If I had to pick five
writers who had the most impact not just on my creative endeavors as a writer,
but just my overall life in general, Paul Auster has a firm place on that list.
While I don’t find much influence in the stories I’m churning out as we speak,
I find the worldview he presents in his novels to be rich, multi-textured and
endlessly life affirming. From the existential noir of The New York Trilogy and
Moon Palace, oddly successful experiments like The Music of Chance, Mr. Vertigo
and Timbuktu (a novel which has grown in stature for me over time), to multi
layered narratives about grief, family and healing like The Book of Illusions,
Oracle Night and Invisible, his last great novel. After seven years without a
book, and seven years without reading one, at least for me, it was a pleasant
surprise to find out last year that he had a new novel coming out called 4 3 2
1, and I was even more excited when I found out that it was almost 900 pages
long. Was it worth the weight and its skull crushing page count? I am happy to
say that it is. While only time will tell if it is better as what consider
being his three pillars, which are The New York Trilogy, The Book of Illusions
and Invisible, but it can certainly share ample shelf space with them (since it
will need it either way), and it is world’s better than something like Travels
in Scriptorium. It has an interesting gimmick attached to it, one that is a
change of pace for Auster himself and more than a little daunting for the
reader. It tells the story Archibald Isaac Ferguson, who shares the birth year
of Auster himself. After an initial chapter, describing how his grandfather
came to America and got his named followed by how his father started a business
and met Archie’s mother, the book fissures into four separate timelines that
follow his birth right up until the end of the sixties. They are independent of
each other and as far as I can tell, the realities in each are not dependent on
the actions Ferguson takes in each one. They are merely four dimensions filled
with different possibilities. In one, Ferguson’s father’s hardware business
could be a massive success, in another it could fail miserably. Archie’s father
can be a source of terrible grief in one story, and a source of hatred in
another. In one, he can discover something about himself in an old movie
theater that is not hinted at in any of the other three. And Amy Schneidermann,
his constant love who is a focal point in all four, has shifting properties as
well, with him being a long term love of Archie in one, a step cousin in
another and stepsister in yet another. Historical events such as the Kennedy assassinations,
the start of the Vietnam War and the riots at Columbia University are explored
from different vantage points in each section, making this novel one story told
four times over. It sounds cheap, but Auster’s talent makes it magical. This is a very Auster-riffic novel; filled
with existential musings, chance meetings, cruel twists of fate and a
self-reflexive ending he is known for. If you are not a fan of his, this novel
will annoy the shit out of you. But for me, someone’s whose literary maturity
can be directly linked to his best novels, this large hearted book was a treat
that I savored every sentence of.
Rating: 5/5
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