دکل‌خوانی!

1. I liked this book a lot more than I expected.

2. I'm not sure I've seen a book on Goodreads before with this many ratings and 0% one star ratings.

That's all I've got for a review. You can imagine those two points drawn out with a couple of thousand words of rambling asides as being what my review would basically say.

Mi segundo Auster. Lo interesante de este es que sucede principalmente fuera de Nueva York. Superatrapante, cada vez intriga más y al final, ¡qué miedo! Casi una historia de terror. Tengo pendiente de ver la película.

3.5*

"Sleep was a passage from one life into another, a small death in which the demons inside him caught fire again, melting back into the flames they were born of."

i don't think the author himself analyzed his own book as much as i have for my english class.
anyways this was a pretty cool book and it's safe to say i've never read anything like it before. i can't say this was really my type of book but i did enjoy a lot of aspects and i was able to move through this at a pretty steady pace considering the massive slump i've been in since march.

Nabokov once said that he hated music, all music including classical, because it had no structure. That is precisely what beguiles Paul Auster in THE MUSIC OF CHANCE; his hymn to randomness and chaos. Gambling, not music, is the metaphor for nothing less than the history of the universe. Two young drifters wandering the countryside of Pennsylvania come across a huge mansion inhabited only by two old eccentric rich men. (Immediate question: who runs and cares for the mansion?) Invited to play cards for hours by the two old geezers, the youngest of the pair heads for the bathroom and on the way notices an exact replica of the mansion in one room, including a miniature reproduction of the two old men, which he unwisely touches with a finger, and in doing so re-arranges the universe! (Yes, this same device pops up in Edward Albee's play, TINY ALICE.) When the game restarts, our wearied youth proceed to lose everything, including their car, and are reduced to debt peons for the rich pair, tasked with re-building a medieval wall around the mansion that, of course, can never be finished since that would grant them their freedom. Paul Auster, much-beloved in France and late to come to the attention of his fellow Americans, has constructed the perfect fable of meaningless and cyclical existence at every level of reality.

Well that was weird! I have so many unanswered questions. This is a strangely compelling read about fate and chance encounters, loneliness, truth, trust, hard physical work, eccentricity but I want to know more. What did happen to Jack? Why were Flower and Stone so evil? The ending does seem inevitable, there’s a sense of foreboding the whole way through.

Pennsylvania in the 80's. 33-y/o Jim Nashe is a bum newly divorced dad who inherited almost US$200,000 from his dead dad who he did not see for almost 30 years. He resigned from his work as a fireman, bought an expensive Saab (car), threw a couple of parties, left his 4-y/o daughter Juliette to his sister Donna and drove around aimlessly across the USA. He likes music (he plays the piano) so he has lots of cassette tapes (this is in the 80s) in the car. The long drives while the music is on seem to bring him to another world. See the cover: it captures everything a child - because that really what he seems to be being a bum and aimless - driving a red sports car. Read the title: The Music of Chance. Music forms the integral mood in this novel. Auster made use of classical music and sounds to heighten emotions to important scenes in this book.

We know that books, unless they are audiobooks, cannot have songs or music. The way Mr. Auster does this is he mentions a song, tune or artist in a particular scene with the character probably listening to it. As I reader, if you are familiar with the song, tune or artist you recall it and as you read, it is as if you are with the character (or maybe you become that character) experiencing the sight and sound of the scene. It is what I then call the magic of literature: being transported straight to a literary fictional world while in reality you are just sitting on the armchair or lying in bed. With music, it is like being in the movie. It is just wonderful.

This is my 3rd book by Paul Auster. Early last year, I read his The New York Trilogy a.k.a. NYT and I was struck by his brilliance in interrelating his characters and plots in those three well-written stories. It was my first time to read a book like that so I gave it a 5-star rating and promised myself to re-read it in the future. A couple of months back, I read his Invisible as it is a newly added book in the 2010 edition of the 1001 Books You Must Read Before You Die. The distinctive Auster style is still there: straightforward, no-frills, no-pretentions, no-philosophical agenda writing is still there but the plot is different from NYT as it deals with incest. So, I have to give it another 5-star rating. Using "3-novel rule": you can tell a writer if he is formulaic by reading 3 of his works. For Auster, he is definitely not formulaic. Music does not have the mistaken identity plot in NYT, no incest plot in Invisible. The same distinctive writing style is there. But the theme, plot and characters are totally different.

His work does not have any of those stream-of-consciousness, roman-a-clef or other literary terminologies. His characters cannot talk to cats, cannot fly, cannot smell all the odors in his surroundings. He does not use big words that will prompt you to open a nearby dictionary in the middle of the night. He does not surprise you with big quotation that will prompt you to fold the corner of the page. He does not make you cry. He does not make you laugh.

Auster is just straightforward storyteller. His characters can be you or me. Easy read but his vivid imagination and believable plot do the trick. You will cry or laugh but you will perhaps dream. No wonder that this 1001 book is also in the 100 Must Read Book for Men.

If there is a new author whose work you may want to sample soon, try Auster. Chances are, you will love him.

نمیدونم چرا تا آخرش خوندم:(..کتابی ضعیف از پل آستر..انتظار این همه بد بودن رو نداشتم..هیچ چیز نداشت این کتاب جز مکالمه های بی سر وته که چیزی برای یادگرفتن نداشت...البته دوسه تا جمله بود که خوب بودن ولی در کل کتاب خوبی نبود..به امید کتاب بهتری از آستر:)

En La música del azar me encuentro con el Auster de la gran imaginación, del azar, de personajes que intentan vivir y guiar sus propias vidas. Cierras el libro con un final inesperado, tras haber pensado durante 250 páginas que te gustaría lanzarte a la carretera, conducir tu vida; te quieres desatar de personas, trabajo y situaciones, para luego encontrarte y construir con tu pasado, junto a un nuevo amigo, un gran muro hecho de escombros de un castillo, levantando piedra a piedra, metro a metro, a quien has encontrado y eres en realidad. AUSTER, ERES GRANDE.

Qué grandísimo narrador es Auster.

La música del azar cuenta una historia extraña y bastante inverosímil, pero que atrapa desde el primer momento. El ritmo de la narración es tremendo y vertiginoso, lo que hace imposible soltarla. Lo mejor que tiene, creo, es que el final se torna cada vez más inevitable y necesario, por lo que llegados a ese punto (y como pasa en la música), el desenlace es casi un alivio para el lector.

Una obra sin duda peculiar pero perfecta, justo lo que necesitaba este domingo. Me encantó.

[4.5] The Music of Chance ticks with impending doom. Or maybe not. I kept hoping for relief. Auster makes the routine act of building a stone wall (for months) freighted with meaning and suspense. I have so many questions! I am just floored by this book. Brilliant and unnerving.

“Kendiniz için bir başka yaşam hayal edersiniz, bu sizi ayakta tutar. İnsanın kanını kamçılar.” Paul Auster
Acıyı, öfkeyi, sevgiyi ve daha birçok insani duyguyu yine müthiş aktardığı ve hissettirdiği bir romanı.