Uncertainty eats into the core of our being; our heart is empty or cluttered with so much static that it seems to hold nothing. This work clearly also expresses the genealogical passion of the uprooted, and it is not insignificant that Auster is an American entirely oriented toward Europe. But this proximity is misleading. A reading of Auster produces a double sensation of familiarity and disorientation, for Auster, deeply anchored in the New World, does not write European books in America; he enriches the American novel with European themes.
