4.5/5

Paul Auster’ı çok severim. Bazen aynı şeyi yazıyormuş gibi hissettirse de bazen de okuyucusunu çok güzel şaşırtır. Son Şeyler Ülkesi de fazlasıyla şaşırtıcı bir roman oldu benim için. Öykünün arka plana çekildiği atmosferin öne çıktığı bir kıyamet sonrası romanı okumaya beklemiyordum doğrusu. Başkası yazsa henüz başlarında kabak tadı verebilecek bir metinken doğru anlatım ve akıcı dille neredeyse soluksuz okunan bir metne dönüşüyor Son Şeyler Ülkesi. Üstelik içinde de anlatılan dünyaya dair onlarca güzel fikir var. Bu fikirler ister istemez soruları da beraberinde getiriyor tabii. Bitirirken daha çok şey öğrenmiş olmak isterdim evrene dair ama çok da önemli değil, okuduğumdan fazlasıyla tatmin oldum.

Paul Auster okumak hayal dünyanızın sınırlarını zorlamak gibi.Çok karanlık,çok soğuk,çok umutsuz ve ölümün tek çıkış yolu olduğu isimsiz bir şehirde 19 yaşında bir kızın-Anna Blume- kimliği belli olmayan birine yazdığı mektubu okuyorsunuz bu kitapta üstelik bu mektubun birinin eline geçip geçmediğini merak ederek,onca umutsuzluğun içinde mektubun birilerine ulaşmasını umarak...
Kim ne derse desin Paul Auster usta bir yazar.

الناس يتمسّكون بالاعتقاد بأنه مهما كانت الأشياء في الماضي سيئة، فإنها أفضل من الأشياء الآن. وما كانت عليه قبل يومين هو أفضل مما كانت عليه حتى في الأمس القريب. وكلما أوغلتُ في الماضي، يُصبح العالم أجمل ومرغوباً أكثر”

اولین کتابی بود که از پل استر خوندم و خیلی از نثرش خوشم اومد.بیشتر وز همه قسمت اول کتابو دوست داشتم،جایی که هنوز داستان شروع نشده بود و من می تونستم با توصیفا و استعاره های نویسنده داستان خودم رو توش پیدا کنم.
به نظرم همه ی شهر ها، آخر دنیان.جایی که ما انقدر برای فراهم کردن ابتدایی ترین نیازهامون میجنگیم که یادمون میره کی بودیم و چه آرزوهایی داشتیم. جایی که هدف فقط ادامه دادن و قدم بعدی رو برداشتنه تا جایی که دیگه نتونیم ادامه بدیم.توی این شهر مردم برای مردن زندگی میکنند.
پایان داستان البته به آخر نرسید و جایی برای امید در آینده ای نا معلوم گذاشته بود.

"هرچه بیشتر به پایان نزدیک شوی، چیزهای بیشتری برای گفتن می ماند.پایان فقط یک خیال ا��ت،مقصدی که برای خود میتراشی تا بتوانی به رفتن ادامه دهی، اما زمانی می رسد که در می یابی هرگز به آن نمیرسی ممکن است به ناچار توقف کنی اما، تنها بخ این خاطر که زمان به انتها
رسیده است توقف می کنی،اما توقف به این مفهوم نیست که به آخر رسیده ای."

Ok people, the world is going to shit. Falling apart at the seams. Imploding into a fiery ball of people fuelled insanity. So what are you going to do about it?

Do you...
a. PANIC! Scream and run around in circles waving your arms above your head.
b. Start hoarding toilet roll. You have it on good authority that it might become the currency of the realm.
c. Emulate Michael Douglas in popular 80s yuppie-fest, "Falling Down" and shoot everyone before they get you first. After all it is only a matter of time.
d. Write a very long letter.

You chose d of course? What else will the keyboard clatter monkeys at Goodreads be doing when the shit hits the fan - we'll all be getting in one last seminal review, right? Ok kidding, I'll be out on the street shanking people for toilet roll with the rest of you.

Anna Blume has chose option D although in her defence, when we are introduced to her as the narrator in The Country of Last Things, the world has already imploded and things are about to get worse. Well, I say the world because Auster never quite quantifies or qualifies the full geographic extent of his dystopian vision (aside from intimating that it has not reached England - yay). But based on the descriptions of the bleak and bitter landscape through which Anna Blume wanders, it is pretty likely that good old New York is the epicentre of the end of days. Why is New York the epicentre? No idea about that either, as Auster gives no clues, but it is probably something to do with politics.

Anna Blume has entered a sort of dead zone in order to find her brother, journalist William Blume. Clutching only a photograph of his associate, Sam Farr, and a limited number of possessions she quickly realises that she has made a terrible mistake entering a world where the normal laws of society are long forgotten and the only placebo to this is that if you can't face surviving in the such total moral and physival dereliction then there is at least one way out. Numerous cults and groups have sprung up which encourage suicide in various novel fashions; the leapers the runners and the crawlers. Running yourself to death anyone? Nope, thought not.

This is not a scary dystopian vision despite the fact that it features suicide, attempted rape, murder, theft and cannibalism. The lack of scare factor is mainly attributable to the fact that as the apocalypse seems to be fairly localised there is always the hope of escape. A bit like Mad Max trying to get beyond the Thunder Dome.

Anna Blume's last testament is an epistle to her family, one which she anticipates will never be read. It is the one sided nature of this account which makes it work because we only ever get to hear Anna's voice and that single voice is what fuels the notion of loneliness and isolation. Despite all the negative connotations however, she still manages to find love, friendship, solace and shelter and it even ends on a positive note. Perhaps there is life beyond the Thunder Dome after all.

In questo romanzo, molto breve, ma di forte impatto, Paul Auster cambia completamente scenario. Non siamo più a New York, ma in un altro luogo non identificato, uno scenario apocalittico che porta Anna Blume, la protagonista, alla ricerca del fratello scomparso.
Un romanzo distopico in cui Anna si avventura in un mondo di desolazione che emerge sin dalle prime righe della storia:

"Queste sono le ultime cose, scriveva. A una a una scompaiono
e non ritornano più. Posso raccontarti di quelle che ho visto, di
quelle che non esistono più, ma temo di non averne il tempo".

Nel paese delle ultime cose tutto è disperazione, desolazione, disagio e le speranze sono ridotte al lumicino. In questo scenario, non solo le cose, ma anche le persone tendono pian piano a svanire, a sbiadire il loro ricordo fino quasi a non rimanere più nulla di loro.
Oltre allo scenario e all'ambientazione, cambia anche la struttura. Una lunga lettera infarcita da pochissimi dialoghi e ricca di introspezione e riflessioni su tantissimi aspetti e tematiche che ci toccano da vicino.

Pian piano, qualcosa emerge e forse, nell'abbruttimento, non solo di se stessi, ma anche del mondo circostante, può nascere la speranza e intravedere la luce di qualcosa di diverso e migliore:

"C’erano sempre le stesse lotte, gli stessi problemi da affrontare ogni giorno, ma ora mi era stata data la possibilità di sperare, e cominciai a credere che prima o poi i nostri problemi sarebbero finiti".

Bom, Senhor Auster, pode publicar as suas listas do supermercado que eu compro e leio com muito prazer.

Me ha costado bastante terminarlo, a pesar de ser cortito. Empezó resultándome curiosa la descripción del mundo donde vive la protagonista, pero en el momento que empezó a centrarse en su historia personal se me haciendo cada vez más cuesta arriba la lectura y al final me he acabado aburriendo bastante.

La protagonista cuenta su historia en una carta, y eso hace que apenas haya diálogos y que la narración sea muy monótona. No he conectado con la historia y ni siquiera tenía mucho interés por saber que pasaría con la chica al final.

Sí que tiene algunas situaciones que llaman más la atención que otras y puedes apreciar el drama que esta viviendo Anna en el país de las últimas cosas. También nos deja el autor alguna frase bastante interesante, pero poco más.

Durante el libro hay tres partes diferenciadas, con tres sucesos que cambian el devenir de la protagonista. Probablemente esto también haya ido de más a menos. El primero de esos sucesos es el que más me ha gustado. El final tampoco ha sido nada del otro mundo. La chica acaba la carta en el momento actual que está viviendo justo al final de la tercera parte y deja un final abierto.
Poco más que destacar.

Il viaggio di Anna Blume in cerca del fratello scomparso è un po’ il viaggio di un’umanità che senza valigie arriva ad estinguersi, in un paese dove tutto scompare, dove tutto perisce, dove oltre agli oggetti a perdersi è anche la memoria di essi, delle parole stesse e delle esperienze vissute. Nel paese delle ultime cose l’apocalisse è vicina, niente più nasce e le cose muoiono con estrema rapidità. Sopravvivere e arrancare, giorno dopo giorno, nel dispotismo dei governi che si susseguono rapidi l’uno dopo l’altro; nell’egoismo d’ogni persona che ancora cammina, sorretta soltanto dai propri bisogni; nell’incapacità di scappare, perché quel che è entrata non è anche uscita.
Anna però è tenace, in cuor suo ha il coraggio di cercare ancora, e quel che trova in questa devastazione – facendo amicizia, innamorandosi anche – è la vita nella morte. E ce la racconta in una lunga lettera senza fine.

“Nothing lasts, you see, not even the thoughts inside you. And you mustn’t waste your time looking for them. Once a thing is gone, that is the end of it.”
Perhaps I’ve read too many dystopias (they put current anxieties in perspective), because although I can’t fault this, and I wanted to know what would happen next, I was ultimately underwhelmed. I didn't mind not knowing what happened before and after, but I think I wanted a bit more mystery, rather than something so plausibly real.

The story comes from Anna’s notebook, written to a childhood friend who may never see it (though just occasionally, it breaks the fourth wall with a comment like “she continued”). It covers a few years from when, aged 19, she took a 10-day crossing to seek her brother, who had gone missing, months earlier. There is no explanation of anything; just what happens to her - until the story stops.
“The closer you come to the end, the more there is to say.”

She starts off describing survival skills in a city which is collapsing literally and metaphorically, where most are homeless, jobless, and friendless, where crime, disease, and death are endemic, and the authority’s main role is disposing of bodies and excrement.
“The essential thing is not to become inured. For habits are deadly.”
It’s grim, and gets worse. She has strokes of luck, always followed by disaster of some kind - until the story stops.


Image: Abandoned city (Source)

Language

As a child, Anna wrote stories, including ‘The Castle of No Return’, ‘The Land of Sadness’, and, most prophetically, ‘The Forest of Forgotten Words’.

In the country of last things and forgotten words, euphemisms blunt the horror. A mix of grassroots slang and official gaslighting: Vultures try to steal from Object Hunters who scavenge for things to sell to Resurrection Agents; Transformation Centers are crematoria creating fuel; Runners try to kill themselves by exhaustion, and Leapers by jumping off buildings while people watch (then frisk the bodies).

Starfish

Anna lives on the streets, in a single room with a couple, in the attic of an academic library, and in a small charitable hostel called Woburn House. The last is the most interesting: people queue for days to have a temporary place:
“Nothing is solved by this… We were supposed to be helping people… but there were times when we actually destroyed them… What is better - to help a large number of people a little bit or small numbers of people a lot?”


Image: Child throwing one of many washed-up starfish back into the sea, making a difference to that one. (Image source and associated parable)

Quotes

•t“When hope disappears… you tend to fill the empty spaces with dreams.”

•t“Every Jew believes that he belongs to the last generation of Jews.”

•t“The present consumed us entirely now… There was a ghostly equilibrium to this life.”

•t“Memory is not an act of will… It is something that happens in spite of oneself.”

See also

Anna writes:
“It’s not just that things [like airplanes] vanish - but once they vanish, the memory of them vanishes as well.”
The obvious comparison is with Yōko Ogawa’s The Memory Police, which I reviewed HERE, including links to my reviews of other dystopias. The Memory Police was published in Japan in 1994, but only translated to English in 2019. Like Auster’s 1987 novel, things disappear from life, and thence from vocabulary and memory. However, Ogawa’s is more surreal, or maybe supernatural.

بعد از خوندن این کتاب احساس میکنم هیچی خوب نمیشه دیگه هیچ حیاتی نمونده و انگیزه برای انجام هیچ کاری نیست.
کتاب استیصال کامل بود. رمانی پادآرمانشهری که این سبک به خصوص تو شرایط اخیر کشورمون که بعید نیست ما هم به اون سمت بریم خیلی ترسناکه.
اینکه روزی برسه که مجبور باشیم اجساد مون رو بسوزونیم تا تأمین سوخت بشه و هرچی داریم بفروشیم تا خوراک مون رو تامین کنیم و رفته رفته از گرسنگی و سرما بمیریم واقعا وحشتناکه!
کتاب قوی و جذاب بود نمیگم کتاب بدیه ولی شاید خوندنش تو این زمان مناسب هر روحیه و سنی نباشه. من رو که به ناامیدی رسوند!
تنها نقطه جالب توجه برام اینه که نشون میداد تو هر شرایطی زندگی ادامه داره و حتی آدم میتونه عشق رو تجربه کنه همونطوری که آنا تجربه کرد...

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