Paul Auster, Travels in the Scriptorium

wow. I listened to this on audio book however I am in the process of buying the book version since I found it completely wonderful.

It presents in such a wonderful manner the utter confusion that is associated with not knowing what you remember. My favourite was the first few chapters when you are struggling with the character to piece together the understanding what order things are happening , if they have happened before or where you are, how and who and for what purpose are you here, and why again are there these things here.

I loved this book much like the other paul auster novels I have. I own the new york trilogy which is itself a fabulous read.

'The New-York Trilogy' and 'The Music of Chance' are a part of the best novels I ever read. In these novels imagination becomes reality, leading to psychological chaos and loss of identity in a meaningless world. Disappointed by novels like 'The Book of Illusions' and the 'Brooklyn Follies.' They suffered from long-windedness and a rather insipid plot not to mention a tendency to banality. Just as I almost removed his name from my list of favorite writers, he publishes 'Travels in the Scriptorium.'

Are we back in the days of ' Music of Chance'? I believe not. There is more social engagement, but above all, there is more sense of absurdity. It is as if the author wants to create more distance between him and the reader, as if he wants to be alone with his characters. In 'The Music of Chance,' the sense of the absurd was already very strong but there was a total social disengagement.

A word or to about the principal characters. An old man finds himself in a small room. A small camera is planted in the ceiling right above him and a few microphones are also hidden. The camera takes one picture after the other of the old man (Big Brother is watching). He knows nothing: Where is he? Why? Who is he? Is this a prison? Or a psychiatric hospital? He has a strong sense of guilt but at the same time he feels that he is the victim of an injustice.

Then there is Anna. Anna is... is what? Well we don't know exactly. Is she a nurse? An angel? A Guardian Angel maybe? Is she family? In any case she is always very kind and helpful. For an unknown reason she gives him three different pills every morning along with his breakfast.

"I'm not sick!" "It's for your treatment." Ah, his treatment! Anna says she loves the old man and she wants a kiss on her lips. Mystifying, isn't it?

The story is built upon what several people wrote down during their stay in a similar room - or the same room? - the moment in time is also different. Are the manuscripts written by one person or more? (In a medieval abbey, the room where some of the monks copied their manuscripts was called a scriptorium. You could "travel" from one desk to the other).

I gave this novel five stars because this is Paul Auster at his best. He writes with a sense of humor about people. These people are trying to make the best of it, living in a hostile, cruel or indifferent world.

Travels in the Scriptorium

Paul Auster

Henry Holt, Feb 2007, $22.00

ISBN: 0805081453

The old man awakens feeling disoriented as he has no idea who he is, where he is, how he got there wherever that is, why he is imprisoned in this room, or for that matter anything else except that he is locked inside this room. He is unaware of the camera in the ceiling that takes constant pictures of him at a phenomenal rate of one per second.

Seeking any clue to his identity, he sits by the desk studying photos that mean nothing to him and reads a manuscript that he fails to relate to either. The outside "watcher" dubs him "Mr. Blank" as the old man reads the odd account of Sigmund Graf of the Confederation assigned to find a rebel soldier Ernesto Land. Throughout the day as he struggles with his memory, visitors arrive confusing him further as he vaguely recognizes the policeman, the doctor, and the attendants who subtly accuse him of horrific crimes against humanity. However, it is his lawyer who lets Mr. Blank know how much trouble he in. The man is accused of conspiracy, fraud, negligent homicide, defamation of character, and first-degree murder, but except for flashpoints he recalls nothing and once they leave he reverts back to Mr. Blank.

This is a strange tale mindful of the 1960s TV show the Prisoner, as Mr. Blank, sitting in the austere room (and readers) wonders what is going on and when will it end; not how will it terminate. The existential storyline is not for everyone as the action is limited to the manuscript and even that in many ways is passive. Instead the plot focuses on what is existence when the essential soul of experience is deleted either from one of his tormentors (the watcher-narrator) or from within his own mind as a psychological device to cope with horrific crimes.

Harriet Klausner