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Invisible

by Paul Auster

3.65 · rating details · 3,339 ratings · 535 reviews

“One of America’s greatest novelists” dazzlingly reinvents the coming-of-age story in his most passionate and surprising book to date

Sinuously constructed in four interlocking parts, Paul Auster’s fifteenth novel opens in New York City in the spring of 1967, when twenty-year-old Adam Walker, an aspiring poet and student at Columbia University, meets the enigmatic Frenchman

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Hardcover, 309 pages

Published October 27th 2009 by Henry Holt and Co. (first published 2009)

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Dec 29, 2011

Shovelmonkey1 rated it

· review of another edition

Recommends it for: People who liked LOST and therefore don't expect an ending

Recommended to Shovelmonkey1 by: 1001 books list and all Austers previous work

Shelves: 1001-books, bookcrossing-books, read-in-2011

If you like to read a book with a nice story that makes sense and has a moral/point/definitive ending then you will not want to be friends with Paul Auster. Put the book down, that's it...gently..., now off you go and find something else to read.

If on the other hand you can't be dissuaded and carry on reading this the first thing to know is that you should probably disregard the blurb on the back - it only applies to the first 72 pages of the book. Maybe the person who wrote the blur...more

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May 07, 2010

K.D. rated it

Recommends it for: Ace

Recommended to K.D. by: 1001 Books You Must Read Before You Die (2010 edition)

Shelves: 1001-non-core

New York, 1967 to 1990. When Adam Walker was 16 years old, he and his 15-year old sister, Gwyn had a one-night experiment of doing sexual acts sans intercourse to appease their curiosity on sex. Two years after, to be exact in 1967, Adam was in a party and while standing in a corner, met Rudolf Born a French professor who led a double or triple life and his girlfriend, Margot. After only a few days, Adam began sleeping with Margot.

This is my second book by Paul Auster and, like his T...more

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Jun 19, 2011

Ehrrin marked it as to-read

read about this at NPR, and also have been meaning to read something by this author...

FROM NPR:
Invisible
By Paul Auster, paperback, 320 pages, Picador, list price: $15

For another truly unsettling book, try Invisible. The most startling love affair takes place between the protagonist, Adam Walker, and his sister. Before you say "ugh," read the book. In wry reportorial style, Auster tantalizes the reader by describing what appears to be the same set of ...more

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Aug 12, 2010

R. rated it

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"Si comme moi vous lisez pour éprouver le plaisir de tomber amoureux d'un roman, alors lisez Invisible. C'est le meilleur roman que Paul Auster ait jamais écrit.". Ces propos ne sont pas de moi mais de Clancy Martin un journaliste du New York Times. C'est après les avoir lu, au dos du numéro du magasine Lire du mois d'avril, que j'ai décidé de courir acheter ce nouvel opus de Paul Auster. Même si ça me gène profondément d'être à ce point manipulable par la publicité, je ne vais pas m'e...more"Si comme moi vous lisez pour éprouver le plaisir de tomber amoureux d'un roman, alors lisez Invisible. C'est le meilleur roman que Paul Auster ait jamais écrit.". Ces propos ne sont pas de moi mais de Clancy Martin un journaliste du New York Times. C'est après les avoir lu, au dos du numéro du magasine Lire du mois d'avril, que j'ai décidé de courir acheter ce nouvel opus de Paul Auster. Même si ça me gène profondément d'être à ce point manipulable par la publicité, je ne vais pas m'en plaindre pour cette fois car je partage largement l'avis de ce journaliste américain. Je n'ai pas lu tout Paul Auster et loin s'en faut mais parmi mes lectures, dont Léviathan, il se hisse aisément sur le podium. L'alternance entre les types de narration, les époques, les personnages est un modèle du genre. Cette maîtrise dans la narration transforme ce qui, vis à vis de l'histoire, était déjà un très bon livre en un très grand.
Mais parlons un peu du pitch. Le jeune Adam, étudiant en littérature est un personnage aux abords lisses auquel tout un chacun peut s'identifier. A commencer par Paul Auster lui même qui partage bien des points commun avec le jeune Adam : La religion juive, les études en littérature française, l'université de Columbia, l'année 1967, le refus de la guerre du Viêt Nam, Paris, la traduction de poètes français, une similitude dans les noms ou je rêve :
- Adam Walker
- Paul Auster
Dès le début du récit, le jeune Adam va faire la rencontre d'un couple. L'homme, beaucoup plus âgé, est doté d'une intelligence aiguisée et d'un charisme hors du commun. Mais Adam se rend vite compte que quelque chose ne va pas et que cet homme est troublant, mystérieux voire même dangereux. Malgré cette appréhension, il va accepter la proposition de s'associer avec lui pour la production d'un magasine consacré à la littérature.
Que puis-je dire de plus pour vous convaincre de lire ce livre ? http://www.aubonroman.com/2010/04/invisi...(less)

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Mar 25, 2011

Adam rated it

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Shelves: audiobooks-a-z

Post Lisen Review: Describing this book is really difficult. It is very well written, the prose is engaging, the events described in it are incredible yet it is certainly not for everyone. It blurs lines between facts and fiction, it shifts from different narrators and points of view and sums up one single story but at times doesn't feel completely coherent. Yet that it doesn't feel completely coherent is actually more of a strength than a weakness in this case. The book can be very sexually...more

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Jan 30, 2012

Blair rated it

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Shelves: all-time-favourites, past-and-present

This is what fiction should be, in my opinion. Absolutely dazzling, believable yet at times shocking, intellectual without being predictable or dry, compulsively readable but never inane, and above all, completely effortless.

Invisible addresses three seasons in the life of a young man, Adam Walker. In 1967, Adam - a university student and wannabe poet - meets a French professor, Rudolf Born, at a party. What follows is a strange series of events culminating in two main outcomes: the ...moreThis is what fiction should be, in my opinion. Absolutely dazzling, believable yet at times shocking, intellectual without being predictable or dry, compulsively readable but never inane, and above all, completely effortless.

Invisible addresses three seasons in the life of a young man, Adam Walker. In 1967, Adam - a university student and wannabe poet - meets a French professor, Rudolf Born, at a party. What follows is a strange series of events culminating in two main outcomes: the first is Adam's brief affair with Born's girlfriend, Margot, and the second is a random act of violence, committed by Born, which Adam is witness to. All of this takes place within the first seventy pages, with the rest of the book devoted to the effect of these events on Adam's life immediately afterwards, and their resonance in later years. All the usual themes of literary fiction are intact - memory, truth, loss, regret - but they aren't rendered in that self-consciously clever style I've grown so sick of over the past year. Predominantly, this is a story about obsession and sex: Adam is obsessed with exacting revenge on Born, as well as sexually obsessed with Margot, and later with another woman (whose identity I won't reveal here as it would give away a major - and very surprising - plot point).

The perspective shifts: Invisible begins as a first-person account told by Adam himself, and at first, I expected the whole story to be told this way - but this being Auster, I should have known better than to expect a straightforward, linear narrative. In Part II, we jump forward to 2007, when Jim Freeman, a former acquaintance who hasn't spoken to Adam in almost forty years, receives a letter from his old friend with a partial manuscript - the first chapter of a possible book, titled 'Spring', which formed the first part of the story. The second chapter, 'Summer', is also told by Adam, but being far more personal and painful for him to recount, it is related in second person, placing the reader at the centre of an intimate and somewhat disturbing tale. In Part III, with Adam's health deteriorating, Jim is compelled to assemble chapter three, 'Fall', from a series of brief notes, and finally, he seeks out some of the others involved in the story to satisfy his own curiosity about both Adam's honesty and the after-effects of the events he has described. I want to say this is where things really get interesting - as the resulting accounts cast doubt on the truth of both Adam's story and Jim's interpretation - but that would make it sound like the book isn't riveting from the very first page, and it really is.

I know Auster is an acquired taste - some of my Goodreads friends have given this book lukewarm reviews, and if you want a nice neat ending where everything's resolved and the truth is made clear, you won't find it here. But I am someone who generally likes the author's work, and this was by far the best of the Auster books I've read so far. I found it enormously compelling, beautifully written (it flows like a dream) and genuinely discomfiting. It lacks the obvious avant-garde tone of (for example) The New York Trilogy, but retains a certain sense of oddness that's enough to give it a sharp edge. Altogether wonderful.(less)

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Dec 28, 2009

Bookmarks Magazine rated it

Shelves: jan-feb-2010

Invisible contains many of the hallmarks of Auster's trade: formal literary devices and stylistic high jinks, psychological depth, elegant prose, and the manipulation of information, voices, and stories. Told against the background of 40 years of history, with shame and colonial guilt ever present, Invisible feels "warmer and more human than the stuff he's famous for" (San Francisco Chronicle) as well as less contrived and more hopeful. Indeed, notes the New York Times Book Review, it'...more

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Sep 14, 2011

Maria Pallozzi rated it

E' un racconto scritto divinamente, per questo le quattro stelline. La storia, soprattutto nella seconda parte diventa insolita e a tratti scabrosa, sono pochi che hanno il coraggio di affrontare un tema come l'incesto senza scadere nel moralismo o nel senso di colpa, questo con Invisibile non accade. Ma non è questa la storia di un incesto, e la cosa bizzarra è che la parte migliore del romanzo, ovvero questa relazione tra Adam e Gwyn poteva anche essere omessa e non sarebbe cambiato molto nel ...moreE' un racconto scritto divinamente, per questo le quattro stelline. La storia, soprattutto nella seconda parte diventa insolita e a tratti scabrosa, sono pochi che hanno il coraggio di affrontare un tema come l'incesto senza scadere nel moralismo o nel senso di colpa, questo con Invisibile non accade. Ma non è questa la storia di un incesto, e la cosa bizzarra è che la parte migliore del romanzo, ovvero questa relazione tra Adam e Gwyn poteva anche essere omessa e non sarebbe cambiato molto nel racconto. Il punto che mi lascia perplessa è proprio questo: mi pare che ci siano tanti presupposti per creare qualcosa di grandissimo, ma svaporano, non sono stati sviluppati a pieno. I personaggi hanno caratteri ben delineati e interessanti, eppure tra loro collaborano poco, le scene sono giustapposte ma non si richiamano, è come se le tre parti del romanzo (che poi è un romanzo nel romanzo, quindi il protagonista narrante non si rivela essere anche il protagonista vero e proprio) fossero totalmente distaccate, pur narrando una storia avvenuta in un solo anno, il 1967.
L'unico collante nel racconto è il rapporto di attrazione e reciproca diffidenza velata da un'amicizia altalenante tra Adam Walker, un ragazzo che sogna di diventare poeta e Rudolf de Born, un uomo misterioso che si impone un contegno che viene a mancargli al primo bicchiere di vino, un carattere tormentato che erompe in crisi di rabbia che terrorizzano chi gli sta attorno. L'espediente per far avvicinare questi due uomini è l'ideazione di una rivista letteraria, e l'interesse verso Adam dell'amante di Rudolf, l'evanescente, bizzarra Margot.
Da qui la storia prende un verso inaspettato, che alla fine, purtroppo, lascia l'amaro in bocca. E' come se non mi avessero spiegato qualcosa, mi sembra di aver perso il mio tempo (anche se è scritto benissimo, quindi non ho perso un bel niente)
Forse sono io ad averlo visto così, probabilmente il libro è perfetto anche per trama e azione, e sono io ad averci visto dei buchi, e paradossalmente sono qui a recensirlo invitandovi a leggerlo, perché nonostante la storia lo stile è interessante e variabile, ci sono colpi di genio ogni due per tre, e si aggiudica le quattro stelline.
:/ E' la mia peggior recensione credo. Perdonate anche me, ma sono davvero confusa.(less)

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Aug 09, 2010

Remi rated it

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Shelves: paul-auster

This review has been hidden because it contains spoilers. To view it, click here.

...more

Inhaltsangabe:
1967. Adam Walker ist ein Student jüdischer Abstammung mit literarischen Ambitionen (also ein Alter Ego von Paul Auster). Intellektuell, sich selbst ein wenig als Sonderling wahrnehmend, fühlt sich der Narziss in ihm geschmeichelt, als der französische Gastprofessor für Internationale Politik Rudolf Born sich seiner annimmt. Jener Born ist unberechenbar, provozierend in seinen Ansichten, aber auch äußerst charismatisch. Völlig unvermittelt möchte er der Business Angel von Adam für ein von ihm zu konzipierendes literarisches Magazin werden und finanzielle Anschubhilfe leisten. Doch ebenso unvermittelt zeigt Born, dieser Mephisto im weißen Anzug, sein anderes Gesicht. Er unterbreitet Adam nicht nur ein unmoralisches Angebot (so lässt er Adam mit dem Gedanken spielen, mit seiner Liebhaberin Margot intim zu werden, was freilich im Laufe der Geschichte auch geschieht), sondern streckt eines Nachts einen jugendlichen Kleinkriminellen mit einem Messerstich nieder, nachdem dieser versuchte, Adam und eben Born auszurauben. Dies wird ein einschneidender Moment im Leben der beiden sein, durch den sie bis zum Ende schicksalhaft miteinander verbunden sein werden. Weitere Themen die in diesem in vier Teile gegliederten Roman erörtert werden sind Inzest, Rache sowie Erinnerungen und deren Glaubwürdigkeit.

Kritik:
Diese Geschichte ist eine unglaubliche Räuberpistole (Mord, Inzest, Rache, sogar Spionage), die allein durch das suggestive und – leider – im negativen Sinne routinierte Erzählen Austers zusammengehalten wird. Auster beherrscht dabei die Klaviatur der literarischen Postmoderne geradezu wie im Lehrbuch, ein Umstand, der freilich nicht als Lob verstanden sein soll. Beispiele gefällig? So werden Perspektiven den gesamten Roman über just in dem Moment gebrochen und in Frage gestellt, dem Leser also permanent der Boden unter den Füßen weggezogen, als die Erzählung mitzureißen vermochte. Ob der literarischen Tradition verpflichtet, kommt der Roman natürlich zunächst als Autobiographie, dann als Briefroman und schließlich als Tagebuchliteratur daher. Wir finden mühseliges, professoral daherkommendes Namedropping obskurer Schriftsteller vor, also gerade keine Schätze an Zeichen des allgemeinen kulturellen Wissensbestandes. Und über allem schweben maue metafiktionale Mätzchen.
Dabei ist es sehr bedauerlich; die großen existenziellen Themen und Spuren kraftvoller Erzählung finden sich im Roman, werden aber letztlich verschenkt, wie z. B. der Inzest, der frühe Tod des kleinen Bruders oder das Erlangen der eigenen Erlösung.
Was für eine negative Poetologie liegt dem Schriftsteller Auster eigentlich in diesem Roman zu Grunde? Denn letztlich ist die hier omnipräsente Glaubwürdigkeitskrise des Erzählers (Nichts kann zu keiner Zeit mit Sicherheit bezeugt werden!), dieses intendierte „den-Leser-wieder-und-wieder-in-Falltüren-tappen-lassen“ ungemein frustrierend. Im Buch wird für eine Bibliothek die Metapher „Castle of Yawns“ benutzt. Das Museum der Postmoderne ist erfreulicherweise in die Jahre gekommen. Für Literaturwissenschaftler der Gegenwart mag dieser Raum zur anstrengend akademischen Masturbation taugen, für Menschen allerdings, die Wahrheiten über die Welt zwischen zwei Buchdeckeln suchen, ist es nicht mehr als ein dekadenter Palast des Gähnens.

(less)

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Jul 11, 2010

Mazel rated it

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Shelves: littérature-étrangère

New York, 1967: un jeune aspirant poète rencontre un énigmatique mécène français et sa sulfureuse maîtresse. Un meurtre scelle bientôt, de New York à Paris, cette communauté de destins placés sous le double signe du désir charnel et de la quête éperdue de justice. Superbe variation sur "l'ère du soupçon", Invisible explore, sur plus de trois décennies, les méandres psychiques de protagonistes immergés dans des relations complexes et tourmentées. Le vertigineux kaléidoscope du roman met...more

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Jan 24, 2012

Heather rated it

Shelves: 2012, disturbing, fiction-lit

To say I liked this book, or even enjoyed it, would be saying too much. But I thought it was good, which is why I'm giving it four stars. It was good, even though I found nothing and no one within the pages likable or sympathetic. Actually, a lot of it was disturbing. Thinking a book is good while at the same time disliking it is not an experience I've had often, if ever. I have no desire ever to revisit this book.

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Feb 05, 2011

Bart Thanhauser rated it

First time reading Auster. Enjoyed it a lot; started re-reading it as soon as I finished (although I put it down again). Emotional depth, complex characters, ideas of authorship and truth. The second chapter is a tough read. Somewhat disturbing; it made me feel sick. Vague way to put it, but there's a lot of depth to this book. I feel I could re-read it and the book's clever organization (3 narrators tell the story via manuscript, memoir, fiction?), the emotions of the characters, the effortless...more

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Jan 26, 2012

Ariadna73 rated it

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Invisible is the second novel I read from this formidable author. I am starting to become a fan of this man. He knows how to gain my attention as a reader, and how to prepare me to what I am about to experience by reading his book. This novel is the story of one year in the life of a man back in 1967. He lived an adventure involving good food, good sex, and murder. Forty years later, when he is dying, he decides to write about that experience and sends the manuscript to his friend (a very succes...more

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Aug 06, 2011

Sam Quixote rated it

My feelings are conflicted with this book. I didn't hate it. I got through the book in 4 days, not rushing, and found Auster's style of writing still as compelling and easy to read as ever. On the other hand the story, while readable and familiar, just wasn't as compelling as I think Auster must have thought it was and neither was the bad guy nearly as menacing or complex.

Paul Auster is a literary writer and is a highly respected, bestselling writer of post modern stories. Yet despit...moreMy feelings are conflicted with this book. I didn't hate it. I got through the book in 4 days, not rushing, and found Auster's style of writing still as compelling and easy to read as ever. On the other hand the story, while readable and familiar, just wasn't as compelling as I think Auster must have thought it was and neither was the bad guy nearly as menacing or complex.

Paul Auster is a literary writer and is a highly respected, bestselling writer of post modern stories. Yet despite this he can write a book that reads as fluidly as a thriller mostly because he is a master of pacing and knows precisely how to draw the reader in and when to step up the action. He showcases various styles in the four parts the book is divided in - the first person, the second person, the third person narrative styles are all used and served to highlight how talented the man is as well as to keep the story fresh for the reader (events are rehashed throughout).

Yet the central point of the story - I won't give it away but it comes at the end of Part 1 - just seemed contrived. And if you think about the circumstances, it wasn't that shocking. It serves to show a different side to the bad guy who until then seemed to be a foppish poseur.

The Auster trademarks are here: the bookish hero (trying to be a poet, talking about obscure poets and writers, working in a library), the mysterious benefactor, a dead family member/friend, and a manuscript. Familiar ground then, and yet despite Auster having written similar stories in this fashion many times before I was still compelled to read on.

The story never really goes anywhere though. The bookish hero is haunted by the events at the end of Part 1, Part 2 reveals a sordid past to the hero, Part 3 continues the haunted hero's recounting of the events at the end of Part 1 and a showdown with the bad guy, Part 4 throws a few twists in and ends on a mysterious metaphor.

It's frustrating because I can't go into much detail without ruining the story but the story never really feels as dramatic as it thinks it is, nor as powerful in it's examination of some of the complex relationships in the book. By the end I didn't care and the last 30 pages dragged a bit. The final twist merited a simple shrug from me as I wasn't concerned with any of the characters at that point.

As for the title "Invisible", well, book groups can talk about what it means, I'll hazard a guess and say it might describe the real lives we lead and the lives we wished we'd led - the real life and the invisible life. But again, I didn't think about it too much, this isn't that sort of book.

It's not Auster's best but if you're a big fan of his like me you'll read it and find things to like about it. Overall though it's quite underwhelming and strangely forgettable. Still, it's not his worst and is an entertaining enough read. Glad he left himself out of this one though. Or did he...(less)

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Mar 06, 2011

Holger rated it

· review of another edition

Shelves: literatur

"Unsichtbar" von Paul Auster ist ein vielschichtiger Roman, der die Leserin bzw. den Leser an der Nase herumführt und bis zum Ende die Frage nach der "wirklichen" Geschichte nicht löst. Es bleiben Andeutungen und Erzählungen, aus denen sich unterschiedliche Abläufe der Schilderung ergeben können. Spannend ist der Aufbau der Geschichte, die das einschneidende Jahr (1967) eines jungen Mannes aus der Retrospektive erzählt (Mord, Liebe, Sex, Freundschaft). Sie setzt sich aus den ...more"Unsichtbar" von Paul Auster ist ein vielschichtiger Roman, der die Leserin bzw. den Leser an der Nase herumführt und bis zum Ende die Frage nach der "wirklichen" Geschichte nicht löst. Es bleiben Andeutungen und Erzählungen, aus denen sich unterschiedliche Abläufe der Schilderung ergeben können. Spannend ist der Aufbau der Geschichte, die das einschneidende Jahr (1967) eines jungen Mannes aus der Retrospektive erzählt (Mord, Liebe, Sex, Freundschaft). Sie setzt sich aus den Erzählungen unterschiedlicher Personen zusammen und besteht aus vier Teilen. Die ersten drei Kapitel sind passend zur Nummerierung jeweils in der ersten, zweiten und dritten Person geschrieben, das letzte Kapitel wiederum wechselt zur ersten Person zurück, allerdings zu einer anderen. Sprachlich und stilistisch nimmt mich die Geschichte schon nach wenigen Sätzen mit hinein in ihren Sog, man könnte ewig so weiter lesen. Davon bricht meines Erachtens das zweite Kapitel aus, was einerseits an der möglicherweise verstörenden Schilderung der inzestuösen Beziehung des Protagonisten zu seiner Schwester liegen mag, die mit dem Geschehen bis dahin in keinem Zusammenhang steht und dadurch m.E. einen Bruch im Fluss der Geschichte darstellt. Andererseits ist jedoch auch die Schilderung in der zweiten Person ungewöhnlich und vielleicht rührt auch daher der etwas befremdliche Eindruck. Doch Auster holt den Leser immer wieder mit ins Boot und der brüchige Eindruck verliert sich, die einzelnen Teile ergeben einen Sinn an ihrem Platz. Hochinteressant und spannend ist die unterschiedliche Darstellung der Geschehnisse der einzelnen beteiligten Personen, die zeigen, wie differenziert die Wirklichkeit wahrgenommen und konstruiert wird. Wie schon bei meinen vorangegangenen zwei Begegnungen mit Paul Auster war ich mir lange Zeit nicht sicher, was ich von dem Roman halten soll. Oft habe ich andere Erwartungen, die nicht erfüllt werden, so dass schließlich der Eindruck entsteht, dass er aus der Geschichte mehr hätte entwickeln können. Diesmal ist es nicht so.(less)

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Jan 26, 2011

Laysee rated it

Invisible is a disquieting novel. Adam Walker, a Columbia undergraduate and aspiring poet, met a visiting French professor, Rudolf Born, and his seductive girlfriend at a party. From the start it was difficult to fathom Rudolf’s motives in befriending Adam and offering to help him start and fund a magazine. Then an act of violence plunged Adam into a lifetime of guilt and a hounding need to right the wrong. The story is cleverly told in four parts by three different narrators – Adam himself, Ji...more

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Dec 12, 2010

Stephen rated it

Few books are better than this one for a comfortable flight on Air France from Paris to Boston. It's about the right length, nicely plot driven, and not so complex nor profound as to be spoiled by the glasses of champagne and red wine passengers still receive free of charge on one of the last remaining decent airlines. The plot is a variation of the mysterious and dangerous stranger story. A young American meets a French professor of political science (and other more mysterious occupations) a...more

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Oct 25, 2010

Charlotte rated it

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Yet again, Paul Auster does not disappoint. Invisible is concerned with the memoirs of Adam Walker, beginning with his student days 1967. After meeting a glamorous yet seedy bohemian couple his life starts moving in unexpected directions. (Albeit in rather exciting cities … Paris and New York anyone?) A confession: at first I was worried Paul Auster had written a story, a straightforward story! But for dedicated Auster fans, don’t panic - although this is probably one of his more mainstream nove...more

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Aug 18, 2010

Max rated it

This is by far the worst book I've read in 2010. I couldnt even finish it; the thought of having to read another 100 pages of drivel led me to thumb through the last pages, only to realize I wasn't missing anything.
How an author that wrote great novels such as The Book of Illusions or Man in The Dark can produce a book that contains no believable characters, no real story and only superficial and empty phrases is a mystery to me. The main character is a spineless loser, whose greatest acco...more

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May 12, 2010

Michelle rated it

Shelves: psycological-thriller, realistic-fiction

The first half of this book bore an uncanny resemblance to "Fade" (Robert Cormier). Though the narrative style it is written in gets annoying and, really, exhausting for the reader at times, I decided I would give this book four stars if it actually Went Somewhere. It didn't. I did not like the ending at all. However, there were lots of stuff I liked about this book. For example, page 109 "On the third day of the visit, sometime around six in the morning, with your mother still as...more

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Apr 05, 2010

Elisabeth Chamontin rated it

Invisible est un livre que l'on a envie de relire. On l'a lu une première fois comme un thriller ou, comme disent les Américains, un page turner. On s'est passionné pour le mystère de ce meurtre qui n'en est peut-être pas un, (en est-il un ?), pour ces amours incestueuses qui n'ont peut-être jamais existé, (ont-elles existé ?), pour l'atmosphère de mélancolie romantique qui imprègne le personnage de Walker, le gentil, et pour le mystère malsain qui flotte autour du personnage de Born, le méchant...moreInvisible est un livre que l'on a envie de relire. On l'a lu une première fois comme un thriller ou, comme disent les Américains, un page turner. On s'est passionné pour le mystère de ce meurtre qui n'en est peut-être pas un, (en est-il un ?), pour ces amours incestueuses qui n'ont peut-être jamais existé, (ont-elles existé ?), pour l'atmosphère de mélancolie romantique qui imprègne le personnage de Walker, le gentil, et pour le mystère malsain qui flotte autour du personnage de Born, le méchant.

Et puis on se demande : mais pourquoi ce titre, Invisible ? On voudrait avoir l'original pour vérifier des phrases comme « Born savait où j'étais né » (page 45) qui doivent faire tilt en anglais. On sait, pour être une vieille lectrice d'Auster, que les noms des personnages ne sont jamais choisis au hasard. Alors on relit, on pointe par exemple les occurrences du mot Invisible. La première apparaît dès la page 11, dans la description de Rudolf Born « un visage qui deviendrait invisible dans n'importe quelle foule », la seconde un peu après, page 20 : « cet invisible chaudron d'estime de soi et d'ambition qui frémit et bouillonne au fond de chacun d'entre nous », et surtout la troisième, page 88 : « en parlant de moi-même à la première personne je m'étais étouffé, rendu invisible, je m'étais mis dans l'impossibilité de trouver ce que je cherchais. Il fallait que je me sépare de moi-même », passage dans lequel Auster nous donne en quelque sorte une des clés du livre ou plutôt de son écriture.

On réalise que le personnage d'Adam Walker, jeune poète naïf et pur, est assez inconsistant dans la première partie du roman, écrite à la première personne, et qu'il prend un peu plus d'épaisseur dans la seconde — celle des amours incestueuses — écrite à la deuxième personne. Adam Walker, c'est l'homme qui marche. Reprocher à Paul Auster, comme l'a fait le critique du New Yorker dans cet article, de ne pas avoir donné assez d’étoffe à ce personnage est aussi ridicule que de reprocher à Giacometti de ne pas avoir assez rembourré les siens. Pour le même critique James Wood, la seconde partie est la meilleure des quatre. C'est ne pas avoir compris que les quatre n'en font qu'une, comme les quatre saisons de la vie d'un homme, celle de l'auteur par exemple, « chaque homme étant l'auteur de sa propre vie » (Moon Palace).

Les similitudes entre la biographie d'Adam Walker — au prénom de 4 lettres et au nom de 6 lettres comme ceux de Paul Auster — et celle de l'auteur sont trop nombreuses pour être toutes énumérées (âge, situation par rapport à la guerre du Vietnam, voyage à Paris, traductions...). Il s'agit bien évidemment d'un de ses nombreux avatars, comme l'est aussi Born le malsain (au nom de 4 lettres et au prénom de 6), le Caïn de cet Abel d'Adam Walker sans lequel ce dernier ne pourrait exister, Born le guerrier opposé au poète mais qui ne fait qu'un avec lui en la personne de Bertran de Born, le troubadour évoqué dès la première page du roman, ou encore Born le démon tentateur qui séduit l'ange par l'argent, le sexe et la violence : Milton et Paradise Lost sont longuement évoqués page 99, et on lit page 78 « le clan Walker tout entier avait reçu au berceau des gênes d'ange».

Born n'est « né » que parce Walker meurt en lui donnant naissance, il lui a donné sa substance, son sang (c'est de leucémie que se meurt Walker). Walker, « né stérile » (encore une expression ambiguë qu'on aimerait bien lire en anglais) n'enfante que les personnages de son histoire : « plus je parlais avec eux [Born et Margot:] plus ils me semblaient devenir irréels — comme s'ils avaient été des personnages imaginaires dans une histoire qui se serait passée dans ma tête » nous est-il dit dès la page 17 et, un peu plus loin page 18, Born déclare : « un jour vous vous trouverez en train d'écrire ma biographie. Je le garantis. » Mais après la troisième partie, l'automne à Paris pendant lequel Adam Walker connaît l'échec, et après sa mort quarante ans de désert littéraire plus tard, c'est son amie Cécile Juin (tiens, encore 6 et 4) qui la poursuit, cette biographie, et avec quel terrifiant contenu.

Le roman prend fin sur une scène inattendue et saisissante, mais récurrente chez Auster, liée je crois à un souvenir d'enfance, celle de gens cassant des pierres dans une carrière, et qui me semble elle aussi être une métaphore de l'écriture. Le blanc — Born est toujours habillé de blanc — étant chez Auster un symbole néfaste. Les pierres sont blanches comme la page (blanc et pierre sont des mots très proches en hébreu, le récit de la tour de Babel joue d'ailleurs sur ces mots).
Je cite ici un extrait d'un de ses poèmes, datant de 1970 :
Picks jot the quarry—eroded marks
That could not cipher the message,
The quarrel unleashed its alphabet,
And the stones, girded by abuse,
Have memorized the defeat

Qui a écrit finalement ce roman ? se demande la plupart des critiques. Adam Walker ? Son ami Jim auquel il a confié le manuscrit ? Cécile Juin ? Born lui-même ? Paul Auster s'est appliqué comme chaque fois à se séparer de lui-même. À nous lecteurs de recoller les morceaux pour le rendre un peu moins invisible et déchiffrer, peut-être, le message.(less)

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Mar 30, 2010

Matt rated it

So......
This is the first book I've ever read by Paul Auster, and I must say, I was very impressed by this thrilling, disturbing and kinda weird book. His grasp of the narrative was absolute throughout, no small feat considering the extreme meta-literary gymnastics he puts the reader through. I enjoyed the unfolding mysteries, the multiple (and often (or maybe not) unreliable) narrators, the jumps forwards and backwards in time, and the globe-spanning locales.
I guess I only knocked ...more

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Feb 10, 2010

Stephanie rated it

Readers of American author Paul Auster will be familiar with his penchant for metafictional tricks and autobiographical details, and will hence smile knowingly when Invisible opens in 1967 with narrator Adam Walker, a Columbia undergraduate, francophile and aspiring poet.

But this is not to say that Auster is flogging a dead horse with his 15th novel. Indeed, because of its coming-of-age themes, Invisible feels fresh, almost precocious, as if it were written by a brilliant if impatien...moreReaders of American author Paul Auster will be familiar with his penchant for metafictional tricks and autobiographical details, and will hence smile knowingly when Invisible opens in 1967 with narrator Adam Walker, a Columbia undergraduate, francophile and aspiring poet.

But this is not to say that Auster is flogging a dead horse with his 15th novel. Indeed, because of its coming-of-age themes, Invisible feels fresh, almost precocious, as if it were written by a brilliant if impatient young author – brilliant for its dazzling lyricism and narrative sleights-of-hand, impatient because, alas, as with many of Auster’s works, the writer has provided many storylines without any actual plot.

The novel is divided into quarters. In the first part, Adam meets Rudolf Born, a Swiss-French visiting professor teaching “the disasters of French colonialism”. Thus begins a somewhat perverted father-son relationship, with Born offering his live-in girlfriend to Adam to sleep with, and ends with a dark deed that shakes Adam to the core.

It is this deed that ends up shaping Adam’s life, as we find out in the next part, where the narrative jumps 40 years into the future to one James Freeman, a renowned author who is contacted by his former schoolmate, a leukaemia-stricken Adam, for advice on how to write an autobiographical book (the excerpt he encloses is the first part we have just read).

Encouraged by his friend, Adam proceeds to send him the second part, also autobiographical, a second-person narrative tour de force about the summer after he met Born, which Adam spent with his sister in New York. This is Auster at his best: Take this description of how Adam and his sister mourn the death of their younger brother every year by imagining what he would be like today: “For ten years now, he has been living this shadow existence inside you, a phantom being who has grown up in another dimension, invisible yet breathing...”

But this is Auster, and now doubts begin to creep in as to how true any of Adam’s “autobiography” is anyway. The third and fourth parts attempt to slap on some kind of closure with more is-it-true-or-isn’t-it games, before bringing the novel to an abrupt end.

Each part of this novel would work as a novella on its own, but the attempt to link them lacks a big payoff. Though this sounds disappointing, maybe there are authors you read for the story, and then there are those you read for the lyricism, the sheer pleasure of the prose excusing the lack of plot.
(less)

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Jan 31, 2010

Lars Guthrie rated it

I hesitated in rating this one, because it was so unsettling. Then, being unsettled can be valuable. It is also Auster, mannered and clever, fey and twee, all at once, with an idiosyncratic voice so ubiquitous that it's hard differentiating between the characters behind the multiple first-person narratives in 'Invisible.' But like the 'The New York Trilogy,' Auster somehow pulls the rabbit out of the hat. Artifice becomes effective trope; the trick turns into truth.

'Invisible' is...moreI hesitated in rating this one, because it was so unsettling. Then, being unsettled can be valuable. It is also Auster, mannered and clever, fey and twee, all at once, with an idiosyncratic voice so ubiquitous that it's hard differentiating between the characters behind the multiple first-person narratives in 'Invisible.' But like the 'The New York Trilogy,' Auster somehow pulls the rabbit out of the hat. Artifice becomes effective trope; the trick turns into truth.

'Invisible' is an investigation into what lies beneath the surface, in the case the surface of a blandly handsome and promising Columbia student of literature in 1967 who disappears from, then reappears (nearly a half century later) in the life of a former classmate--then disappears again. Adam Walker (every name has a peculiar significance in this novel) is thus invisible on several levels. But as you might expect, when Auster peels away the layers of this onion, we're still not sure what is really there.

One thing that is buried beneath the surface of Walker's life is a bit of shockingly transgressive behavior. But like Martin in Edward Albee's 'The Goat, or, Who Is Sylvia?' Walker attracted my sympathy as much as my disapprobation, and made me think below the surface about what makes us classify certain behaviors as transgressive.

In 'The Goat,' it's buggering a horned mammal; in 'Invisible' it's brother boffing sister. As in 'The Goat,' the transgression is so out there and matter-of-fact in the same moment that it is comic. A component of humor, after all, is a certain amount of discomfort.

Likewise, I found an element of comedy in Auster's portrayal of Walker's Kurtz (with parallels to both Conrad's and Brando's), the peculiarly and significantly named Rudolf Born. Surely Auster intended that we chuckle at his parting view of Born--a decaying and overweight megalomaniac living in an isolated wilderness, muttering to himself as he is attended to by the natives. A deliciously magnificent villain, if ever there was one.

While 'Invisible' can be disquieting and affected, I don't mean to imply anything negative about its readability. In fact, it is written much more like a best seller than 'The New York Trilogy,' and, for Auster, is quite accessible. I devoured it quickly, and with gusto. But the state of cognitive dissonance it engendered has stuck with me, and kept me returning to its theme: what is invisible, what is beneath the surface.

(less)

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Jan 12, 2010

Gladia rated it

Spring:
New York: Walker meets Born at a party and the professor, just a few days later and for no good reason, offers to give money to the young student to make a literary magazine. Their professional partnership soon dies when Born stabs to death a boy who's trying to rob him and Walker.
The story is weak since the very beginning and lacks of imagination to explain most of the events. Walker is depicted as a reasonable character but Born, an opinionated on everything French professor...more

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Nov 29, 2009

Jim Coughenour rated it

One rainy spring night back in 1987, I wandered into Guild Bookstore (Lincoln Avenue, Chicago, extinct) and was beguiled by a sexy set of hardbacks – The New York Trilogy by Paul Auster – an author I'd never heard of. Guild was known more for its selection of esoteric lectures by Noam Chomksy than for modernist fiction; this set, published by Sun & Moon Press, looked like something I'd expect to find at the Art Institute. The books had a cool stylish look (including the author photo); the prose ...moreOne rainy spring night back in 1987, I wandered into Guild Bookstore (Lincoln Avenue, Chicago, extinct) and was beguiled by a sexy set of hardbacks – The New York Trilogy by Paul Auster – an author I'd never heard of. Guild was known more for its selection of esoteric lectures by Noam Chomksy than for modernist fiction; this set, published by Sun & Moon Press, looked like something I'd expect to find at the Art Institute. The books had a cool stylish look (including the author photo); the prose was set in a smart Bodini. I bought them for their dust jackets alone – which for me captured the romance of my recent wide-eyed visits to Manhattan, with its Bright Lights, Big City/Liquid Sky appeal.

So I was delighted when I discovered the stories were as aesthetically satisfying as desaturated cityscapes on their covers. The trilogy offered an artfully convoluted set of variations on the classic urban detective story, Dashiell Hammett filtered through Beckett (and I'm undoubtedly echoing a cliché here) – but back then this opus seemed just about perfect: pure style in the guise of existentially-tortured substance.

Regrettably, the experience wasn't easy to duplicate. Over the years I'd pick up each Auster book as it appeared; few provided the same thrill. From the distance of 20-odd years I observe that I've found more pleasure in his autobiographical essays (and the peculiar mini-classic The Red Notebook) than in his novels. In recent years, I enjoyed Oracle Night and The Book of Illusions; I cheerfully succumbed to the crowd-pleasing Brooklyn Follies; but I found Man in the Dark and Travels in the Scriptorium impossible to finish. (The objective correlative for that last one is the smell of old man's urine.)

A couple weeks ago I read Auster's newest – Invisible – and fortunately had finished it before I read the evisceration by James Woods in this week's New Yorker. Woods begins his review with a précis of a mock-Auster novel and it's cruelly exact. It may even be fair. But I doubt it will affect my proclivity for Auster, however abused it's become.

As I read Invisible, I felt as if I was watching an old friend perform his usual set of magic tricks. The plot unfolds in a set of familiar games, elliptical exercises on first-, second- and third-person narration, found manuscripts and unnerving coincidences, served up with usual tenor of agonized introspection. The plot, such as it is, completely collapses by the end. But no matter. The book is entertaining, even in its clichés. Auster may not be the transgressive modernist he affects to be (if indeed he does) but I still relish the ominous play of character and coincidence, as predictable as a ghost story, best read before bed with a dram of single malt.(less)

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Nov 19, 2009

Nathan Hobby rated it

Shelves: literary-fiction, read-in-2009, usa, writers-fiction

It’s been a prolific decade for my favourite author, Paul Auster –he has just published his sixth novel of the noughties. As prolific as he’s been, he’s also published some of his weakest works –I don’t care for the crowd-pleasing Brooklyn Follies nor Travels in the Scriptorium, although at least they’re better than Timbuktu, his late nineties novel told through the eyes of a dog. I rate his new novel, Invisible, the second best of the six of the decade, after The Book of Illusions. It is the mo...moreIt’s been a prolific decade for my favourite author, Paul Auster –he has just published his sixth novel of the noughties. As prolific as he’s been, he’s also published some of his weakest works –I don’t care for the crowd-pleasing Brooklyn Follies nor Travels in the Scriptorium, although at least they’re better than Timbuktu, his late nineties novel told through the eyes of a dog. I rate his new novel, Invisible, the second best of the six of the decade, after The Book of Illusions. It is the most typical of his whole career, with many of his recurring elements appearing – a mysterious stranger, a change of fortune, a struggling poet translating French texts, a random act of violence, and a framed narrative.
As almost always happens in Auster’s novels, the protagonist is a male New Yorker born in 1947 and a student at Columbia. Adam Walker is a college student and aspiring poet and the novel is about the defining year of his life, 1967.
Adam meets a mysterious stranger at a party – Rudolf Born – who makes him an offer that will change his life; Born will pay Adam to edit a literary magazine. Born is called away on business, and Adam is seduced by Born’s girlfriend, Margot. Yet it isn’t this that causes a rift between them, but Born’s violent stabbing of a mugger. Adam spends much of the rest of the novel hoping to see justice served on Born for the murder.
In between, he has lots of sex with his sister, and even though there’s been hints of incest in Auster’s work before (In The Country of Last Things, The Red Notebook, from memory) it is the sexual explicitness of this novel that is its most atypical feature. Usually Auster summarizes sex without going into much detail at all, but this time he is more anatomical.
Complicating the story is a complicated framing device. The first part about Walker meeting Born and things going wrong, is revealed to be the first chapter of a manuscript Walker has written in the present day and sent to his friend Jim, a famous writer. Walker is terminally ill and is trying to finish the memoir before he dies. (A situation which recalls Thomas Effing telling Fogg his life story in Moon Palace for his obituary, and Hector Mann bringing Zimmer to his ranch to see his secret films before he dies in The Book of Illusions.) After Jim’s framing, the second part of the novel is told in second person to overcome Walker’s writer’s block. The third part of the novel is filled out by Jim from Walker’s rough notes. As Walker’s narrative ends, Jim does some detective work, tracking down the people involved and trying to solve some of the mysteries.
It is a compulsively readable story, fascinating and littered with insights into the way we make meaning of life and how we decide what to do with ourselves. In her review, Lionel Shriver contended that there is nothing to take away from the book, that it’s like a glass of lemonade. I think part of what she is noticing and what disappoints her is an insistence by Auster that his narratives attempt to mimic some of the randomness of life, with both its coincidence and its failure to resolve. I read a reviewer once describe Auster’s work as a handful of smooth stones rubbing against each other, but not yielding anything as simple as meaning.
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Nov 16, 2009

Tony rated it

Shelves: fiction-mainstream

Auster, Paul. INVISIBLE. (2009). *****. Auster has managed to come out with yet another book that you can’t put down because you can’t imagine what’s likely to come on the next page. Adam Walker begins to tell the story of his adventures in New York City during the year 1967. He is twenty years old and an aspiring student at Columbia. He meets a Frenchman, Rudolf Born, an instructor of Political Science at the University, and his girlfriend, Margot. Soon, Born draws Adam into a relations...moreAuster, Paul. INVISIBLE. (2009). *****. Auster has managed to come out with yet another book that you can’t put down because you can’t imagine what’s likely to come on the next page. Adam Walker begins to tell the story of his adventures in New York City during the year 1967. He is twenty years old and an aspiring student at Columbia. He meets a Frenchman, Rudolf Born, an instructor of Political Science at the University, and his girlfriend, Margot. Soon, Born draws Adam into a relationship with him and Margot that soon turns into a sexual relationship between Adam and Margot. To show that there are no hard feelings, Born offers Adam a job starting up a literary magazine, with enough of an investment to carry him through for one full year. While walking along Riverside Drive, Born and Adam are discussing details of the venture, when suddenly a young man appears out of the bushes with a gun in his hand and demands their money and their watches. Born pretends to comply, but suddenly pulls a knife out of his coat and stabs the young man. Adam is appalled and runs to find a phone to call an ambulance. When he comes back, neither Born nor the bandit are there. When he looks around, he finds the young man partially hidden in the bushes – dead, with about twelve stab wounds in him. Adam flees the scene. Thus begins the adventures of Adam and the world of Born. Further adventures occur that involve Born, but also involve Adam’s older sister, Gwyn, in which an intense sexual relationship between the two is described. This part of the story is narrated by James Freeman. Freeman was a classmate of Borns at school, but he receives the second chapter of the story from Born who, he learns, is on his deathbed, dying of Leukemia. Freeman shares the second chapter of this story with us. It is now 2007, but the story is still about the events in 1967. Here we learn about Adam’s trip to Paris where he intends to spend a year on a study program. It turns out that this is where Born and Margot had fled to and the relationship is again picked up. Born has a hypnotic relationship on Adam, which he cannot seem to resist. Two more chapters ensue; one narrated by Freeman and one by a young Parisian girl who provides her diaries to help end the story. We then have the rug pulled out from beneath us when we are led to doubt the veracity of Adam and, in fact, the very existence of any of the characters. It is a novel that turns back on itself, as if reflected in a mirror – a funhouse mirror at that. Highly recommended.(less)

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Nov 10, 2009

Gail Cooke rated it

For this reader Paul Auster is one of the most brilliant writers working today. He is a total original who pens intriguing, beguiling prose of great depth and intensity. There are some books that one may scan and pretty much capture the author's narrative. Not so with Auster, his work requires concentration, thoughtfulness as one plumbs his intentions. His novels are complex yet totally satisfying. Auster's narrative voice is so rich, so distinctive that you can almost hear it. Such is the case ...moreFor this reader Paul Auster is one of the most brilliant writers working today. He is a total original who pens intriguing, beguiling prose of great depth and intensity. There are some books that one may scan and pretty much capture the author's narrative. Not so with Auster, his work requires concentration, thoughtfulness as one plumbs his intentions. His novels are complex yet totally satisfying. Auster's narrative voice is so rich, so distinctive that you can almost hear it. Such is the case with his fifteenth novel INVISIBLE.

Relating his story in four parts we are introduced to Adam Walker in 1967 when he is 20, a second year student at Columbia, a self-described "know-nothing boy with an appetite for books and a belief (or delusion) that one day I would become good enough to call myself a poet...." He was at a party where he met Rudolf Born, an enigmatic man who would change the course of Adam's life. With Born was Margot, a French woman dressed all in black who was more than attractive to a young student.

As the relationship between the three deepens Born offers Adam a large sum of money, $25,000, to start a literary magazine. What a piece of luck for a cash poor student! Then one evening as the two are strolling to dinner along Riverside Drive they are suddenly mugged. Born defends them by pulling a switchblade knife from an inside pocket and stabbing the assailant. Adam runs for help but returns to find the body gone. Shortly thereafter a body is found in a park with multiple stab wounds, and Born has gone to France.

Part 1 has ended on a tense note as do each of the succeeding sections which take us from that time in 1967 through 2007. Three different narrators relate periods in Adam's life. What is truth? How fallible is memory? What are the forces that drive us or destroy us?

Reading INVISIBLE is an unforgettable experience, both exhilarating and unsettling. It is classic Paul Auster, which is to say it is the finest today's literature can offer.

- Gail Cooke (less)

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Aug 22, 2010

Steve rated it

· review of another edition

Paul Auster is my favorite author. I briefly flirted with Philip Roth, because his output is so much more, and he had a very intense phase with three excellent novels, but Auster has really been coming on strong since he's gotten away from making movies. He did that clunker book about a dog, and his poems are interesting but not as good as his novels. I've read his non-fiction and memoir, which is OK. I'd say read all his novels except the one about the dog. Mr. Vertigo wasn't great, though...more

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About Paul Auster

After a year spent traveling in Europe, he enrolled at Columbia University and spent a year in Paris on an exchange. Returning to Columbia in 1968, he wrote articles and reviews while anti-Vietnam protests and riots raged around him. After publishing a crime novel pastiche, Squeeze Play, written under the pseudonym Paul Benjamin (who would later appear as a blocked writer in his screenplay for the...more

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Quotes from Invisible

“He wonders if words aren't an essential element of sex, if talking isn't finally a more subtle form of touching, and if the images dancing in our heads aren't just as important as the bodies we hold in our arms. Margot tells him that sex is the one thing in life that counts for her, that if she couldn't have sex she would probably kill herself to escape the boredom and monotony of being trapped inside her own skin. Walker doesn't say anything, but as he comes into her for the second time, he realizes that he shares her opinion. He is mad for sex. Even in the grip of the most crushing despair, he is mad for sex. Sex is the lord and the redeemer, the only salvation on earth.” — 2 people liked it

“Now that you are living on such intimate terms with her, Gwyn has emerged as a slightly different person... She is both funnier and more salacious than you imagined, more vulgar and idiosyncratic, more passionate, more playful, and you are startled to realize how deeply she exults in filthy language and the bizarre slang of sex... Common twentieth-century words do not interest her. She shuns the term making love, for example, in favor of older, more hilarious locutions, such as rumpty-rumpty, quaffing, and bonker bang. A good orgasm is referred to as a bone-shaker. Her ass is a rumdadum. Her crotch is a slittie, a quim, a quim-box, a quimsby. Her breasts are boobs and tits, boobies and titties, her twin girls. At one time or another, your penis is a bong, a blade, a slurp, a shaft, a drill, a quencher, a lancelot, a lightning rod, Charles Dickens, Dick Driver, and Adam Junior... In the grip of approaching orgasm, however, she tends to revert to the contemporary standbys, falling back on the simplest, crudest words in the English lexicon to express her feelings. Cunt, pussy, fuck. Fuck me, Adam. Again and again. Fuck me, Adam. For an entire month you are the captive of that word, the willing prisoner of that word, the embodiment of that word. You dwell in the land of flesh, and your cup runneth over. Surely goodness and mercy shall follow you all the days of your life.” — 2 people liked it

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