7/10

Muy entretenida y con un devenir bastante impredecible. Las buenas novelas de Auster son siempre una lectura amable.

Jim Nashe, Boston itfaiyesinde görevli karısı tarafından terk edilen yalnız bir babadır. İki yaşındaki kızını geçici bir süreliğine ablası Donna’nın yanında Minnesota’da bırakan Jim o küçük bir çocukken ailesini bırakıp giden, hiç tanımadığı babasının öldüğünü ve kendilerine kalan mirası öğrenir. Eline geçen parayla amaçsız bir yolculuğa çıkar; işini ve Boston’u terk eder. Yollarda geçirdiği yaklaşık iki yılın sonunda, parası bitmek üzereyken lakabı Jackpot olan Jack Pozzi ile karşılaşır. Oldukça hırpalanmış kötü durumdaki Jack’in planı piyango milyoneri, oyundan anlamayan iki adamla poker masasına oturup çok para kazanmaktır fakat elinde bu oyuna katılacak para yoktur. Jim kalan son parasını Jack’e ortaklık karşılığı vermeyi teklif eder ve birlikte iki milyoner Flower ve Stone’un malikanesine giderler. Gece boyunca birçok sürprizle karşılaşırlar; poker oyunu iki milyonerin saf olmaktan çok uzak olduklarını anladıkları bir trajediye dönüşür; sonunda ise asıl kumarbazın belki de Nashe olduğu ortaya çıkar.

Tesadüfler, varoluşun sorgulanması, kendini kontrol altına alma uğruna özgürlükten vazgeçme gibi konuların sorgulandığı düşündüren bir hikaye. Tesadüflerin ve anlık kararların insan hayatını ne hale getirebileceğini göstermesi, kurgu ve hikayenin sonu açısından tipik bir Paul Auster romanı. Sonu hüzünlü olsa da okuması keyifli bir romandı.

The Music of Chance, Paul Auster

The Music of Chance (1990) is an absurdist novel by Paul Auster. It was a 1991 finalist for the PEN/Faulkner Award for Fiction and was later made into a film in 1993; Mandy Patinkin played Nashe and James Spader played Pozzi.

تاریخ نخستین خوانش: روز پنجم ماه جولای سال 2015میلادی
عنوان: موسیقی شانس؛ نویسنده: پل آستر؛ مترجم: خجسته کیهان؛ تهران، نشر افق، 1391؛ موضوع داستانهای نویسندگان ایالات متحده آمریکا - سده 20م

پل استر؛ در «موسیقی شانس»؛ با بیان روایتی از پوچی سرنوشت شخصیتهای داستان، رخدادی ویژه را به میدان می‌آورد؛ رخداد به گونه‌ ای ناباورانه رویدادهایی تازه می‌آفریند؛ به شکلی جذاب برای خوانشگر، بی معنایی زندگی غربی را، به تصویر می‌کشد؛ داستان زندگی «جیم ناش» را نقل می‌کند، که پس از جدایی از همسر خویش، برای بزرگ کردن دختر دو ساله ی خود، دچار مشکل می‌شود؛ ماجراهایی در زندگی «ناش» رخ می‌دهد و بازی سرنوشت، او را به ناامیدی می‌کشاند؛ این شخصیت داستانی نوعی «شرارت» را، در زندگی خود می‌یابد، که بختش را به آتش کشیده، و خشمی شعله‌ ور را درون خود می‌یابد.؛ برخی از منتقدان این کتاب را رمانی «ابزورد» دانسته‌ اند، که بی معنایی زندگی غربی را تصویر می‌کند.؛ این نویسنده در اکثر آثار خود، زندگی امریکایی و آنچه به زندگی نیویورکی موسوم است را، به بوته ی نقد می‌کشند؛ بانو «خجسته کیهان»، مترجم «موسیقی شانس»، درباره این کتاب میگویند: این رمان شباهت‌هایی به آثار ابزورد دارد؛ و با نگاهی بسیار بدبینانه و سیاه، زندگی مدرن امریکایی را به نقد می‌کشد. تنها دو شخصیت دارد؛ یکی از این دو شخصیت یک قمار باز است، که ماجرای رمان براساس زندگی او شکل می‌گیرد؛ و ...؛

تاریخ بهنگام رسانی 29/08/1399هجری خورشیدی؛ ا. شربیانی

Totalmente inaspettato.
Parte lento per i miei gusti ma poi prende un ritmo pazzesco e diventa impossibile staccarsene.
Trama coinvolgente e assolutamente non convenzionale.
Bravo Auster!

Si ya el Sr Auster me había conquistado con otras de sus obras, la trilogía Nueva York, el Palacio de la luna, Leviatán, aquí me terminé de enamorar de su pluma. Creo que acabo de leer al mejor Auster, un libro con una construcción impecable, la historia roza lo absurdo y siempre con su toque del "imprevisto". En si todas sus novelas se basan en personajes que de un momento a otro sus vidas cambian radicalmente y este libro creo es el culmen de su estilo que ya es marca de agua.
Maravilloso

You can rely upon Paul Auster for distinctively weird and existentially unsettling vibes. I hadn't read anything by him for at least ten years according to goodreads, but remembered that much. The Music of Chance follows a man named Nashe. After his wife leaves him, he drops off his two-year-old child with his sister and drives aimlessly around America for a year. As an aside, I cannot fathom why he could possibly want to do that - obsessively taking trains I would understand, if America had any, but driving? However I did not find him completely incomprehensible as he likes reading. Nashe's money is about to run out when he picks up a hitchhiker named Jack Pozzi, who has just been badly beaten up. Nashe realises that Pozzi is a brilliant poker player and stakes him in a game with two weird and reclusive millionaires, Flower and Stone. It does not go as expected.

The narrative is ambiguous, arbitrary, claustrophobic, and full of dread. In my favourite sequence, the millionaires give Nashe and Pozzi a tour of their peculiar home:

Flower's museum was a graveyard of shadows, a demented shrine to the spirit of nothingness. If the objects continued to call out to him, Nashe decided, it was because they were impenetrable, because they refused to divulge anything about themselves. It had nothing to do with history, nothing to do with the men who once owned them. The fascination was simply for the objects as material things, and the way they had been wrenched out of any possible context, condemned by Flower to go on existing for no reason at all: defunct, devoid of purpose, alone in themselves now for the rest of time. It was the isolation that haunted Nashe, the image of irreducible separateness that burned down into his memory, and no matter how hard he struggled, he never managed to break free of it.

It seems evident that Nashe feels just that way himself: adrift, purposeless, alone, apart. The millionaires' material preoccupations reminded me of Des Esseintes in Against Nature, but without his refined aesthetic sensibilities. Stone's recursive model city with its prison is an extraordinary image and carries a fearful power. The result of the poker game seems to turn upon it, as Nashe and Pozzi later discuss.

The second half of the book, in which the consequences of the poker game play out, reads as a somewhat Magnus Mills-esque fable. After Pozzi loses all Nashe's money, his car, and $5,000 they don't have, the pair have no choice but to work off their debt. Flower and Stone set them to constructing a vast, completely pointless wall out of stones imported from a ruined castle in Scotland. This audaciously futile project certainly illustrates the enraging wastefulness of extreme wealth. Nashe and Pozzi are almost completely isolated and effectively imprisoned, living in a caravan on their work site. Things take a turn away from Mills' relatively gentle allegories when Pozzi tries to escape and is beaten almost to death. He is taken away to hospital and Nashe never learns whether or not he survives.

The ending is sudden and violent. After finally working off his debt, Nashe leaves Flower and Stone's estate for the first time in many months to have a drink with his overseer. After getting drunk in a bar, he asks if he can drive his old car, which Flower and Stone gave to the overseer. It's snowing, Nashe is drunk, and he hasn't driven in a long time, so it feels inevitable that he crashes into an oncoming vehicle at high speed, killing himself and probably the other two in the car.

While digesting this ending and the sequence of odd events that preceded it, I wondered what it all meant. Is Auster commenting on American masculinity? If so, the message seems to be that American men are fucked up by aggressive individualism. There could be something about America's thanatophilic car culture. I also got a strong sense that none of the main characters live in a society. Flower and Stone have so much money that they are above society and can do whatever they want, however stupid, cruel, or pointless. I assume that they cheated in order to beat Pozzi at poker, but fittingly this is never confirmed or denied. Nashe and Pozzi have deliberately or accidentally fallen outside society by not getting normal jobs and living normal lives, so must depend on their own limited resources. Their friendship is curiously touching, as it appears solely based on both being very lonely. Neither appear to have anyone else they can let their guard down around and they trust each other quickly. There is also a pervasive theme of existential emptiness: what is the point of anything that anyone is doing? Although early-twenties Pozzi wants things (to win; novelty; pleasure), mid-thirties Nashe appears entirely adrift from ambition, desire, purpose, and responsibility (not least to his toddler). There is something going on under the surface of this strange little fable, although I'm not sure what exactly.

Bellissimo, avvincente, quasi mistico, scritto superbamente.
Forse il miglior Auster finora.
Che dire? Sono soddisfatta.

Very well written, very original. Great book but I just couldnt give it a 10. In my book a 10 or 5 on Goodreads demands that I buy the book if I havent (I got this from the library) and tell everyone they must read it.

I think the character Jack Pozzi "Jackpot" is a pun on Ponzi scheme? Just a guess. I wonder if this is Austers reply to the beatnicks on the road, and what happens if a person does not root down somewhere and commit to something. Look at the relationship that Nashe has with the journalist in San Fran, by the time he decides she is important and worth standing for its to late again.

Auster uses money as a tool in a few of his stories I have read, in Music of Chance, he gives Nashe an inheritance and Nashe squanders it then tries to rebuild it to ruinous results with Pozzi. And in Invisible he gives the main character money to start a magazine. I think he likes this device, and makes a statement that some folks can be happy regardless of circumstance while others are unhappy even with most of lifes worries taken care of.

This is almost a piece like zen and the art of motorcycle maintenenance, both because it speaks about parenting and having a passion for something. This is where the quote comes from during the novel, “You had to invent something. It's not possible to leave it blank. The mind won't let you." Nashe and Pozzi are talking about an episode in Pozzi youth.

The act of building a giant wall or stone is a metaphor for fixing something broken in your life, you wasted your time and money, relationships, and now with each brick you can mend them. Maybe the time you take and the thinking while performing this job is therapeutic.


I do really like Paul Auster and will read anything he writes, however I want to do something horrible like slap a baby or kick a dog or yell at an old person, after the sudden and incomplete ending!


I just hate that he did not answer any of the questions posed during the story, like:

possible spoilers*****************************




What happened to Pozzi, what happened with Nashe did he die in the crash, how was his daughter, what about the 2 old fogies that had him build the wall.

I also wonder if the 2 old men, Laurel and Hardy as Pozzi describes them, were a book or story that Auster was working on and then decided to just add them here? I wonder if he will come back to them in the future, they were very interesting and then out of the book the rest of the way.

Az Auster-regények gyakran olyanok, mint egy kecsegtető körülmények között indított kirándulás, ami egy ponton brutális teljesítménytúrává változik. Amikor nekivágunk, a nap süt, a páratartalom megfelelő, minden klappolni látszik - ez az austeri próza epikus jellege, ami többé-kevésbé lineáris történetmeséléssel, színes figurákkal, meg a többi szériatartozékkal dolgozik. Aztán egy ponton váratlanul viharfellegek borítják be az eget, a szél feltámad, és bár az előbb még fürödtünk a fényben, most egyszeriben éjszakába zuhant a délután. Minden vészjósló lesz, vigasztalan és súlyos. Mintha eltévedtünk volna.

Itt is ez a fennforgás: Jim cél nélkül autókázik keresztül Amerikán, amikor belebotlik Jackbe, a nagy dumás fiatal kártyásba. Együtt elhatározzák, hogy megkopasztanak pár mókás milliomost, persze csak a világon fellelhető dollármennyiség egyenlőbb elosztása érdekében. Csakhogy a mókás milliomosok kevésbé mókásak, mint vártuk (bár sokkal milliomosabbak), úgyhogy hőseink ott találják magukat egy bitang nagy mező közepén egy grandiózus falat építve, amely fal a grandiózusságon túl még totálisan értelmetlen is. És már el is jutottunk a klasszikus történetmeséléstől Kafkáig. Szeretem az ilyen transzformációkat.

Muszáj jó könyvnek neveznem - tegnap éjjel még volt hátra ötven oldal, amikor MINDENKÉPPEN le kellett volna feküdnöm, de annyira akartam tudni, mire fut ki az egész, hogy a lefekvés egyáltalán nem tűnt megvalósíthatónak (vö.: "beszippantott"). Úgyhogy ledaráltam. Viszont a végén valahogy rossz maradt a szám íze - és nem csak a tudat miatt, hogy másnap tutira pokoli lesz hatkor felkelni. Hanem mert nekem csalódás ez a végkifejlet. Elhamarkodottnak, összecsapottnak találtam, mintha Auster nem találta volna az összhangot azzal az atmoszférával, amit addig fáradságos munkával felépített. Úgy éreztem, egy csomó lehetőség maradt benne a könyvben, elszalasztva a kibontakoztatást.

De nem baj, fejben írok a könyvnek másik befejezést.

Η ζωή είναι μια μεγάλη φάρσα που αλίμονο αν την πάρουμε στα σοβαρά . Έχουν ασχοληθεί πολλοί συγγραφείς με αυτό το θέμα ,άλλοι πετυχημένα ,άλλοι όχι τόσο ,αλλά κανείς δε το κάνει σαν τον Paul Auster . Εδώ βρίσκονται συγκεντρωμένα όλα αυτά τα στοιχεία που κάνουν το έργο του τόσο ξεχωριστό .όλα ξεκινούν με δύο απλούς χαρακτήρες ,δύο τυχοδιώκτες,έναν πατέρα που εγκαταλείφθηκε από τη γυναίκα του και εκείνος με τη σειρά του αφήνει το παιδί τους στην αδερφή του για να ζήσει μια τελευταία μεγάλη περιπέτεια . Στον δρόμο συναντά -παλι τυχαια- έναν άλλο νεότερο τύπο ,ένα χαρτομουτρο που ισχυρίζεται ότι μπορεί να κερδίσει οποιαδήποτε παρτίδα ποκερ. Έτσι ο πρώτος ,δίνει τα χρήματα στον δεύτερο ,για να παίξει με δύο ζαμπλουτους γέρους,με τη συμφωνία ότι θα μοιραστούν τα κέρδη ισόποσα . Τελικά το πράγμα δεν πάει τοσο ιδανικά και οι δύο τους πρέπει να πληρώσουν το τίμημα .
Ο Auster είναι...ήταν...μάστερ στο είδος του ,στο να φτιάχνει ιστορίες απλές φαινομενικά που μπορούν όμως να διαβαστούν με 1002 άλλους τρόπους .εδώ μιλάει μέσω αυτής της ιστορίας για το τι τελικά είναι τυχαίο και τι όχι , πώς μια κίνηση μπορεί να φέρει 100 εξελίξεις .τι πρέπει να παλεύουμε και τι να αφήνουμε να εξελιχθεί όταν πια είναι σίγουρο ότι η παρτίδα είναι χαμένη .. και πάντα ,εκεί στο παρασκήνιο υποβόσκει αυτή η επιβλητική ατμόσφαιρα ότι κάτι κακό θα ακολουθήσει ,ότι κάποιο χέρι θα σε ακουμπήσει στον ώμο αμέσως μόλις ρίξεις τις άμυνες σου. .
Υπέροχος ,επιβλητικός ,χαρισματικός Auster ...θα λείπει πάντα .. τούτο εδώ είναι από τα καλύτερα του βιβλία ,ένα μικρό διαμαντακι ...

No voy ni a escribir reseña. Simplemente no es para mí. Lo terminé porque era corto y porque tampoco era malo y se leía fácil, quitando algunas partes.

CRITIQUE:

A Law of Nature

"The Music of Chance" is a very tightly plotted novel. However, at the same time, it's planned within a strict framework of risk, chance, fate and probability.

As the poker player Jack Pozzi says,

n  
n  "Nine times out of ten, I'm going to come out on top. It's like a law of nature...

"Once your luck starts to roll, there's not a damn thing that can stop it. It's like the whole world suddenly falls into place...you sit there watching yourself perform miracles. It doesn't really have anything to do with you anymore."n  
n

A Kind of Awe

For Nashe, his partner, "The insanity of that risk filled him with a kind of awe."

It's like speculating in the realm of superstition or religion:

n  
n  "We had everything in harmony. We’d come to the point where everything was turning into music for us, and then you have to go upstairs and smash all the instruments. You tampered with the universe, my friend, and once a man does that, he's got to pay the price."n  
n

Something Improbable

The question is: what happens when you don't come out on top, when something - chance, fate - overrides the law of nature? What happens when your opponents, Stone and Flower, enjoy even better luck?

It’s just as likely that chance will make something improbable occur. And so it does.

In cards, for Flower and Stone, an almost win "made us believe that anything was possible." Even a loss was reason for optimism. For these gamblers, prime numbers were "the magic combination, the key to the gates of heaven...Good luck has continued to come our way. No matter what we do, everything seems to turn out right."

Stone "spends his days constructing a model of some bizarre, totalitarian world" he calls the "City of the World". It's a world where everything is in order, and Stone is in control. It contains a miniature jail, though the whole city seems to be a metaphor for a prison or a Nazi concentration camp:

n  
n  "A threat of punishment seemed to hang in the air – as if this were a city at war with itself, struggling to mend its ways before the prophets came to announce the arrival of a murderous, avenging God."n  
n

A Big, Beautiful Wall

Pozzi loses the game against Stone and Flower. In order to make good his loss, Pozzi and Nashe must build a wall, a wailing wall, across a meadow out of ten thousand stones they bought in Ireland and shipped back home to Pennsylvania:

n  
n  "As long as they kept on working, the work was going to make them free." ("Arbeit Macht Frei.")n  
n

The Mysterious Barricades

Pozzi is resentful: "The whole world is run by assholes," he says. Nashe soon sympathises with him:

"He was more cut off from the world than ever before, and there were times when he could feel something collapsing inside him, as if the ground he stood on were gradually giving way, crumbling under the pressure of his loneliness."

They've encountered "mysterious barricades" in the music of chance, which form obstacles in their path towards earthly, existential harmony.



WORSE THAN VERSE:

The Chance of Romance
[Apologies to Lou Reed]

Don't you dare tell us that romance
Results from God's will or just chance.
You know I hate that mystic shit
Even if some think it's legit.
I'd rather spend my time in France
Learning to dance a modern dance.
If it's love that really matters
Don't let it all end in tatters.



SOUNDTRACK:

Lou Reed - "Modern Dance"

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

Lou Reed - "Tatters"

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

Lou Reed - "Sword of Damocles"

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

Garland Jeffreys - "Ghost Of A Chance"

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

François Couperin- "The Mysterious Barricades" (played by Katherine Shao)

https://youtu.be/hMsGlIpBy-4

William Blake - "Jerusalem"

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9r81Z...

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