I first read Moon Palace in 2011 and I thought it was a fantastic read. Eight years later and I am glad to say that the magic has not disappeared.

Moon Palace is one of those rare books which stuff in a lot of themes and yet the end result is something cohesive and mind opening as well. In my awful 2011 review, I had to struggle in order to describe it due the book’s deceptive complexity. This time round I’ll attempt to improve on my past mistakes.

The story focuses on Marco Stanley Fogg. As one can see Marco’s name comprises of three explorers; two real, one fictional. This is apt as Moon Palace is Marco depicting his journey in order to find his roots. To further accentuate the journey theme, the book takes place in 1967 when there were the first moon landings, which were large scale voyages.

Fogg’s own journey in Moon Palace can be divided into four phases. The first part consists of Fogg being adopted by his uncle, his college years and inheriting a large amount of books, of which he reads all and gives away. I guess this part of his life consists of intellectual training.

The next part of his life involves suffering, Fogg loses his place and is homeless. This section is about survival and coping with nothing.

After suffering Marco undergoes an enlightenment period as he applies to work for an old man called Thomas Effing. Here he learns to look deeper into life. To notice what’s going around him. To appreciate the richness society has to offer.

When that part of his training is ready, Fogg slips into complacency, until a certain event makes him embark on another journey, thus starting the cycle.

Whether Auster is implying that we all have to undergo this Buddha-like voyage of self discovery, is not clear but I can say my mind did become more receptive and it did make me realise that ,I personally, should pay attention to my surroundings.

In between Marco’s trip, there’s the theme of coincidence, normally I find it annoying but Auster pulls off the deus ex machina trick perfectly. Marco’s life is full of life saving moments. Is it because he is becoming a better person, so fate is smiling upon him or is he just lucky?

Despite the use of chance, Moon Palace is far from a predictable novel. There’s a lot of red herrings to keep the reader guessing what Marco’s next move will be or even how Marco himself deals with his experiences.

Moon palace is Auster’s most praised novel and I can see why. It takes most of the themes common in Auster’s work, mainly how coincidence can shape a person’s destiny and gives it a more spiritual dimension. Out of all the nine Auster novels I read none of them made me look at the world differently. Moon Palace did and it seems that Auster hasn’t returned to this spiritual side of him. Moon Palace is not a novel. It is a guide to appreciating the world, and considering the problems that are occurring, we need more of Marco’s worldview to help us look beyond the false claims of media and listen to the more honest voices out there.

عندما احتاج الى قاص مدهش وسرد ممتع بمعنى أخر حكاية وحواديت ، الجأ الى ايزابيل الليندي او بول اوستر
الرواية لاتستطيع فصلها عن الواقع الامريكي بماضيه المتوحش الغارق في الدم والفرص وحاضره المثقل بالحجم والذنب و مستقبله المبهم ، ربما من كان على دراية بتاريخ امريكا وواقعها قادر على قراءة تحليلية ادق للرواية ، لكن ذلك لا يمنع امثالي ممن يحبون فن القصص والربابة على الاستمتاع و تقدير حكواتي بارع مثل بول اوستر

Paul Auster’ın bu dünyadan gittiğinin haberini aldığımda Ay Sarayı’nı okuyordum. Ve sanırım o andan sonra Paul, Ay Sarayı’nda kaldı benim için sonsuza kadar.

“Ne de olsa, kütüphaneler gerçek dünyanın içinde sayılmaz. Dünyanın dışında, salt düşüncenin barındığı yerlerdir. Böylece, ömrümün sonuna kadar ayda yaşamayı sürdürebilirim.”

Aslında yazarın külliyatını ilk kitabından başlayarak tamamlamaya niyet etmiştim ve önce 1982’de Paul Benjamin mahlasıyla yazdığı ilk kitabı Köşeye Kıstırmak’ı okumuştum(birkaç ay önce) Sırada New York Üçlemesi vardı. Onu da birkaç yıl önce okuduğumdan hislerim fikirlerim çok taze olduğu için tekrar okumak istemedim. Sıradaki kitap Son Şeyler Ülkesi’ndeydi ve elimde olmayan nadir bir iki kitabından biriydi. Bugün yarın derken alamadım bir türlü. Nihayet geçenlerde okuduğum Meltem Gürle’nin Kırmızı Kazak kitabında sıradaki diğer kitap olan Ay Sarayı’ndan öyle bir bahsetti ki kayıtsız kalamadım. Velhasıl sıralamayı bir parça bozsam nolur diye başladım Ay Sarayı’nı okumaya.

“Bazen kendimi okuduğum kitaba öylesine kaptırırdım ki, nerede olduğumu unutur, kendi tenimin içinden sıyrılmışım gibi gelirdi.”

İlk yarısını tam olarak kitaptaki kahramanımız Marco Fogg’un bu cümlesindeki gibi bir avazda okudum. Tam bir anti kahraman romanı Ay Sarayı. Ve sade ve eğlenceli üslubuyla direkt okurunu kitabın içine alıyor.

“Ben bir sabotaj aracıyım, ulusal makinenin yerinden çıkmış bir dişlisiyim, işi işleri bozmak olan bir düzen karşıtıyım, diyordum. Kimse, utanç, öfke ya da acıma olmadan yüzüme bakamıyordu. Ben Sistemin başarısızlığının canlı kanıtı; bolluk ülkesinin oburluktan çatlayışının somut örneğiydim.”

Marco ilginç bir karakter. Babası yok. Yok. Hiç olmamış. Bunu annesi ve dayısının da soyadının kendi gibi Fogg olmasıyla anlatıyor. Annesi de Marco on bir yaşındayken ölüyor ve hayattaki tek akrabası olan Victor dayısıyla yaşamaya başlıyor.

“Uçurumdan atlamışım ve son anda bir şey uzandı, beni havada yakaladı. O bir şeyin adına, sevgi diyorum. İnsanı düşünmekten alıkoyacak tek şey, yerçekimi yasalarını yok edecek kadar güçlü tek şey sevgidir.”

Dayı bence Marco’nun şansıydı. Fakat kitapta neyin şans, neyin şanssızlık olduğu hiç belli olmuyor. Tıpkı hayat gibi. Böyle olunca da sonradan gelen onca tesadüfe de bir şey diyemiyor insan. Tesadüf dediğin hayata gelişimizin kendisi değil mi zaten:)

İlk yarıda yirmi yaşındayken Marco’nun dayısının ölümü ve tamamen kimsesiz kalması gibi detaylar da var ama bunlar ancak kenar süsü. Öyle detaylar var ki her kitapseverin kalbini hoplatır. Dayı, Marco’ya daha hayattayken tüm kitaplarını bırakıyor. Şöyle yazmış Auster bu kısmı:

“‘Sana verecek param da yok, öğüdüm de’ dedi, ‘Beni mutlu etmek için bu kitapları al.’”

Bu kitapların depolandığı kutulardan yapma eşyalarla bir ev kuruyor kendine Fogg sonra. Bir öğrenci evi. Kutulardan sepha, kutulardan koltuk. Kitaplardan bir dünya.

“Arkadaşlarım bunu biraz tuhaf buldular, ama beden tuhaflıklar beklemeyi öğrenmişlerdi artık. Yatağa girip on dokuzuncu yüzyıl Amerikan edebiyatının üzerinde düş göreceğini bilmenin verdiği doyumu bir düşünün diyordum onlara. Tabağının altında tüm Rönesans yapıtlarıyla yemeğe oturmanın keyfini bir düşünün ele. Gerçek hangi kutuda hangi kitapların olduğu konusunda hiçbir fikrim yoktu, ama o zamanlar masal uydurmakta da üzerime yoktu, üstelik yalan bile olsa o cümlelerin kulağa gelişi hoşuma gidiyordu.”

Kitabın ikinci yarısını elimde olmayan sebeplerle süründürdüm (ki tam o dönemde kaybettik Auster’ı) ama sonra düşündüm ki ikinci yarının çok fazla tesadüflerle örülü ilerlemesi ve kurgunun yavaşlaması belki de okumayı kendiliğinden ağırdan almama vesile oldu.

“Yaşamı öylesine yavaşlamıştı ki, en ufak değişiklikleri bile görebilir duruma gelmişti.”

Her neyse. Her şekilde Paul Auster daha o yıllarda kendi üslubunu kurmuş, ne yapmak, nasıl yapmak istediğini bilirmiş diye düşünürek okudum. Kurguyu fazlaca tesadüfe boğmasında bile tuhaf bir doğallık, bir kendiliğindenlik var. Zaten o kadar kendine has bir üslubu var ki yazdığı metinlerin haline tavrına sirayet etmiş o üslup her anlamda.

“Yaşamını rüzgarın esintisine bıraktığın zaman, daha önce hiç bilmediğin, başka koşullarda öğrenilemeyecek şeyleri keşfediyorsun.”

Bu kitaptan önce de benzer şeyler düşünüyordum ama bununla daha da pekişti fikrim. Sanki tüm romanları, tüm bu yolculuk 4321’e giden yol için bir hazırlıktı. Hayatın içindeki gündelik basit detayları, adı konulmamış hatta farkına bile varmadığımız duyguları öyle bir anlatıyor ki anlamlandıramadığım, adını koyup farkına varmadığım ne varsa bulup çıkartıyor Paul Auster.

“İnsanlık mesleğinde geçirdiğim uzun ve ahmakça yıllardan sonra öğrendiğim bir şey varsa o da dürtülere kulak vermenin önemidir.”

Benim dürtülerim daha çok Paul Auster okumaktan geçiyor. Yeri gelmişken size de tavsiye edeyim istedim:)

Again, I can't put my finger on why I like Auster so much. This took me more than a month to finish, reading small chunks at a time. The story meanders all over the place ending up in a tele-novella type ending but I really enjoyed it. I never know quite where Auster is heading or trying to say which I like. The pieces of the story are almost farcical ranging from homelessness in the middle of Central Park to a bandit hideout cave in Utah. There is a Moon theme running throughout the book but I have no idea what it means or what to say about it.

The protagonist is persistently broke sometimes life threateningly so and the meandering of his story is a direct cause of that. I have a deep seated aversion to being without any money so these types of stories always make me more uncomfortable than it might others. The point at which Auster makes MC's life completely fall apart was a bit abrupt but overall, two thumbs up.

_Moon Palace_

Reading this books was a pleasure <3

I tried reading this in the summer but i was going out all the time and i was working and i was having so much fun (SUMMER I NEED YOU, PLZ COME BACK) so reading was not in my plans at all. I picked it up about a week ago and i must admit that i kind of fell in love with Auster's writing and Auster's story.
The way he uses the first person narrative is so well done that i started thinking all over again about narration techniques. Authors who are genuinly talented and use the first person narrative are a bliss. I loved everything that he gave in this one.
Marco Stanley Fogg. This character split me in half. Or even more pieces. I liked him in the beggining, then disliked him, then liked him again, then disliked him again. In the end i would say that i feel sorry for him but also i don't. I know i am not making any sense but that's how i feel about him. All the characters had depth, all of them seemed real, both with their sins and their virtues. The story was interesting, the stories within the story were interesting, all of it was beautifully written and given to us. I won't say anyhting more. I loved this. I want to read more of his works.

Auster's poetic use of language and the supremely convincing characterization of his protagonist made this novel one that I remember not so much by plot arches [though the plot is faultless], but in very vivid images of moments or point-surveys of MS Fogg's life.
Living in an apartment furnished only with boxes of books that for his bed, chairs, table, and entertainment.
Living in a shrub-cave in Central Park.
Outlaw cave hideouts in the desert, covered in obscure paintings.
Handing out money to people on the street in New York.
Sitting in a waiting room for the Draft medical exam.
The book ends in a very Gatsby-esque sort of summation of entropy and the futility of effort in the grand scheme of things. For all the depressing quotient of that, it's a beautifully written book that I widely reccommend.

م.س فُج يمثلني.
حبيتها.

"It was the summer that men first walked on the moon. I was very young back then, but I did not believe there would ever be a future. I wanted to live dangerously, to push myself as far as I could go, and then see what happened to me when I got there. As it turned out, I nearly did not make it. "

The overriding theme of this novel is redemption. Can someone who has sunk so low as that they have eat other peoples' discarded food ever make a life for themselves.

Marco Stanley Fogg is a child of the sixties, and has had a tough start in life, no known father and a mother who was killed by a bus when he was a young boy, brought up by an uncle who lived a hand to mouth existence as a musician. This novel covers the early years in Fogg's life, a life steeped in tragedy and loss. Beginning during 'the summer that men first walked on the moon', and moving backward and forward in time to span three generations propelled by coincidence and memory.

In fact Auster rather than trying to shy away from coincidences makes a feature of them, deliberately stretching the reader's credulity to the limit. The book centres around three characters, who through accidents of birth are blood relatives and yet no one knows about it until its far too late.

Fogg is a dreamer drifting through life, directionless with no ambitions and unable to properly manage his money. I really liked how Fogg uses his uncles boxes of books as furniture when he first moves to Manhattan and as he reads the books so his furniture slowly disappears, " each time I opened another box, I simultaneously destroyed another piece of furniture. My bed was dismantled, my chairs shrank and disappeared, my desk atrophied into empty space. My life had become a gathering zero, and it was a thing I could actually see: a palpable, burgeoning emptiness. Each time I ventured into my uncle’s past, it produced a physical result, an effect in the real world. The consequences were therefore always before my eyes, and there was no way to escape them.”

Moon Palace is such a great mix of sadness and humour. There were a lot of witty and sardonic sections, everything about this book is such a mix of contradictions and my mood swung along with it. Overall I found it a witty novel, filled with many unexpected coincidences that is also remarkably easy to read.

¿Has tenido alguna vez la sensación de que todo en tu vida se desmorona, pero de algún modo las piezas que caen terminan encajando en un puzle que ni siquiera sabías que estabas armando? Pues eso es El palacio de la Luna. No una novela sobre el azar, no, sino una novela que es azar puro. Es como si Paul Auster hubiese lanzado los dados, y cada número representara un giro inesperado, una conexión imposible o una coincidencia que desafía las probabilidades. Pero lo mejor de todo es que, cuando llegas al final, te das cuenta de que no podía haber sido de otra forma.

Aquí conocemos a Marco Stanley Fogg, un tipo cuyo nombre parece sacado de un diccionario de exploradores (y vaya si explora), pero que empieza en el sitio más terrenal y prosaico que te puedas imaginar: un apartamento en Nueva York lleno de libros. Literalmente lleno. Vive entre montañas de papel porque, claro, ha heredado la biblioteca de su tío. Es un comienzo que promete caos y un poquito de claustrofobia. Y vaya si lo cumple. En unas pocas páginas, Marco pasa de estar ahogado entre libros a literalmente caminar por el abismo, enfrentándose a la pobreza, la soledad y, sí, la locura.

La trama de El palacio de la Luna es de esas que, si las cuentas sin contexto, te miran raro. Padres desaparecidos que aparecen cuando menos te lo esperas, personajes tan excéntricos que casi deberían pagar impuestos por ello, fortunas que llegan y se esfuman, amores destinados al naufragio y viajes que transforman a quien los emprende. Vamos, todo lo que necesitas para preguntarte: ¿cómo demonios encaja todo esto? La magia está en que Auster consigue unir estas piezas aparentemente incompatibles con una habilidad tan hipnótica que, antes de darte cuenta, estás enganchado a una red de historias dentro de historias. Es como una matrioska literaria: abres una trama y dentro hay otra, y otra más.

Pero Auster no se detiene ahí. Te lleva por un viaje que atraviesa desiertos, recuerdos y generaciones, conectando a Marco con personajes que son tan improbables como inolvidables. Está Thomas Effing, un anciano excéntrico con una historia de vida que parece un western alucinógeno. Está Solomon Barber, otro hombre cuya vida parece un mosaico de tragedias y secretos. Y todo esto, por increíble que suene, tiene sentido dentro de la narrativa de Auster.

El gran tema aquí es el azar, pero no como una excusa para giros de trama. Es el azar como esencia de la vida misma, como ese hilo invisible que une a Marco con las estrellas, las dunas de Utah y las calles de Nueva York. Cada coincidencia en El palacio de la Luna es un recordatorio de que, por mucho que tratemos de entender nuestras vidas, siempre habrá algo fuera de nuestro control. Y no sé vosotros, pero yo encuentro algo extrañamente reconfortante en eso.

Eso sí, si el uso del azar te pone los ojos en blanco, prepárate para sorprenderte. Lo que podría ser una excusa para giros inverosímiles se convierte en el núcleo filosófico de la novela. Estos “golpes de destino” no son simples accidentes narrativos; son herramientas para que Auster nos hable de identidad, propósito y esa eterna búsqueda de sentido. Y, sinceramente, lo hace de una forma que otros autores no podrían salirse con la suya.

Además, la estructura es un caos hermoso: una mezcla de novela de formación, odisea existencial y misterio filosófico. ¿Demasiado pretencioso? Puede, pero funciona. Auster juega con las expectativas del lector, y lo hace con una estructura que parece un caleidoscopio: cada giro te muestra una imagen distinta, pero todas forman parte del mismo patrón. La novela es muchas cosas a la vez: una historia de formación, un misterio filosófico, una meditación sobre la identidad, e incluso un homenaje al poder de contar historias. Hay capas y capas de significado aquí, pero Auster nunca se pierde en su propio laberinto. Su estilo es limpio, casi minimalista, como si quisiera dejar espacio para que las ideas respirasen.

Y luego está la Luna. No es solo un adorno poético; es un símbolo que brilla en cada página. Representa lo inalcanzable, lo misterioso, lo que siempre está ahí pero nunca terminamos de comprender del todo. Auster utiliza la Luna como un espejo en el que proyectar los anhelos, las pérdidas y las búsquedas de sus personajes.

Cuando cerré el libro, tuve la misma sensación que al salir de una charla profunda con amigos: esa mezcla de euforia y melancolía, como si hubieras tocado algo esencial, pero efímero. El palacio de la Luna es una novela que te desafía a mirar el caos de tu propia vida y encontrarle una especie de belleza.

¿Es perfecta? Claro que no. Hay momentos en los que las casualidades se estiran un poco más de la cuenta, y la trama podría tambalearse si no estuviera en manos de alguien tan talentoso como Auster. Pero ¿a quién le importa la perfección cuando una novela consigue hacerte sentir tanto?

Así que, si estás dispuesto a dejarte llevar por el azar, si te intriga la idea de que cada decisión, por pequeña que parezca, puede llevarte a un lugar completamente inesperado, tienes que leer esto. Y, por favor, léelo con tiempo. No es un libro para devorar; es un libro para saborear, para dejar que sus ideas te acompañen mientras miras la Luna y piensas en todo lo que no sabemos sobre nuestras propias vidas.

Y puesto que hablar de Auster es hablar de azar, ha querido el azar que haya terminado la segunda lectura de esta novela justo el día (1/05/2024) en que conocemos el fallecimiento de su autor. Con esta reseña de una de sus mejores novelas, mi modesto homenaje a uno de mis referentes literarios.

I think this might be my favorite Auster yet.... though it might be tied with The Music of Chance. Both are written so well and so invitingly and I loved every moment I spent in this book.

This was published in 1989 and made me realize there is one thing I liked about "the good ol' days" and that is: "the paid announcements that appeared in fine print at the bottom of the page".

These days you can hardly see internet pages with ads popping up all over the place. Why can't we go back to ads being discreet and non-invasive? How about it Google?

Opening lines:
'It was the summer that men first walked on the moon. I was very young back then, but did not believe there would ever be a future. I wanted to live dangerously, to push myself as far as I could go, and then see what happened when I got there.'

CRITIQUE:

A Novel Which is its Own Critique

You can normally rely on authors of metafiction to set out their agenda in the text itself. Here, Paul Auster has his protagonist (M.S. [Marco Stanley] Fogg) say:

"The moments unfurled one after the other, and at each moment the future stood before me as a blank, a white page of uncertainty. If life was a story...and each man was the author of his own story, then I was making it up as I went along..." (41)

A Series of Improbable Occurrences

Making it up doesn't mean it will seem logical in retrospect. Fogg engages probability, improbability and coincidence:

"If I had any thought at all, it was to let chance determine what happened, to follow the path of impulse and arbitrary events." (51)

"The point was to accept things as they were, to drift along with the flow of the universe." (80)

"Trusting in blind dumb luck would be sufficient..." (54)

It's no wonder that "an improbable occurrence took place..." (54)

Just Another Story

What then is a story?

"The story became just another story, a chronology of facts and events, a tale of time passing." (190)

The Imperceptible Momentum of a Dream

Early in the novel, I felt that the narrative progressed so subtly that a change of season might occur without a recognisable period of transition between the two seasons. One moment you would be in one season, the next you would have moved imperceptibly into another.

"Part Western and part science fiction, the story lurched from one improbability to the next, churning forward with the implacable momentum of a dream." (253)

Only there was more search than lurch.

Farfetched and Convincing Nonsense

Marco says of another character's story that "it was all so farfetched, and yet the very outrageousness of the story was probably its most convincing element." (183)

"It sounds to me as though you've created an elaborate hoax." (231)

"Nonsense of this sort could continue only if we all pretended to believe in it." (209)

You could probably say the same thing about Marco's own story, except that it is at heart a very human story, even sentimental. Marco is on a quest to discover his own father, who as chance would have it finally learns the identity of his own father (so we see three lost generations find themselves), while Marco also heads West in search of America and then ultimately China (like his namesake, Marco Polo).

In Your Head

As does Paul Auster, Marco enters "far-flung and abstract territory" (233).

Yet, ultimately, Marco's quest occurs inside the book that is his mind: "The only place you exist is in your head." (156)

The characters have a role in this creative space: together, they're "a phantom comedy team performing their little act for me in the projection room of my skull." (245)

"I was both perpetrator and witness, both actor and audience in a theatre of one." (24)

Shared Mental Space

Paradoxically, Marco's world and Auster's novel become the reader's world as well, through the process of reading.

As Marco says with respect to his Uncle Victor, "I was occupying the same mental space that Victor had once occupied – reading the same words, living in the same stories, perhaps thinking the same thoughts." (22)



JUST ANOTHER STORY (AS TOLD BY LILLY WU):
[Another Girl, Another Planet]

I had no idea when I went to the University of Hong Kong on an exchange program that I would encounter my father for the first time. As far as my mother and I were concerned, he was dead, and as far as he was concerned, I had never been born. He didn't even know he had a daughter.

It turned out my father hadn't died in an accident in Utah. He had survived and made his way from San Francisco to Hong Kong before I was born, and worked his way up the University hierarchy until eventually he became Pro Vice Chancellor (International), a position which made him responsible for the welfare of international students (mainly from the rest of Asia; I was the first American for more than a decade).

My father sought me out at an introductory cocktail party. He already knew from my file that I was born in New York in 1998, and my surname (Wu), though not uncommon, prompted him to say that he had once known a dancer in New York called Kitty Wu. Was I any relation?

When I responded that that was my mother's name and that she was now a dance teacher, his face went pale, and he went silent, although he seemed to be thinking deeply.

"What is your father's name?" He eventually asked me.

"I've never known. My mother always said that he died before I was born, and I adopted her surname."

"You look so much like your mother when I knew her." He said. "We were very much in love, until we had a disagreement and I left New York and came to Hong Kong, though I don't think Kitty knew I had left America. She mustn't if she thinks I’m dead."

"Not you. My father."

"Of course."

I phoned my mother that night after the party ended, and told her I had met Professor Fogg, who said he might have known her. She, too, was taken aback. She said that she had had a relationship with a Marco Fogg, but that he had left New York after they had a big argument.

I asked, "What was the argument about?"

"I was pregnant, and I wanted to have an abortion. He wanted to have the child, but I didn't."

"What did you do?"

"I went ahead with the abortion, but it was only partly successful."

"What do you mean. How could it only be partly successful?"

"You see, I was pregnant with twins, a boy and a girl. Only your brother was terminated, and you were born."

"So, Professor Fogg is my father?"

"Yes, I guess so, but he has never known until today that you existed. He would so much love to have known that you were born. He doesn't realise that he would have had what he always wanted, if only we'd stayed together. Which didn't happen, obviously."

"Did you love him?"

"More than anything else in the world...other than you."

"Do you still love him?"

"I have no reason not to."

"But he left you...on the basis of a misunderstanding?"

"Yes."

"So he lost the two things that would have mattered most to him?"

"I guess so...but things have changed, and we've all had to move on with our lives."

"Poor dad!" was all I could think to say.




SOUNDTRACK:

Bob Dylan - "You're A Big Girl Now"

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7PGfm...

Bob Dylan - "Simple Twist of Fate"

https://youtu.be/sGnhyoP_DSc

Bob Dylan - "Things Have Changed"

https://youtu.be/L9EKqQWPjyo

Bettye LaVette - "Things Have Changed"

https://youtu.be/oVWHoXCUCpY

The Only Ones - "Another Girl, Another Planet"

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lKuc3...