible Man was fascinating; the second part, The Book of Memory, not so much.

You know what the fi...more

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May 12, 2013 Stephen rated it 3 of 5 stars

I have always like Paul Auster's novels and thought I would give his autobiographical meditation on memory, "The Invention of Solitude," a try. My interest was also attracted to this work because the first section concerns his relationship with his father, a topic that always intrigues me (I had a powerful and unforgettable father that shaped my life in ways I probably still don't entirely understand). In the end, I found this book rewarding. Auster's portrayal of a father who was largely a pose...more

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Dec 29, 2012 D'face rated it 3 of 5 stars

I had not heard of this author before picking up this book, but loved the title. The first part covers the death of his father, tidying up his estate and finding out aspects of his father's life that had been closed to him. He had thought his father was evasive and empty but finds that there were many aspects of his life that were not known to him.

The second part is less straight forward. Following the break-down of his marriage the author reflects on his life, his relationship with his son and...more

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Mar 29, 2013 Iván Leija rated it 1 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Comenzó y dije: ok, un comentario sobre la soledad; vamos a ver qué tal. Luego pasó a ser el conjunto de recuerdos del narrador sobre su distanciado, difunto padre, y aquí ya no entendí si mantenían una buena relación o no, pues aquél conocía muchos detalles de su papá que no imagino de dónde pudo haber conseguido (según el narrador, su padre no expresaba sus sentimientos). Un poco después de la mitad de la primera sección, la narración tomó un giro que para mí fue ridículo, y que terminó por es...more

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Jan 10, 2012 Karl Ruben rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: reviewed

After recently reading W.G. Sebald's The Emigrants, the presence of a sole reproduced old black and white family photograph at the start of The Invention of Solitude creates an expectation in me, which inevitably leads to disappointment later on, when it turns out that that one photo, one of several explicitly referenced in the text, is the only illustration Auster has to offer me. The disappointment is irrational, I realise, but I reserve the right to nurture it anyway. Wading my way through Au...more

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Apr 08, 2010 Carys rated it 3 of 5 stars

The first section of Paul Auster’s 'The Invention of Solitude' is a moving meditation on fatherhood. 'Portrait of an Invisible Man' gives expression to Auster’s feelings following the death of his father. Auster’s memories of his father are fragmentary. Auster writes to save his elusive father’s life from vanishing with him. The account is a brief scrap-book like collection of miniature essays, incomplete thoughts and even lists of unconnected memories. There is a strong emphasis throughout both...more

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Jul 30, 2012 Georgia Choate rated it 5 of 5 stars

The Invention of Solitude is the biography of Paul Auster's father Sam Auster who died when Paul Auster's own son was very young. Auster never fully bonded with his father. His loss was that much more heartbreaking because his mourning was filtered through the nurturing bond Auster was developing with his own son.

More than any other author I've read, the voice of Paul Auster intices me to write. He balances his concrete and abstract images perfectly. Just when he's quoted Proust in a way I don't...more

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Jan 02, 2011 Marijke Plante rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition

The first book by Paul Auster I read. The invention of solitude consists of two separate parts. Written from a very different view they both handle the relation between a father and a son.
The first book, Portrait of an invisible man, is a very beautiful description of Austers father. His father comes to live in this book. It really is a beautiful portrait of a lonely man.
Part two, the book of memories, is a lot more about thoughts and ideas than about events. Auster reflects on other father/so...more

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Jan 21, 2013 Bill rated it 3 of 5 stars

Very different book than I have been reading lately, in many ways it was a nice change. It's an older book, published about 30 years ago, and in many ways it shows in the style of his writing.

The book itself is almost two books, the first is an autobiographical account of the author finding out that his father died and reminiscing on what he knew about his father in an attempt to understand the man. Plot wise this portion of the book was very interesting, he finds a myself around his father's fa...more

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May 14, 2008 Victoria rated it 3 of 5 stars

the first half, which is all i've read thus far, is a memoir recounting the death of the author's father. he describes the moment he learned of his father's death, the process of cleaning his father's house, the dry cleaning bills, the worn-out suits, the myriad objects that were left by his father, objects like arrows pointing to his father's identity, which ultimately reveal nothing about the man he feels he never knew. eh. it's good, so far.

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Oct 25, 2009 Peter Choi rated it 2 of 5 stars

In "Portrait of an Invisible Man," you can see the process of emotional reconciliation happening directly on the page. You see the wheels turning in Auster's mind as he tries to remember his distant, enigmatic father and then deal with the loss of never being able to fully understand him. It is the plain, moving nature of his confession that wins you over.

In "The Book of Memory," however, something happens to his voice. Like his father, he himself becomes emotionally distant, referring to himsel...more

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Mar 18, 2013 M. Sarki rated it 4 of 5 stars

Granted, the first section dealing with the death of his father was nothing short of amazing. I loved it as have most who have read it and felt it necessary to say something about their personal experience. And yes, the second section, The Book of Memory did focus on his son Daniel and I think he used Daniel as a conduit in which to enable his own act of recollection. The second section dealt with his marriage and divorce from his first wife, his time living in France, the mirrors and rhymes of...more Granted, the first section dealing with the death of his father was nothing short of amazing. I loved it as have most who have read it and felt it necessary to say something about their personal experience. And yes, the second section, The Book of Memory did focus on his son Daniel and I think he used Daniel as a conduit in which to enable his own act of recollection. The second section dealt with his marriage and divorce from his first wife, his time living in France, the mirrors and rhymes of his life that seemed to be reflected more often than not. The section bogged down on me early but only because I believed Auster might resort to a pitiful voice I have heard in some of his later works, that being too much involved in the sentimental and his even acting silly about it at times. But that wasn't the case at all. It was philosophically moving, it was based on memory and recollection, it was a vehicle in which he could try his hand at writing something besides poems and translations. Auster was learning for himself on the page what it meant to be a writer. He was saving himself. He was looking for the uncanny in his life, the unheimliche, and he quoted Freud and others in the process of his demonstrating to us his seriousness in getting to the bottom of this writing craft.

From Wikipedia: The uncanny (Ger. Das Unheimliche - "the opposite of what is familiar") is a Freudian concept of an instance where something can be familiar, yet foreign at the same time, resulting in a feeling of it being uncomfortably strange or uncomfortably familiar. Because the uncanny is familiar, yet strange, it often creates cognitive dissonance within the experiencing subject due to the paradoxical nature of being attracted to, yet repulsed by an object at the same time. This cognitive dissonance often leads to an outright rejection of the object, as one would rather reject than rationalize.

I was wrong about my thinking the second section of this book was of measure less than the first. It was a very good memoir, an important attempt for Auster in which to begin his long, literary accomplishment. We should all wish to be so lucky. (less)

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Feb 23, 2013 Stacey rated it 4 of 5 stars

I'm wavering between 3 and 5 stars, so picked 4. The first part, titled "Portrait of an Invisible Man" is fabulous. It's the first 69 pages where Auster, as he cleans out his recently deceased father's hosue, thinks about his father, investigates his past, recognizes, at least, that their relationship was stronger than he always thought---that he is much like his father in many ways. Nothing new there in a memoir by a son about a father, but this one is so beautifully written that I was all set...more

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May 12, 2013 Isidora rated it 4 of 5 stars

Διάβασα το βιβλίο αυτό το 2001. Δεν είναι από τα βιβλία που μου "άλλαξαν τη ζωή", αλλά μια ιδέα την έχω κρατήσει αναλλοίωτη στη μνήμη μου:
"Κάθε βιβλίο είναι μια εικόνα μοναξιάς. Είναι ένα απτό αντικείμενο, το οποίο μπορεί να το πάρει κανείς στα χέρια του, να το αφήσει, να το ανοίξει και να το κλείσει και οι λέξεις του αντιπροσωπεύουν πολλούς μήνες, αν όχι χρόνια, από τη μοναξιά ενός ανθρώπου. Έτσι με κάθε λέξη που διαβάζει κάποιος σε ένα βιβλίο μπορεί να πει στον εαυτό του πως έρχεται πρόσωπο με...more

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Mar 11, 2013 Ariel rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

The first section, Portrait of an Invisible Man, about the death of Auster's father, is absolutely amazing. There's not a single paragraph that I didn't find interesting. Auster manages to present several aspects of a single person, all of them wildly different from each other, and making them all seem very real. This reminds me of Borges' essay on Beckford's Vathek, which opens with this:

"Wilde attributes this joke to Carlyle: a biography of Michelangelo that would make no mention of the works...more

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May 29, 2012 Bennievermeer added it

"Sometimes it feels as though we are wandering through a city without purpose. We walk down the street, turn at random down another street, stop to admire the cornice of a building, bend down to inspect a splotch of tar on the pavement that reminds us of certain paintings we have admired, look at the faces of the people who pass us in the street, trying to imagine the lives they carry around inside them, go into a cheap restaurant for lunch, walk back outside and continue on our way towards the...more

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Aug 25, 2012 Andreas rated it 3 of 5 stars

The Invention of Solitude by Paul Auster deals with the sudden death of his fathers, or of a loved one in general.
While the first part tries, and in some parts succeeds, to capture the essence of the man who was Paul Austers father, by telling a couple of anecdotes and the way the author dealt with his death, the second part fails on that end.

The second part seems to me like a pseudo-intellectual essay collection, expanding on poems or plays or novels the author read and giving his thoughts in a...more

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Jul 27, 2011 Andrew Smith rated it 2 of 5 stars · review of another edition

A game of two halves: first half excellent; second half poor.
The first part, Portrait of an Invisible Man, is written shortly after the death of his father and is the author’s account of his recollections of the man and his rather distant relationship with him. Sometimes sad but also amusing in parts, I found this part of the book interesting, enlightening and (as always with Auster) superbly written.
The second part, The Book of Memory, is supposed to be a reflection of the author as a father to...more

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Jul 28, 2011 Suncan Stone added it · review of another edition

I am not the greatest Auster fan, and I think that after this book I will stay put. The book has two stories. The first is the Portrait of an invisible man, and this one I quite liked. It is a hommage to his father, written after his father died. And it has got something personal in it, something that reveals the human in the writer and shows his attitude towards life and the passing of it. The second story The book of memory was not that much to my taste. It was like a collage of various bits a...more

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Aug 12, 2012 Adam rated it 2 of 5 stars

Shelves: 1970-present, non-fiction, prose

The worst thing I've read by Auster. The second half is much better than the first, but the entire thing is really flawed, and makes for an awkward reading experience because it is so personal. The first half of the book felt, to me, like being told a story by someone who is really invested in that story and thinks it's an important story, but not caring about that story at all, and thus feeling both like the person telling the story really should be sparing you this telling and also feeling bad...more

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Jun 05, 2010 Heather rated it 2 of 5 stars · review of another edition

The first part of this book is so grueling to read, so bad and full of woe-is-me, go-nowhere rantings, that I nearly didn't finish. I found myself often wanting to say: grow up already, get over it. This, mind, is coming from someone who also tends to write with a "confessional" bent. I guess there is an artful way to go about addressing and rewitnessing one's old demons, and Auster's method, in no way, spoke to me.

Part two of the book, book of memories, took a more experimental approach, which...more

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Sep 26, 2012 Teresa rated it 3 of 5 stars

Shelves: book-club

I've heard Auster talk about his work, and the way he likes to put ideas next to each other, allowing their proximity to reflect on and enrich each other. It's such a lovely thought! And it manifests at all levels of this book: from individual stories laid next to one another (Jonah and Pinocchio), to roles and relationships (fatherhood in particular) contrasted across generations, all the way up to the two halves of the book, which are so different they really could be read independently, but d...more

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Jul 31, 2011 Andrew added it

Shelves: memoir, paul-auster

Only Paul Auster could write a memoir about his father and unfold it into a crime story involving the nature of knowledge.

That said, the first part of the book, where Auster looks at his father's life, seriously overshadow the next 100. It's not that those next 100 pages are bad. They're perfectly fine, and if it was presented to me as a stand-alone novella by some no-name writer, I'd quite like it. But Auster is one of my favorite writers, and I expect more from him. Something like the first se...more

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Sep 20, 2012 Emad Rahmanian rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

to good to read

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Oct 05, 2012 Hayfa Qahtani rated it 4 of 5 stars

كلما انتهيت من كتاب لأوستر أقول لنفسي "لا يمكن أن يكون التالي أجمل" ونفس الشيء أقوله عن السير الذاتية المميزة التي أقع في فخ قراءتها. فخ جميل طبعاً.
يفتتح أوستر الكتاب باستقباله لخبر وفاة والده، وكأن ما حدث يفتح نافذة للتساؤلات حول حياته ، ومواضيع أخرى من بينها العزلة والذاكرة.
الجزء الاول يتحدث عن بورتريه والده، ذكرياته معه، حياته الشخصية التي بقيت سراً غامضاً أمام الجميع وأمام ابنه، مع أنه لم يتوقف عن المحاولة لاقتحام هذا الغموض، ومنذ طفولته.
يتحدث أيضا عن والده في محاولة جادة لأن يمسك بشيء من صو...more كلما انتهيت من كتاب لأوستر أقول لنفسي "لا يمكن أن يكون التالي أجمل" ونفس الشيء أقوله عن السير الذاتية المميزة التي أقع في فخ قراءتها. فخ جميل طبعاً.
يفتتح أوستر الكتاب باستقباله لخبر وفاة والده، وكأن ما حدث يفتح نافذة للتساؤلات حول حياته ، ومواضيع أخرى من بينها العزلة والذاكرة.
الجزء الاول يتحدث عن بورتريه والده، ذكرياته معه، حياته الشخصية التي بقيت سراً غامضاً أمام الجميع وأمام ابنه، مع أنه لم يتوقف عن المحاولة لاقتحام هذا الغموض، ومنذ طفولته.
يتحدث أيضا عن والده في محاولة جادة لأن يمسك بشيء من صورته الخفية، كي لا تنزلق وتختفي مع جسده الغائب. كما يكتشف حكاية سرية في عائلته - من جهة والده - قصة جريمة بالتحديد، ومن قصاصات الصحف، وحكايات المعارف يكتشف بأنه لا يتوهم غموض والده وأنّ ذلك حقيقة تجهلها حتى طليقته - أم بول - .
في متعلقات والده يجد رسائل المستأجرين الذين انتشروا بين مدن الشرق الامريكي، ويكتشف وراء هذا الوجود الصلب والبارد لوالده قلباً حنوناً وعادات اهتمام مثيرة للاعجاب.
أحببت الجزء الأول من الكتاب لأنه يتحدث فيه بنفسه، وما إن ينتصف ويبدأ بالحديث عن كتب الذاكرة حتى تتحول طريقة الكتابة إلى الحديث عن بول أوستر بصيغة الغائب. لا انكر أنني احتجت لبضعة صفحات حتى اعتدت الوضع الجديد ، وقفزت مقاطع كبيرة ، لكنه بشكل عام ممتاز.
هناك اقتباسات احببتها واضفتها هنا وفي حسابي بتويتر.
رحلة جميلة كانت ..(less)

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Khalid بالمناسبة يا هيفاء هل قرأتي له ثلاثيته التي صدرت عن النيويوركر؟ أنتِ من الأشخاص الذين حمسوني لأقرأ لهذا اليهودي. طلبت قبل فترة كتابه
city of glass
وأو...more
Oct 11, 2012 05:08pm

Hayfa Qahtani Khalid wrote: "بالمناسبة يا هيفاء هل قرأتي له ثلاثيته التي صدرت عن النيويوركر؟ أنتِ من الأشخاص الذين حمسوني لأقرأ لهذا اليهودي. طلبت قبل فترة كتابه
ci...more
Oct 11, 2012 11:16pm

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About Paul Auster

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

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Quotes from The Invention of Solitude

“The pen will never be able to move fast enough to write down every word discovered in the space of memory. Some things have been lost forever, other things will perhaps be remembered again, and still other things have been lost and found and lost again. There is no way to be sure of any this.” — 66 people liked it

“Every book is an image of solitude. It is a tangible object that one can pick up, put down, open, and close, and its words represent many months if not many years, of one man’s solitude, so that with each word one reads in a book one might say to himself that he is confronting a particle of that solitude” — 15 people liked it

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BBCode	[url=http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/50615.The_Invention_of_Solitude?utm_medium=api&utm_source=blog_book][img]http://d.gr-assets.com/books/1347694266l/50615.jpg[/img][/url] [url=http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/50615.The_Invention_of_Solitude?utm_medium=api&utm_source=blog_book]The Invention of Solitude by Paul Auster[/url]

The Invention of Solitude

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