Winter Journal

by Paul Auster

From the bestselling novelist and author of The Invention of Solitude, a moving and highly personal meditation on the body, time, and language itself

"That is where the story begins, in your body, and everything will end in the body as well.

Facing his sixty-third winter, internationally acclaimed novelist Paul Auster sits down to write a history of his body and its sensations—both pleasurable and painful.

Thirty years after the publication of The Invention of Solitude, in which he wrote so movingly about fatherhood, Auster gives us a second unconventional memoir in which he writes about his mother's life and death. Winter Journal is a highly personal meditation on the body, time, and memory, by one of our most intellectually elegant writers.

Genres: Nonfiction, Memoir, Biography, Autobiography, American, Literature, The United States Of America

242 pages, Kindle Edition

First published August 21, 2012

About the author

Paul Auster was the bestselling author of 4 3 2 1, Bloodbath Nation, Baumgartner, The Book of Illusions, and The New York Trilogy, among many other works. In 2006 he was awarded the Prince of Asturias Prize for Literature. Among his other honors are the Prix Médicis Étranger for Leviathan, the Independent Spirit Award for the screenplay of Smoke, and the Premio Napoli for Sunset Park. In 2012, he was the first recipient of the NYC Literary Honors in the category of fiction. He was also a finalist for the International IMPAC Dublin Literary Award (The Book of Illusions), the PEN/Faulkner Award (The Music of Chance), the Edgar Award (City of Glass), and the Man Booker Prize (4 3 2 1). Auster was a member of the American Academy of Arts and Letters and a Commandeur de l’Ordre des Arts et des Lettres. His work has been translated into more than forty languages. He died at age seventy-seven in 2024.

Reviews

[Jakob J. 🎃 · Rating 5 out of 5]

*Update: I have only just learned of Paul Auster’s death this past April, 2024. I don’t stay abreast of much such news of late. While I have not read him in many years, and this memoir may not have had the same impact on me if I had read it more recently, it marks a pivotal time in my literary life, over a decade ago. I think this review serves as a fitting tribute as well.*

You think about that already, how many people have not made it to this point, and what’s more, how many people were never born at all; how many single cells who, if only they had won the genetic lottery instead of you, may have written something more timeless than The Odyssey, discovered elusive cures for what ails humanity, or on the flip side, to be fair, destroyed more lives than Pol Pot. It is useless to speculate on these matters because time is unconcerned with what might have been, but still you think about it, and still you feel both undeserving and impossibly lucky. Then, unbeknownst and within moments of this profound appreciation, you feel both dreadful and completely alone, as if floating through space, which of course, strictly speaking, you are.

You’re on your couch, which often substitutes for your bed, reading Winter Journal by Paul Auster. As you are reading it, you think what fun it would be, if you believed in fun, to write about your experience with the book in the second person, as Paul Auster does, observing his former selves in fragments and blinks of memory. You think about how many hours of your life have been spent on this couch, reading. How many more hours to come? You think about being less than half the age of Paul Auster, and yet, perhaps just as preoccupied with the absolute finality of the grave. You wonder what life will be like, if you endure to age sixty-four, at home, in America, on Earth. You wonder what you may have to live through that Paul Auster will probably not.

Forced to recall the time you were T-boned at an intersection in the station wagon your father was driving at that potentially fatal moment on Halloween night of 2001; a replica of which you have now inherited from him, you read on with horror and sadness, an account that feels all too familiar. You can hear the windows all shattering at once because you have heard it. You can look over and see your father hyperventilating, unburdening himself all at once of the impact, after the protection he provided for you in the form of an arm slung across your torso whilst simultaneously avoiding spinning into oncoming traffic for a double, triple, quadruple whammy of apocalyptic crunching metal. You can exit the car, survey the surreal damage and honestly wonder along with the author how you are still breathing. You continue reading, succumbing to tears and bordering on applause upon finding out that everyone; his wife, their daughter, even the dog, came through without any serious injuries, as both you and your father had. And the strangest thing of all, which Paul Auster, relaying the fortune of a doctor who happened upon the scene, deemed a small miracle, which is tempting to borrow, if his work, and your outlook, were not dependent on chance; your brother’s girlfriend (now his wife) and one of her friends (whom you would, years later, escort down the aisle at their wedding) were meandering down the path by which you were recently almost killed; one of them, you can’t recall who, wearing an angel costume, the corny and clichéd nature of which only hits you at the very moment you write this, and gives you pause in including the detail at all. Your future sister-in-law sees the familiar car, totaled, and then sees you and your father standing near it and calls out your father's name. You now have a ride home from the wreckage and a story to tell. Then, in another instantaneous ecstatic-to-somber switch, you are bogged down by the thought of all those who were not as fortunate as you, your father, Paul Auster, his wife, his daughter, or their dog. You recall a flamboyant and admirable high school classmate who, days before his death in a car accident, complimented you on your anachronistic, overly large ‘90’s t-shirt which you also inherited from your father (complete with cool colored [green, blue, purple] squiggly stripes, imitating a life-line, and multi-outlined dots almost giving the illusion of fluctuating, or static, movement). A fellow college student whom you didn’t know is brought to mind; killed in a fiery crash, along with her boyfriend, the details of which you investigated obsessively for days thereafter; discovering the reason was a drunk driver, who survived. Then, as if clutching to be dragged along behind the previous memory, a news story of two young children killed in a crash in Minneapolis, as a result of someone who decided their time was more important than anyone else’s.

Your girlfriend at the time (God knows where she is now), in junior high; your very first, who, like Paul Auster in his early infatuations, you would bend over and do anything for, and who was prone, and accustomed, to incendiary spats, one example of which resulted in a threat that your demise would occur at the hands of The Bloods, after pinning one of their ostensible members to a table upon witnessing him violently shove your then-girlfriend, your temporarily-eternal-soul-mate; the first instance in which you risked everything for what you thought was love, and how you would do the same now, if the situation presented itself, or indeed, if some immediate occurrence demanded such a swift spring to action; a reaction which could pale in comparison to what shits you may flip if something comparable were to occur in your life now, to those whom you now hold dear.

You could keep writing now, but you want to save some things for your own fragmentary, literary, auto-biographical efforts which, as with this influential and destined-to-be-pre-culminating work, could wind up being some-significant-amount-of-a-lifetime-in-the-making; and if only two people read it, they will be the only two to have ever read it; and then the sun will explode and it will not matter.

More examples of monotonous life experience Paul Auster discusses over the course of his lifetime (that is to say, confined to the contents within his book, and to the limited experience of your significantly shorter life thus far) would abound to which you could relate; injuries and scars, sexual encounters and heartache, death of loved ones and musings on mortality. You are not special or unique in this, but you come to feel that you are, paradoxically, as you learn how severely, and consolingly, you are not. You are confronted with a lifetime of things unlived by you, but that you have come to have a stake in emotionally, through mere chance of these events being recorded for you to come by; to piece together the puzzle of; to plunge the depths of; to solve, from a bird’s eye view, the labyrinth of connections by an astounding concatenation of circumstances.

Meeting Paul Auster was a hell of a thing. You remember because this happened so recently. You wondered what you might say to him. You think that he may be impressed by your ties to Northfield, Minnesota, the town in which you, in fact, would meet him; the hometown of his wife another fine writer, Siri Husvedt, whose sister your mother was close friends with in her youth. You could have set him up for that James Joyce joke you heard him mention in an interview, which involved a woman who asked to shake the hand of the man who wrote Ulysses, to which Joyce responded, in so many words, that she may want to reconsider if she knew where else that hand had been. Another option was to invoke the commencement Paul Auster had with Samuel Beckett when he was twenty-five, the same age as you are now, in a ploy to convey some semblance of serendipity. This seemed hokey, regardless of how inspired you were to hear it. One last refuge was to appeal to his former self which he has written about; to tell him that never, not once, have you felt vindicated, or normalized, for being a bed wetter, not only in your childhood, but as Paul Auster admitted—stringing you along in solidarity—well beyond the acceptable age for being one. Ultimately, after seeing him in front of you, hearing him speak in person, and holding your copy of his book in his hands, you opt for dead silence. Get the book signed and fuck off. He breaks this silence with a humble, reticent, and resounding thank you. You would go on the next day to see him again and, overcoming some of your nerves, express to him how much the hell his work means to you. He seemed genuinely surprised, after having signed the book you are now discussing, to see you were in possession of a first edition copy of The Invention of Solitude, his first published work. He tells you it is probably worth a lot of money, and you respond: as if I’m going to sell it. Even if you did, these experiences are priceless, as are, you come to realize, all experiences. Paul Auster is entering the winter of his life and you are exiting the winter of your youth; a piece of which he now knows, at least temporarily, includes him.

[Steven Godin · Rating 4 out of 5]

The New York Trilogy was my first experience of Auster's work, it baffled and mesmerized me from start to finish, and was the book that got me into books, so Paul Auster ultimately changed my life, for the better. After reading many other works of his fiction I thought the time was right to read about the man himself. He started writing this just short of his sixty-third Birthday in 2011 and contains within a heartfelt and honest examination of moments from his life, and the slowly creeping ageing process that will leave him making bif life changes, for the sake of himself and that of his family. And there are so many things here that ring true, and will no doubt strike us all at some point, one way or another.

He still holds on to the writing style of his fiction, so for some it will not please, but this is easily his most passionate writing, simply because it's all true. It is in essence, an emotional roller-coaster of a read, and had me thinking of my own parents, and the fact they can't do what they did before as age starts to catch up with them. Other than writing of himself, Auster's centerpiece is his Mother, someone who he clearly had much love and admiration for prior to her death, and it's here he starts to ask questions regarding his own lifestyle and the fact he will one day no longer be a spring chicken. He goes back and forward in time, mixes and matching memories, writing of how his mind wants to do what the body no longer can, with many serious health scares along the way. What I found staggering was the amount of times he moved house Prior to settling in Brooklyn, it seemed so many I was beginning to lose track!, best of all was the fact he doesn't hold back, and gives a genuine and profoundly moving account of ones own bodily experiences, and all the shit that goes with it.

[Violeta · Rating 4 out of 5]

Paul Auster is one of my very favourite writers. One of those few that each one of us readers has so high up in our ranking that we'll read whatever they come up with, expecting not the bedazzlement of a first encounter but the warmth of familiarity of a longstanding relationship. In this context, leniency is part of the game. We can't love everything they've written but we don't give up on them when they don't fully deliver.

Why am I saying all this? Because this past week I found myself discussing Auster with different friends here on GR, trying to assuage their less-than-enthusiastic impression of a first-time encounter with his work. Not the right book, not the right book, I kept saying and went on suggesting some of my own favourites. But now I'm thinking: even these might not impress them enough, since my love for them comes from that already established relationship with their author that started like any half-decent love affair should; not because somebody insisted that he's right for me but because I myself felt the spark of the attraction and went on looking for more!

This autobiographical book is among those I suggested to my friends. Maybe it's not his best work but it's very personal and revealing, written at a point in his life when both he and his prose had reached a much-coveted deftness, maturity and sincerity. He was sixty-four years old when he wrote this, a decade ago. Auster had been a fabulous storyteller from the start and it's deeply satisfying to see this gift not only reaching its peak but also being applied onto himself, turning his own life into a series of masterfully narrated vignettes. What's more, he chooses to write them in the second person, addressing himself as if he were a stranger. For me, this had the double effect of putting me in his shoes and at times identifying both as a reader and as the one living the adventure! A weird, magical trick that only a Master like him can carry out.

I've spent part of the last couple of days leafing through this book, rereading parts I had highlighted six years ago. And there, on page 114, I came upon some sentences accentuated with double underlines and exclamation points; presently, I added a third layer of acknowledgment. One year into on-again, off-again lockdown, with air travel a distant memory that I miss so very much (it having always been a huge part of my life), Auster's words became mine and gave me once more the particular excitement of writer-reader osmosis; that, which keeps sustaining the love for those few special artists that we have named our very favourites, for our very personal reasons.

Here's the excerpt, for anyone who misses travelling as much as I do:

...you could never come up with an exact or even approximate number to tell you how many thousands of hours of your life have been spent in between places, going from here to there and back, the mountains of time you have given over to sitting in airplanes, buses, trains, and cars, the time squandered fighting to overcome the effects of jet lag, the boredom of waiting for your flight to be announced in airports, the deadly tedium of standing around the luggage carousel as you wait for your bag to tumble down the chute, but nothing is more disconcerting to you than the ride in the plane itself, the strange sense of being nowhere that engulfs you each time you step into the cabin, the unreality of being propelled through space at five hundred miles an hour, so far off the ground that you begin to lose a sense of your own reality, as if the fact of your own existence were slowly being drained out of you, but such is the price you pay for leaving home, and as long as you continue to travel, the nowhere that lies between the here of home and the there of somewhere else will continue to be one of the places where you live.


My friend JimZ with whom I've been discussing Auster these days was kind enough to send me this link to an older piece of writing he did for the New Yorker. It is beautiful and offers a glimpse into his effortless style of storytelling:
https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/19...


Το βιβλίο κυκλοφορεί και στα Ελληνικά: https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/2...

[Elyse Walters · Rating 5 out of 5]

Audiobook...read by Paul Auster!

Publisher’s Summary:
“That is where the story begins, in your body, and everything will end in the body as well”.

“Facing his 63rd winter, internationally acclaimed novelist Paul Auster sits down to write a history of his body and its sensations - both pleasurable as painful. Thirty years after the publication of
“The Invention of Solitude”, in which he wrote so movingly about fatherhood, Auster gives us a second unconventional memoir in which he writes about his mother’s life and death. ‘Winter Journal’ is a highly personal meditation on the body, time, and memory, by one of our most intellectually elegant writers”.

“Winter Journal” is heartfelt and affecting. Paul Auster is
unguarded, vulnerable, charming, sensitive and sweet.
His writing is insightful, sad, fascinating, and creatively crafted- written in second and third person: unusual for a memoir....and it worked wonderfully.

Personally - I think this book is best for older readers.
It was perfect for my age -67- and my stage of life.
If I were only 20 years of age, I don’t think I would have appreciated it as much.

It was a little mind boggling to read about how many places Auster lived - from New York, to Berkeley ( on Durrant Avenue near the University campus on a street that I once lived myself) - back to New York - Vermont- back to New York.....etc etc.
when he describes the many places he lived...its
21 permanent homes— and then there was the traveling — almost every continent in this world.
Most touching was everything Auster had to share about his mother - her living and dying.
I began to feel pretty close to Paul Auster - like he was a genuine friend.

The last time I listen to Paul Auster read one of his books it was to “4321”....(over 39 hours long)> it was a love affair listening to him for those many hours. .. I loved the experience.
This is much shorter .... but much more personal!

If you like Paul Auster already - (or maybe you’ve never read him at all), either way, chances are you’ll be surprised at how irresistible this book is.
A huge surprise for me...kinda a sensory feast!
And one of the best memoirs ever!

Following Auster’s story is a great way to reflect about our own lives too - parents - our relationships- marriage - marriages - divorce- siblings - children - cousins - growing up- childhood memories - teenage hormones -love - sex - sickness - grandparents- school years - accomplishments - reading - writing - success and failure-money and close friends.
It’s ALL THERE!
Refreshing aging perspectives.....physically, mentally, emotionally, and spiritually.

I loved it!!!
And..... I seriously recommend this book ( audiobook is great), to the right people.

[JimZ · Rating 5 out of 5]

I gave ‘Invisible’ 3.5 stars and ‘Sunset Park’ 3 stars, and I thought Paul Auster was good, but ehhhhhh…(I wasn’t waxing poetic about him). And some of my GR friends were patient with me, and I tried to be patient with them (why are they so enamored with this fellow?) and then I read this book by him that was recommended by a GR friend of mine and I read it in one day—two sittings—and I could not put it down during the second sitting. I think I read over 150 pages at the second sitting…kept on wanting to quit because I thought I had other things to do, but I could not put it down. It was one of those books. Books that you thank God for, and one of those books of ‘this is why I read’.

Crazy-good memoir.

This was really a memoir of Paul Auster warts and all. He was not perfect…those around him were not perfect. Some were better than others.

I identified with him a lot of times. The worrisome thoughts that have gone through his head (e.g., ruminating about death)…the fits and starts of being what one eventually became in one’s career.

Near the end of the memoir he had several reminisces on foodstuffs of the 1960s that I instantly recognized…yes, I ate Quaker Oats Puffed Rice. I remember Chuckles candy…with orange, red, black, green, and yellow-colored semi-soft gelatinous candy. Ju-ju-bees. Eskimo pies. Campbell’s Tomato Soup for lunch.

He has a bad memory he can’t shake of being at a funeral and a relative doing a really nasty thing to someone who was paying his respects, and he rues the day because he did not stand up to the relative like he knows he should have. I have memories when I wish I had acted a certain way and I didn’t, or I acted a certain way and I wished to God I hadn’t, and I can’t shake those memories. I guess I felt a bit alone (I’m bad and nobody else is as bad as me) and this memoir made me realize that I guess other people…well, that stuff happens to them too.

And the near-scrapes with death he had throughout his life…the maladies he was afflicted with. Illnesses. Again, I could relate…I could understand. And in a way, who couldn’t? He was Everyman – Everywoman. I have a suspicion a lot of people who read this memoir could identify with some of the things he went through…some of the things he thinks about.

Wonderful writing. A clever and at times hypnotic way of writing…where he would flit from one incident to another…not always in a linear fashion through time. Some sentences were really really long and some were normal, and I could whiz through the book in one day because it was so well-written. Geez. You need to read this if you haven’t!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Paul Auster had a piece in The New Yorker in 1995 that had this style of writing. It was very readable and very engrossing [Why Write: https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/19...] So imagine a whole book written like that. That is what this book is/was.

Reviews (OMG, nobody liked this memoir!!!! 😲 😧 They all need to shut their pie-holes! 🤨):
• https://www.nytimes.com/2012/09/09/bo...
• https://www.theguardian.com/books/201...
• https://www.npr.org/2012/08/21/158788...
• https://www.latimes.com/entertainment...

[Haytham ⚜️ · Rating 3 out of 5]

"تظن أنك في مأمن من هذه الأحداث، وأنها لن تنالك، وأنك الشخص الوحيد في هذا العالم الذي هو بمنأى عنها. لكن لا بد أن يحين وقت خيبة الظن فتراها تصيبك، كالآخرين تماماً".

[Nikos Tsentemeidis · Rating 5 out of 5]

Μία ιδιόμορφη αυτοβιογραφία σε δεύτερο πρόσωπο και χρόνο παρατατικό. Ως προς το περιεχόμενο του, έως βαθιά ανθρώπινο και συγκινητικό σε μερικά σημεία.

[Mohamed Shady · Rating 5 out of 5]

صدق مخيف، وهو الصدق الذي لم أتعود عليه بعد حتى بعد قراءتي لسيرته الأخرى "اختراع العزلة"
ما زال "بول أوستر" أحد كتابي المفضلين، والكاتب الأمريكي الوحيد الذي استطاع أن يأسرني بكتابته.

[ZaRi]

به ندرت به جای زخم‌ها فکر می‌کنی، اما هروقت به یادشان می‌افتی، می‌دانی که علامت‌های زندگی‌اند،‌که خطوط مختلف و ناهمواری که بر چهره‌ات حک شده‌اند، نامه‌هایی از الفبایی نهان‌اند که داستان هویتت را باز می‌گویند، زیر هر جای زخم یادبود زخمی است که التیام یافته، و هر زخم بر اثر برخوردی نامنتظر با جهان ایجاد شده - یعنی یک تصادف یا چیزی که لازم نبوده اتفاق بیفتد، زیرا تصادف یعنی چیزی که روی دادنش الزامی نیست. واقعیت‌های تصادفی با واقعیت‌های واجب در تضادند، و امروز صبح که به آینه نگاه می‌کنی پی می‌بری سراسر زندگی چیزی به جز تصادف نیست و تنها یک واقعیت، محرز است، این که دیر یا زود به پایان خواهد رسید.

[Mohamed Bayomi · Rating 4 out of 5]

انها ليست سيرة كاتب ، انما سيرة رجل عادي ، وهذا اجمل ما فيها ، رجل اراد ان يتحدث مع نفسه و يستعرض معها صور رحلة العمر ، ليس لايجاد معنى ، لكن ربما للرثاء او العزاء بما ان الرحلة اوشكت على الانتهاء وليس هناك امل في ربيع اخر

»نهاية الحياة مريرة «

الصور غير مرتبة لكنها مثل حديث لا يتبع اطار زمني محدد كلما اخذنا الحديث انبثقت الصور لكنها في النهاية تشكل وحدة ، هكذا تعمل الذاكرة ليست متوالية لكنها عشوائية وانتقاءية وقادرة على مفاجأتك ، و لكنها ايضا في صورتها النهائية تمثل وحدة واحدة ، هي انت

»ربما أعظم إنجاز يقوم به الإنسان هو أن يستحق الحب لا أن يستعطيه في النهاية «

[Nada Elshabrawy · Rating 5 out of 5]

من أجمل و أصدق و أمتع السير الذاتية اللي قرأتها في حياتي, لم أتعرف على بول أوستر الروائي بعد و لكني حتماً بعد السيرة العظيمة دي هبدأ أعتبره من كُتابي المفضلين :)

يُنصح بها .

[Semjon · Rating 5 out of 5]

Mein erstes Buch von Paul Auster und dann eigentlich etwas Untypisches für ihn. Nonfiction. Die Geschichte seines Lebens bis zum 64. Lebensjahr, dem Jahr, welches für ihn das Ende des Herbst seines Lebens darstellt und der Beginn seines Winterjournals darstellt. Das letzte Quartal des Lebens.

Es ist bestimmt eine der außergewöhnlichsten Autobiografien, die ich je gelesen habe. Das liegt nicht an der Fülle der interessanten Erlebnisse, die Auster zu berichten hat, sondern an der Wahl der Perspektive. Die Geschichte wird von einer dritten Person erzählt, die namenlos bleibt. Das klingt wie eine Laudatio, wie ein Rückblick des Pfarrers bei der Beerdigung oder wie die Litanei der eigenen Mutter, die Geschichten von früher erzählt, als man noch ein Kind war. Mich hat sowohl Sprache als auch Stil sehr angesprochen und ich habe das Buch regelrecht verschlungen. Seine Ansichten zur Endlichkeit des Daseins decken sich auch sehr mit meinen eigenen Vorstellungen, doch ich habe das noch nie so treffend formuliert gelesen.

Dieses Buch macht richtig Lust auf die Romane von Paul Auster. Sehr zu empfehlen, insbesondere wenn man im Herbst des Lebens steht. Oder ist es doch schon der Winter? Wer weiß das schon...

[Iloveplacebo · Rating 5 out of 5]

4'5 / 5

Este autor solo me da alegrías.

En este caso es un libro autobiográfico, en donde nos habla de su niñez, juventud, adultez y madurez.
Nos habla de su primer matrimonio, y del segundo también. De su hijo y de su hija. De su padre, de su madre, de la familia de su mujer.
Nos habla de sus viajes a Francia, en donde vivió temporadas.
Nos habla de todos los lugares (casas) en donde ha vivido, que creo recordar han sido más de 15.
Nos habla de sus primeras experiencias sexuales, incluyendo su primera vez con una prostituta.
También habla un poco -muy poco- de sus ideas políticas, del aborto, de su amor por la literatura, de la muerte.

Pero creo que sobre todo habla de la vejez.


El estilo del autor me encanta. He leído dos novelas de él, y las dos me gustaron mucho. Es un autor con su propio estilo, su propia forma de narrar; hace que te enganches de una manera inesperada, y es que, en mi opinión, cuando lees las sinopsis de sus libros, no tienes las ganas de coger uno y ponerte a leerlo (como pasa con muchos otros libros o autores), pero en cuanto te pones, ya no puedes parar.

Lo curioso de esta autobiografía es que está narrada en segunda persona. Creo que gracias a ello me he podido sentir más cercana al autor, me he podido identificar con algunas de sus vivencias o de sus pensamientos, e incluso me he sentido protagonista de esta aventura; y eso que nuestras vidas poco o nada se parecen.

Es la primera vez -que recuerde- que leo a un narrador en segunda persona, y aunque al principio me ha chocado, tengo que admitir que ha sido una experiencia muy buena.


Paul Auster es un autor al que espero volver pronto.

[amapola · Rating 4 out of 5]

Il tempo e la vita, il ricordo e la memoria

Per il mio primo (e a tutt’oggi unico) incontro con Paul Auster ho scelto questo libro: non so perché, credo per la copertina con quella bella foto in bianco e nero. La fortuna mi ha aiutata perché è stato un incontro felice.
Diario d'inverno non è un’autobiografia, non è un bilancio fatto alle soglie della vecchiaia. È piuttosto un tentativo di presa di consapevolezza di sé, del sé attuale, partendo dall’osservazione del corpo, della fisicità, per sviluppare riflessioni sulla vita (passata, presente e futura) e sul tempo.
Interessante e affascinante il percorso (assolutamente non cronologico) che Auster segue per arrivare a questa presa di coscienza: le cicatrici, i cibi ingurgitati, le case in cui ha vissuto (perfino i verbali delle riunioni di condominio), le malattie, le donne, l’amore per la seconda moglie, la morte della madre… vicende piccole e grandi che accadono a tutti noi, che ci segnano e ci portano ad essere quello che siamo ora.
Il corpo è “il luogo in cui la storia comincia, e quello in cui finirà tutto”. Sul corpo portiamo i segni del passato, segni riconducibili a episodi precisi, che Auster racconta con onestà, senza nascondere nulla, senza mai vergognarsi della realtà. Ma il corpo porta anche segni che non riconosciamo, come quella piccola cicatrice sul mento, di origine ignota; il corpo “è sede di fatti che sono stati espunti dalla storia”.

Un'altra cicatrice sul mento, di origine ignota. Molto probabilmente un capitombolo della prima infanzia, una brutta caduta su un marciapiede o un sasso che ti aprì la carne e lasciò il segno, e si vede ancora quando ti fai la barba la mattina. Questa cicatrice non è accompagnata da nessun racconto, tua madre non te ne ha mai parlato (almeno che tu ricordi) e ti sembra strano, per non dire sconcertante, che questa linea perenne ti sia stata incisa sul mento da quella che può essere chiamata solo una mano invisibile, che il tuo corpo sia sede di fatti che sono stati espunti dalla storia.

https://youtu.be/DXr3CCQPxJY

[Uroš Đurković · Rating 4 out of 5]

Malo da provirim i knjiga me ščepa. Ščepa i ne pušta. Ostera se sećam iz Njujorške trilogije, a nedavno sam naleteo na intervju koji je dao Nedi Valčić Lazović. Znam da mnogi ljudi čiji ukus izuzetno cenim imaju otklon prema Osteru, što samo donekle razumem. "Zimski dnevnik" je vešto napisana memoarska, autofikcionalna povest u drugom licu. Suočavajući se sa raznim licima smrti, Oster razvija topografiju tela kao mape sećanja. Telo je neizbežno, a neko ko zna da čita oznake na telu, može doći do hronike koja je autentičnija od bilo kakvog dokumenta.

Dogodila se i neobična slučajnost, koja nije radosna. Juče sam gledao Hanekeov "Amour". Divan, beskajno potresan film. Jednu od dve glavne uloge glumi Žan-Luj Trentinjan i o njemu piše Oster, pominjući i kako mu je ćerka ubijena. Knjiga je izašla pre filma i neposredne veze ne postoje, ali zanimljivo je kako okolnosti spajaju utiske.

A zanimljivo je, takođe, kako specifični znaju da budu brakovi između pisaca. Oster je bio sa Lidijom Dejvis i sa Siri Hustvet. Ni jednu ni drugu ne imenuje, ali je potpuno jasno o kome se radi. To je neudobno, ali kad pišete, kao da potpisujete sporazum ugrožavanja privatnosti. Neka.

[Ahmed Jaber · Rating 5 out of 5]

في انتظاري لكتاب اختراع العزلة لبول أوستر، وجدت أنه يمكن استغلال هذا الوقت لقراءة أعمال أخرى غيره، شدّني غلاف حكاية الشتاء فبدأت به رحلتي الأولى مع الكاتب الأمريكي.

في هذا الكتاب يتحدث بول أوستر مع بول أوستر آخر، يتحدث مع نفسه بصيغة المخاطب، وقد اعتدنا أنه إذا أراد أحد ما كتابة شيء عن نفسه فإنه يستخدم صيغة المتكلم. يتراءى للقارئ أن بول أوستر الكاتب أو المتحدث يقف أمام المرآة مخاطباً انعكاس صورته، أو نسخة أخرى منه تقف بجانبه، فيخبره بماضيه وذكرياته حتى وصوله إلى هذه اللحظة.

عندما بدأت بالكتاب لم أكن أعرف أنه سيرة ذاتية لبول أوستر، صحيح أنه مكتوب على الغلاف لكنّ اللون الأصفر لم يكن واضحاً لي. في الصفحة السادسة يقول: بعد شهر سوف تبلغ 64، هنا تخيلت أنه يقرص مخيلة عجوز قارئ له، أو يحضّر القراء الشباب لذلك العمر الكبير. وبعد ذلك تبيّن لي أن الكتاب سيرة بول أوستر البالغ عند كتابة الكتاب الرابعة والستين من العمر.

في حكاية الشتاء، لا نجد ترتيباً في ذكريات بول أوستر، فنراه يقفز من زمن إلى آخر، ومن مكان إلى آخر، ومن شخص إلى غيره. يقف على أطلال الجسد فيرى ذكرياته، فكل ندبة في جسده هي قصة، وكل كسر كذلك، وكل عضو له حكاية أيضاً، لتتعجب كيف عاش بعد كل هذه الجروح الجسدية، والتي في كثير منها هنالك اسقاطات نفسية.

بول أوستر المولود في 1947، يقف شاخصاً أمام بعض الأحداث التي بنى عليها تواريخ مهمة، فمثلاً نجده يقول بعد سنتين من الحادث، وبعد كذا سنة من وفاة أمي، وهكذا دواليك.

يتحدث لنا عن تأثير المكان، فقد غيّر سكنه أكثر من عشرين مرة، ولكل مكان قصة، ولكل قصة مغزى وتأثير على الشخصية. يحكي لنا عن علاقته مع والده ووالدته، وعلاقتهما مع بعضهما، وكيف تغيرت أمه بعد زواجه مرة ثانية، ثم يسرد لنا زواجه الأول التعيس والثاني الرغيد والذي ما يزال مستمراً حتى اللحظة.

الصفحة 71 حملت بين أسطرها جملة تستحق أن نفتخر بها: "تبادلت الآراء مع مرشدك إدوارد سعيد"، نكتشف أن المفكر الفلسطيني إدوارد سعيد هو مرشد بول أوستر الكاتب الأمريكي اليهودي في رسالة الماجستير.

من الكتاب:


«كلما تصل إلى مفترق طريق ينهار جسدك، لأن جسدك طالما علم ما يجهله عقلك، وبغض النظر عن الطريقة التي يختارها للانهيار، سواء أكانت كثرة الوحيدات أم التهاب المعدة أم نوبات الذعر، فإن جسدك هو الذي يتحمل دائماً العبء الأكبر من مخاوفك ومعاركك الداخلية، متلقياً الضربات التي لا يقوى أو لن يقوى عقلك على مواجهتها»

«جسدك في غرف صغيرة وفي غرف كبيرة، جسدك وهو يصعد وينزل السلالم، جسدك وهو يسبح في برك، وبحيرات، وأنهار ومحيطات، جسدك وهو يتمشى عبر الحقول الموحلة، جسدك مضطجعًا في العشب الطويل للمروج الخاوية، جسدك ماشيًا على امتداد شوارع المدينة، جسدك وهو يرتقي الهضاب والجبال، جسدك وهو يجلس في مقاعد، ويستلقي فوق الأسرة، ويتمدد فوق الشواطئ، ويقود دراجة هوائية في الطرقات الريفية، وهو يمشي عبر الغابات، والمراعي، والصحاري، راكضًا فوق آثار الرماد، قافزًا فوق خشب الأرضيات الصلب، واقفًا تحت مرش الماء، وداخلاً في أحواض الاستحمام الدافئة، جالسًا على مقاعد الحمامات، منتظرًا في المطارات ومحطات القطارات، صاعدًا في المصاعد ونازلًا منها، متشنجًا في مقاعد السيارات والحافلات، ماشيًا عبر عواصف ماطرة بلا مظلة، جالسًا في غرف الدراسة، متصفحًا في المكتبات ومحلات الاسطوانات التي اندثرت، جالسًا في قاعات، ومسارح سينما، وقاعات عروض موسيقية، راقصًا مع فتيات في الصالات الرياضية التابعة للمدارس، مجدفًا في قوارب في الأنهار، متناولًا الطعام فوق طاولات المطابخ، متناولًا الطعام على طاولات غرف الطعام، وفي المطاعم، متسوقًا في المتاجر متعددة الأقسام، ومتاجر الأجهزة، ومتاجر الأثاث، ومتاجر الأحذية، والبقالات، ومتاجر الألبسة، واقفًا في الطابور للحصول على جوازات سفر ورخص قيادة، مائلًا إلى الوراء في مقاعد وقدماك مرفوعتان فوق المناضد والطاولات وأنت تكتب في كراسات، منحنيًا فوق آلة كاتبة، ماشيًا خلال عواصف ثلجية دون قبعة، داخلًا إلى كنس وكنائس، مرتديًا وخالعًا ملابسك في غرف النوم، وغرف الفنادق، وغرف الملابس، واقفًا فوق السلالم المتحركة، مضطجعًا فوق أسرة المستشفيات، جالسًا فوق طاولات الفحص الخاصة بالأطباء، جالسًا في مقاعد الحلاقين ومقاعد أطباء الأسنان، متشقلبًا فوق العشب، واقفًا فوق رأسك على العشب، قافزًا في برك السباحة، ماشيًا ببطء في المتاحف، مدحرجًا كرات السلة في الملاعب، قاذفًا بكرات البيسبول والفوتبول في الحدائق العامة، شاعرًا بالأحاسيس المختلفة للمشي فوق الأرضيات الخشبية، والأسمنتية، والمبلطة، والحجرية، الأحاسيس المختلفة لوضع قدميك فوق الرمل والتراب والعشب، ولكن أكثر من ذلك كله الأحساس بالأرصفة، إذ هكذا ترى نفسك كلما توقفت لتفكر حول من تكون: رجل يمشي، رجل أمضى حياته ماشيًا في شوارع المدن»

«لم تكن قد تعلّمت أن تجاهل ما يقوله عنك الآخرون هو أمر مفيد لصحتك الذهنية بصفتك كاتباً»

«ليس بمقدورك التنبؤ بما سيحدث عندما يحين اليوم الذي تزحف فيه إلىا لفراش لآخر مرة، ولكن إذا لم تؤخذ على حين غرة كما حدث لوالديك فأنت ترغب في أنك تستحق الحب، هذا إذا استطعت.»

« الكتابة تبدأ في الجسد،‮ ‬هي موسيقي الجسد؛ حتي وإن كان للكلمات معني،‮ ‬وإن كان لديها معني في بعض الأحيان فإن موسيقا الكلمات تكون حيثما تبدأ المعاني‮. ‬تجلس إلي مكتبك كي تدوّن الكلمات،‮ ‬ولكن في ذهنك أنت لا تزال تمشي،‮ ‬دائماً‮ ‬تمشي،‮ ‬وما تسمعه هو إيقاع قلبك،‮ ‬خفقان قلبك‮. ‬يقول‮ "‬ماندلستام‮": "‬أتساءل عن عدد الصنادل التي انتعلها‮ "‬دانتي‮" ‬وبليت فيما كان‮ ‬يكتب‮ "‬الكوميديا الإلهية‮". ‬الكتابة شكل من أشكال الرقص،‮ ‬لكنه أدني مرتبة منه‮»

وفي نهاية كتابه:

«قدماك الحافيتان على الأرضية الباردة فيما أنت تنزل من السرير وتتجه إلى النافذة. أنت في الرابعة والستين. في الخارج الهواء رمادي. أبيض تقريباً ولا شمس في مجال النظر. تسأل نفسك: كم صباحاً تبقّى من عمرك؟ أغلقَ باب وفتح باب آخر. أصبحت في شتاء العمر.»

[Rebecca · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is one of the most remarkable memoirs I’ve ever read. Approaching age 64 and the winter of his life, Auster decided to assemble his most visceral memories. Here he parades them past in a seemingly random order yet manages to give a sense of the sweep of his life. The use of the second person draws readers in to (re-)experience things along with the author, while also creating an artistic distance between the subject and his reminiscences. Auster describes his aim thus:

Time is running out, after all. Perhaps it is just as well to put aside your stories for now and try to examine what it has felt like to live inside this body from the first day you can remember being alive until this one. A catalogue of sensory data. What one might call a phenomenology of breathing.

His life reappears through scars, through accidents and near-misses, through what his hands felt and his eyes observed. A three-year-old rips his cheek open on a protruding nail in a department store. A teenager slowly builds up a portfolio of sexual experiences. A young man lives and works in Paris and the South of France. A marriage to one fellow author (Lydia Davis) ends and a relationship with another (Siri Hustvedt) begins. A fiftysomething rushing to get home to the toilet makes an ill-advised turn against traffic and totals his car – luckily he and his family escape unhurt. Numbness after his mother’s death cedes to a panic attack.

I particularly enjoyed the 53-page section in which Auster gives tours through the 21 places he’s lived since infancy, recounting the details he remembers of the dwellings and what happened during his time there. It’s impressive how much he can condense, but also how much he can convey in just a few pages on each home. This is the sort of format I could imagine borrowing for a short autobiographical piece – it would be a way of redeeming that involuntarily nomadic period when my husband and I moved every six to 18 months.

Reading this alongside the New York Trilogy allowed me to spot the ways, big and small, in which those novels draw on Auster’s life story. I’m now keen to read more of his autobiographical nonfiction, including The Invention of Solitude, which offended some of his relatives by revealing the shameful family story of how his grandmother shot and killed his grandfather in their kitchen.

Some favorite lines:

“as long as you continue to travel, the nowhere that lies between the here of home and the there of somewhere else will continue to be one of the places where you live.”

“Whatever can be told must be pulled from the inside, from your insides, the accumulation of memories and perceptions you continue to carry around in your body”

“We are all aliens to ourselves, and if we have any sense of who we are, it is only because we live inside the eyes of others.”

“you can only conclude that every life is marked by a number of close calls, that everyone who manages to reach the age you have come to now has already wriggled out of a number of potentially absurd, nonsensical deaths. All in the course of what you would call ordinary life.”


Readalikes:
I Am, I Am, I Am by Maggie O’Farrell
The Lost Properties of Love by Sophie Ratcliffe

[piperitapitta · Rating 4 out of 5]

Inventar(iar)si

Sei uno scrittore di successo, hai sessantaquattro anni, la tua vita ormai scivola dolcemente come una barca a remi nelle acque tranquille e prive di onde di un lago del Vermont.
Poi un giorno inizi a guardarti indietro, a voltare la testa, e decidi d'un tratto di mettere un po' di ordine tra le tue cose, di catalogare, chissà perché, la tua esistenza.
«Vivere per raccontarla», disse e scrisse Gabriel Garcia Marquez nella sua autobiografia, e tu sei indubbiamente uno che può raccontare al mondo e dire che ha vissuto.
E così inizi a raccontare, inventariare, catalogare, riporre i tuoi ricordi divisi per argomenti, ad attaccare a ciascuno di loro un'etichetta: alle scuole che hai frequentato, alle case che hai abitato, alle persone che hai amato, a quelle che hai dovuto lasciare, a quelle che ti hanno lasciato, a quelle con le quali ti sei scontrato, a quelle che ti hanno vinto e a quelle che si sono lasciate vincere.
È un lavoro da certosino, il tuo, a tratti persino un po' noioso, ma lo fai con pazienza e dedizione, perché è la tua vita, perché vuoi lasciare tutto in ordine.
«Col corpo capisco», scriveva altrove David Grossman, e anche tu lo sai e capisci, tu che cataloghi sensazione dopo sensazione, che ripercorri la scoperta dei tuoi sensi di adolescente, le tue palpitazioni improvvise e incontrollabili di adulto, le tue paure di uomo che si prepara ad aprire la porta per entrare in quella che sarà, lo sai bene e la temi, l'ultima delle tue stagioni su questa terra: l'inverno.
Ma non è solo un diario d'inverno il tuo, non ancora, e nonostante si respirino e siano palpabili la malinconia, il rimpianto, la paura dell'oblio, c'è ancora troppa vita in te, troppo desiderio di continuare a vivere l'amore, l'emozione, l'incanto, per lasciarsi andare al consuntivo finale.
Piuttosto, credimi, il tuo è ancora un catalogo per quattro stagioni, l'ultima delle quali è ancora tutta da scrivere, e da vivere, e il momento per tirare i remi in barca non è ancora giunto, dammi retta, anche se l'odore della depressione arriva persino fino a me, attraversando l'oceano.
Dammi retta, combatti, e solo alla fine, quando volterai l'ultima pagina, potrai dire, con le stesse parole che Romain Gary usò per concludere la sua splendida autobiografia, «Ho vissuto»; o invece, come suggerisci, prendere in prestito le splendide parole del filosofo francese Joseph Joubert e dire che «Si deve morire amabili (se si può)», se potrai.

[George Georgiadis · Rating 5 out of 5]

Όλα τα θέματα που απασχολούν τον Auster και αποτυπώνονται στα βιβλία του, όλα τα μοτίβα, οι προβληματισμοί και οι στοχασμοί που διατρέχουν το έργο του, όπως η θνητότητα, η φθορά του σώματος, το πέρασμα του χρόνου, η αναζήτηση του πραγματικού εαυτού, η τυχαιότητα που καθορίζει τις ζωές μας, όλα βρίσκονται και εδώ, σε αυτό το αυτοβιογραφικό κείμενο. Δε θα μπορούσε άλλωστε να γίνει διαφορετικά.

[Nood-Lesse · Rating 3 out of 5]

La fine della vita è amara (Joseph Joubert, 1814)

Bisognerà che mi documenti meglio sulle letture che scelgo, dopo Carrere sono incappato in un altro libro che non ha certo i crismi del romanzo. Se leggendo Carrere ciò è usuale, lo è assai di meno leggendo Auster. Ho beccato il libro buono per gli appassionati dell’autore, il protagonista del diario d’inverno infatti è lui, Paul Benjamin Auster nato a Newark il 3 febbraio 1947. Se non sbaglio questo è il terzo diario (forse sarebbe più corretto scrivere sorta di autobiografia) che leggo. Lo avevano preceduto On writing di King e Tra loro di Ford, cercherò di fare in modo che nessun altro lo segua, se non forse in un giorno lontano, Pedigree di Georges Simenon. Oscar Wilde in uno dei suoi magnifici epigrammi scriveva “Quando viaggio mi piace avere qualcosa di interessante da leggere, per questo porto sempre con me il mio diario”. Ecco, un diario può giusto appassionare chi lo scrive, difficilmente chi lo legge. Non crediate che lo smaliziato Paul inizi le pagine con il luogo e la data, però lo schema è pur sempre quello, ricordare dall’alba al tramonto, dalla primavera all’inverno con inevitabili ripetizioni e con una serie di liste troppo dettagliate di oggetti, luoghi, persone, azioni che ogni volta sembrano interrompersi e invece riprendono come un fuoco dopo un refolo di vento. Quello che sta bruciando è il passato di Auster, lui con questo libro cerca di metterlo in salvo, tempo venti anni e ne rimarrà comunque solo cenere. Vi è tutta una parte del libro dove il mago Auster descrive le ventuno case in cui ha abitato durante la sua vita. Confesso di aver saltato le prime descrizioni, poi dato che proseguivano ho preso a leggerle. Ma quante case ha cambiato? Parigi, Frisco, ma soprattutto New York a zonzo per i boroughs. Non lascia indifferenti, specie dopo aver visto lo Skyline con quei due buchi, questo passo:

..hai dimenticato gli spostamenti fra Brooklyn e Manhattan, trentuno anni di viaggi all’interno della tua città dopo il trasferimento in Kings County del 1980, una media di due o tre volte alla settimana..
..è il viaggio che in vita tua hai compiuto più spesso di ogni altro, e nemmeno una volta hai trascurato di ammirare l’architettura del ponte, il misto strano ma così appagante di vecchio e nuovo che distingue questo ponte da tutti gli altri, la pietra spessa delle arcate gotiche medievali in contrasto ma insieme in armonia con le delicate ragnatele di cavi d’acciaio, un tempo era la struttura fabbricata dall’uomo più alta dell’America del Nord, e prima che New York fosse visitata dagli assassini suicidi il passaggio che preferivi era quello da Brooklyn a Manhattan, pregustavi il momento in cui ti saresti trovato nel punto giusto per vedere simultaneamente la Statua della Libertà nel porto alla tua sinistra e il profilo della città che si disegnava davanti a te, gli edifici immensi che sarebbero balzati in vista di colpo, e tra loro naturalmente le Torri, le torri non belle che però a poco a poco erano diventate una parte familiare del paesaggio, e anche se avvicinandoti a Manhattan il profilo della città ti fa ancora spalancare gli occhi, adesso che le Torri non ci sono più non puoi attraversare il ponte senza pensare ai morti, alla vista delle Torri che bruciavano dalla finestra della camera di tua figlia all’ultimo piano di casa tua, al fumo, e alla cenere che dopo l’attacco cadde per tre giorni sulle vie del tuo quartiere..



Il finale del libro, con la sua semplicità, mi ha toccato.

[Leonardo Di Giorgio · Rating 5 out of 5]

Avete presente quei libri che vi spogliano? Quei libri che vi rivelano verità scomode sul vostro essere vivi? Quei libri che proprio per questo vi fanno sentire vivi?

👁️ Ce ne sono pochi di libri così, veramente pochi. Diario d’inverno è uno di questi. Un libro crudo, un inno al corpo, un libro che, con l'utilizzo della seconda persona e con periodi avvolgentemente lunghi, prende il tuo sguardo e ti obbliga a guardarti la pelle scarnificata della tua vita.

❄️ E pensare che all’inizio neanche mi stava convincendo; trovavo che lo stile "romanzesco" e il racconto di sè non si coniugassero così bene. Inoltre dopo aver letto Knausgard è difficile trovare un’autobiografia che sia all’altezza (e, mi dispiace Paul, neanche questo libro ci arriva). Se dovessi trovargli un difetto è la presenza di alcuni frammenti un pò ridondanti e noiosi verso l'inizio del testo (sopratutto quelli dove riassume tutti i luoghi in cui ha abitato nel corso della sua vita).

All'inizio, insomma, non mi stava convincendo; poi ha iniziato a spogliarmi, ha iniziato a scavare in ogni parte del mio corpo; lo ha fatto tramite memorie, racconti che spaziano tra presente e passato senza alcun tipo di continuità. Eppure Paul ci riesce a raccontare l'esistere: dà un disegno al caos della sua vita (non è quello che dovrebbe fare la letteratura?) e ridefinisce i contorni di ciò che siamo.

❤️ C’è la scrittura, l’amore, la morte, la natura, e la vita. Sopratutto la vita.

[Jill · Rating 5 out of 5]

The first hint we have of what Paul Auster has in store for us is the title itself: Winter Journal, not Winter Memoir. Memoirs – the best of them – are not personal narratives, but rather plot lines or themes that bind moments together. Journals – or diaries – are far more intimate and, one might say, confessional.

The second hint is the tense that Paul Auster uses: second person, not first. Throughout the journal, he consistently uses “you”; it is the author having a conversation with his younger self. The effect is mesmerizing and almost voyeuristic: it’s almost as if we, the readers, stumbled into Mr. Auster’s home and overheard some of his deepest fears and secrets.

“We are all aliens to ourselves,” Mr. Auster writes, “And if we have any sense of who we are, it is only because we live inside the eyes of others.” Many moments of his existence come vividly to life. There are poignant moments: the death of Paul Auster’s mother, a time that begins with a numbing and ends in a visceral howl, as “the more you feel your body changing, the less you feel that you are made of flesh and blood.” There are beautiful moments, too: many pages are a love elegy to his wife of 30 years, Siri Hustvedt, an excellent and acclaimed writer in her own right. And there are funny moments: a huge fight with an obstreperous Parisian neighbor, ending only when Paul Auster pulls out a certain psychological trump card.

This is an elegant retelling, a story of a life that has withstood 64 winters, at a time when a person begins to ask, “How much more is left?” It is an inventory of scars – both physical and mental – and an inventory of houses lived in and people encountered. For the lover of Paul Auster’s work – and I certainly am that – there are tantalizing hints throughout about themes and places that show up in his many fictional works: The Brooklyn Follies, Invisible Sunset Park, for example.

Just as Paul Auster focuses on themes of absurdism and existentialism in his work, he now shows how it applies to life…along with the real, the mundane, the poignant. I have always admired Paul Auster as a writer. Through Winter Journal, I now feel as if I know him a little better – as a flawed, imperfect, but quite likeable and introspective man.

[عبدالله ناصر · Rating 4 out of 5]

أوستر يشرب نخب شتائه في هذه المذكرات التي يطفو عليها الحزن والقلق و يحكي فيها عن طفولته وعن جسده والكدمات التي تعرض لها وعن المشاجرات التي خاضها وعن القبلة الأولى وعن فقدانه عذريته ورحلاته في الولايات المتحدة وسنواته في فرنسا وحياته الأدبية الأولى كشاعر وعن المساكن والبيوت التي تنقّل بينها طوال حياته وعن الفتيات اللاتي عشقهن وعن زواجه الأول الفاشل وعن والدته. هنا حياة كبيرة جداً تحكى بطريقة رائعة جداً.

[Andrew Smith · Rating 4 out of 5]

You have entered the winter of your life. So ends this collection of reflections on the life of this superb writer, now in his mid 60's. He's put together a number of pieces - some very short, no more that a few paragraphs, and others running to a few pages - reflecting on various thoughts and happenings through his life. You don't have to be an Auster aficionado to enjoy this book, but it does help. Some, for me, were very powerful, none more so than the long(ish) and excruciating account of his reaction to the death of his mother. There is a lot of death here but for all that it's not a difficult read as it is well balanced by other lighter and more humorous pieces. Personally, I loved it.

[محمد خالد شريف · Rating 3 out of 5]

"دائماً ضائع، تتخبط في الإتجاه المُعاكس؛ دائماً تدور في دوائر. دائماً تعجز عن التكيف مع الإتجاهات المكانية."

لدي صديق دائماً ما يُخبرني أنه يفوتني الكثير لأني لم أقرأ لبول أوستر حتى الآن.. وكان ذلك بسبب أنه لا توجد فرصة مُناسبة.. دائماً أول ما أسمع إسمه أتذكر روايته الضخمة 1234 وأتراجع بسرعة.. يبدو أن هذا الكاتب حُفرة سيجذبك فيها.. فأبتعد.

وجاءت هذه السيرة صدفة في أقدار قراءاتي بدون حُسبان، وخارج الترتيبات.. فاجئتني هذه السيرة اللطيفة والجميلة والصادمة.. بول أوستر لا يحكي لك سيرته، لا هو يحكي سيرته لنفسه.. يُهاجم نفسه ويُشرح تفكيره وتقلبات حياته.. أحياناً تجده يتحدث عن طفولته وفجاة عن شيخوخته والأمراض المُصاحبة وفجأة تجد نفسك في أيام المراهقة والبحث الدؤوب عن الملذات.

ولكن أم لم تُكتب السيرة الذاتية بصدق وعاطفة.. فكيف تكتب؟

تستطيع أن ترى كم المشاعر في الحروف، تقلبات الحُزن والفرح.. الخوف والشجاعة، الهزيمة والفوز.. بكلمات عذبة بسيطة تصل الفكرة.
ولكن، وبدون أي داع للإنكار كان هُناك العديد من الأجزاء الغارق في الملل.. وبالأخص ذلك الجزء الخاص بالأماكن التي سكن بها أوستر.. أعلم الفكرة جيداً التي يُحاول أن يطرحها من خلال فكرة الأماكن.. أن كل مكان له خصوصيته، كُل مكان تستطيع أن تتذكره بذكرى ما، رُبما حزينة رُبما مُبهجة.. ولكن في تلك الجزئية شعرت بشعورين مُتناقضين ولا أعرف كيف.. أنني مُستمتع حد النشوة، ومللت حد نفاذ الصبر!

ختاماً..
لمُحبي السير الذاتية، هذه هي وجهتكم.

[Lauren · Rating 5 out of 5]

// Remembering Paul Auster //

"You can't see yourself. You know what you look like because of mirrors and photographs...but your own face is invisible to you... we are all aliens to ourselves, and if we have any sense of who we are, it is only because we live inside the eyes of others."

Remarkable journal / memoir composed in Auster's 64th winter. He traces the physical body of scars and injuries from childhood sports to debilitating panic attacks, his years living in Paris and Provence. He tells of his family, a biography in pieces of his mother and father. A highlight for me was the passage and trail of each of his habitations since birth, from the New Jersey hospital he was born in, to his college dorm, to each apartment with lovers and friends, to his homes in the city and the mountains.

A blissful meandering journey through the decades, this was a joy to read, and now one of my favorites in this memoir / biography space.

Having read only one of his novels (Oracle Night), I am eager to read more Auster.

"There is probably no greater human achievement than to be lovable at the end, whether the end is bitter or not... You cannot predict what will happen when the day comes for you to crawl into bed for the last time, but if you are not taken suddenly, as both of your parents were, you want to be lovable."

[Χαρά Ζ. · Rating 4 out of 5]

Το βιβλίο το διάβασα εξαιτίας ενός ανθρώπου που αγαπώ πολύ.
Αγάπησα και το βιβλίο πολύ, και τον Όστερ, τον άνθρωπο Όστερ. Όμορφο το βιβλίο, όμορφο και το μυαλό του Όστερ, υπέροχο. Ευχαριστούμε θείε Πολ, που μας άφησες να σε δούμε ολόκληρο όπως είσαι.
Κι ευχαριστώ και τον άνθρωπο που μου το πρότεινε. Ευχαριστώ πολύ πολύ.

[Matteo Fumagalli · Rating 5 out of 5]

Videorecensione:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=93MNX...

[Matt · Rating 4 out of 5]

Paul Auster is a master of words.

This is a memoir that I read with pleasure, the pleasure caused by everything that is well crafted. The longest sentence in this book has 352 words (yes, I counted them), and it almost sounds like music, like a song you don't want to end. Not all of Paul Auster's works have this virtue, but this one does.

I usually prefer his novels over his non-fictional books:Moon Palace, The New York Trilogy, The Music of Chance, and others just blow me away. The main reason, why this memoir stands out from The Invention of Solitude or The Art of Hunger, to me, is, that it is written as a second person narrative. You can be quite certain there are not many autobiographical books out there that don't have the word "I" in them. Actually there are quite some "I" here, but this word is always used in dialog, by a third person.

The other reason why I love this book is the fact that I am male and roughly the same age as Mr. Auster (granted, I'm 16 years younger, but still), and therefore can relate pretty well. A much younger person would probably not appreciate it that much.

I will not conceal things that I didn't enjoy: The description of the twenty-one(!) apartments he lived in since being born I could have done without. There's too much detail for my taste. For fan(atics), who want to make a Paul Auster sight seeing tour, this is perhaps interesting, for me it is not. Also it became too personal in a few places. Especially when it comes to such intimate things as the death of relatives. Here I would have liked a little more distance. Those things are no flaws of the book, of course, it's just my personal feelings.

I recommend this book to males in their 50s or 60s, and to everyone else, that is if you already know some of his books. If you're new to Paul Auster I'd recommend you start with one of his novels. Just read him!


This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License.

[Joselito Honestly and Brilliantly · Rating 4 out of 5]

Paul Auster, I am almost sure, hasn't read the last book I reviewed here at goodreads: "Mental Efficiency" by Arnold Bennett, despite his boast that he and his wife have thousands of books on their shelves. Having reached the age of 64, and with a seemingly constant intimation of mortality (HIS mortality), Paul Auster steps aside for a while to look at himself and the life he has lived so far. He quotes Joubert: "The end of life is bitter." And then another one by Joubert: "One must die lovable (if one can)." At the last page, he sees himself standing by the window looking out at the grey air with no visible sun and he hears himself asking: "How many mornings are left?"


WINTER JOURNAL. "Winter" being a metaphor for one's last days. There's a big X-mark on the book's cover, a very common symbol for the end, or the cessation of something, the crossing out of what once were. In the second person, singular. Paul Auster, at a distance, addresses himself, looking at Paul Auster when he was a boy, recalling his earliest memory, when he was a young man, an aimless wanderer, a struggling writer, his sexual escapades (several with prostitutes), his first failed marriage, his second one (successful, so far, with a writer as brilliant as he is), his children, his mother who died, one happy day, of a heart attack; his father, who died one happy day too, while having sex with his girlfriend, also of a heart attack. The many he had known who had passed away. The active and athletic body he had in his youth; his present occasional ailments (some of them scary); his brushes with death (including that one with a huge fishbone stuck in his throat, causing him to throw up lots of blood).

Is this a good thing, stopping for a while and thinking about what you've done so far vis-a-vis your inevitable end? I say yes. Especially in the case of Paul Auster who managed to produce a book because of it, a very well-written and enjoyable book which I read with much interest and enthusiasm in a mere two days, most likely a bestseller (especially after this favorable review) and earn him more money for his retirement. More than this, however: Arnold Bennett said in his book "Mental Efficiency" that this is good and he declared this not at 64 but at the much younger age of 40--


"And lo! I, at the age of nearly forty, am putting to myself the old questions concerning the intrinsic value of life, the fundamentally important questions: What have I got out of it? What am I likely to get out of it? In a word, what's it worth? If a man can ask himself a question more momentous, radical, and critical than these questions, I would like to know what it is. Innumerable philosophers have tried to answer these questions in a general way for the average individual, and possibly they have succeeded pretty well. Possibly I might derive benefit from a perusal of their answers. But do you suppose I am going to read them? Not I! Do you suppose that I can recall the wisdom that I happen already to read? Not I! My mind is a perfect blank at this moment in regard to the wisdom of others on the essential question. Strange, is it not? But quite a common experience, I believe. Besides, I don't actually care twopence what any other philosopher has replied to my question. In this, each man must be his own philosopher. There is an instinct in the profound egoism of human nature which prevents us from accepting such ready-made answers. What is it to us what Plato thought? Nothing. And thus the question remains ever new, and ever unanswered, and ever of dramatic interest. The singular, the highly singular thing is--and here I arrive at my point--that so few people put the question to themselves in time, that so many put it too late, or even die without putting it."


Arnold Bennett's approval of Paul Auster would stop there, however. The former was not the type of person who would stare out the window and ask how many days he has left, project himself towards his end and pronounce it bitter, or imagine himself a decrepit invalid shitting on his pajamas all day and despairing because he will die not lovable. Read "Winter Journal" because Paul Auster has had a very good life (so far, maybe unknown to him) and he wrote about it very well. But if you are looking for wisdom, something that would help you get by in this volley of spears that is life, get hold of this masterpiece by Arnold Bennett, older by 92 years, and savor the emanations from this great mind who still speaks of life long after he had died--


"If I were a preacher, and if I hadn't got more than enough to do in minding my own affairs, and if I could look any one in the face and deny that I too had pursued for nearly forty years the great British policy of muddling through and hoping for the best--in short, if things were not what they are, I would hire the Alhambra Theatre or Exeter Hall of a Sunday night--preferably the Alhambra, because more people would come to my entertainment--and I would invite all men and women over twenty-six. I would supply the seething crowd with what they desired in the way of bodily refreshment (except spirits--I would draw the line at poisons), and having got them and myself into a nice amiable expansive frame of mind, I would thus address them--of course in ringing eloquence that John Bright might have envied:

"Men and women (I would say), companions in the universal pastime of hiding one's head in the sand,--I am about to impart to you the very essence of human wisdom. It is not abstract. It is a principle of daily application, affecting the daily round in its entirety, from the straphanging on the District Railway in the morning to the straphanging on the District Railway the next morning. Beware of hope, and beware of ambition! Each is excellently tonic, like German competition, in moderation. But all of you are suffering from self-indulgence in the first, and very many of you are ruining your constitutions with the second. Be it known unto you, my dear men and women, that existence rightly considered is a fair compromise between two instincts--the instinct of hoping one day to live, and the instinct to live here and now. In most of you the first instinct has simply got the other by the throat and is throttling it. Prepare to live by all means, but for Heaven's sake do not forget to live. You will never have a better chance than you have at present. You may think you will have, but you are mistaken. Pardon this bluntness. Surely you are not so naive as to imagine that the road on the other side of that hill there is more beautiful than the piece you are now traversing! Hopes are never realized; for in the act of realization they become something else. Ambitions may be attained, but ambitions attained are rather like burnt coal, ninety per cent of the heat generated has gone up the chimney instead of into the room. Nevertheless, indulge in hopes and ambitions, which, though deceiving, are agreeable deceptions; let them cheat you a little, a lot. But do not let them cheat you too much. This that you are living now is life itself--it is much more life itself than that which you will be living twenty years hence. Grasp that truth. Dwell on it. Absorb it. Let it influence your conduct, to the end that neither the present nor the future be neglected. You search for happiness? Happiness is chiefly a matter of temperament. It is exceedingly improbable that you will, by struggling, gain more happiness than you already possess. In fine, settle down at once into LIFE. (Loud cheers.)

"The cheers would of course be for the refreshments.

"There is no doubt that the mass of the audience would consider that I had missed my vocation, and ought to have been a caterer instead of a preacher. But, once started, I would not be discouraged. I would keep on, Sunday night after Sunday night. Our leading advertisers have richly proved that the public will believe anything if they are told it often enough. I would practise iteration, always with refreshments. In the result, it would dawn upon the corporate mind that there was some glimmering of sense in my doctrine, and people would at last begin to perceive the folly of neglecting to savour the present, the folly of assuming that the future can be essentially different from the present, the fatuity of dying before they have begun to live."


The score: Arnold Bennett vs. Paul Auster-- 1 - 0.