After Paul Auster died this spring, I asked for recommendations, and Leviathan was the first recommendation I got.

I have recently read two impressive novels that are almost opposite in the way they treat characters. The first was David Grossman's To the End of the Land. In that book the author performed what to me is a near act of creation, taking three characters and building them from scratch in every detail. In that long book he miraculously makes them real.

On the other hand, Paul Auster shows the phantasmagorical nature of what we think of as identity. He starts with a situation in which a once-promising author friend of his has blown himself up with a bomb along the side of a road. His whole book is an experiment in starting from the beginning to show how we get to that point. To get there, he fits in everything he comes across. Or, rather, he makes it fit. To that end, he shows the amorphous nature of the identity puzzle pieces

There is a character in the book who represents the author in that function. She is described as a sort of artist who performs or photographs idiosyncratic and arbitrary projects -- whatever she happens to be obsessed with at the moment -- such as eating only foods of a certain color on particular days, secretly gifting a handsome but poorly dressed man with a suit of clothes once a year, or unobtrusively following and photographing certain sorts of strangers, or in one instance hiring a detective to do the same to her. It is "as if she had become a stranger, as if she had been turned into an imaginary being. ... The camera was no longer an instrument that recorded presences, it was a way of making the world disappear."

This is not what other reviewers say. But it's the way I experienced the book. It made me stop and think. I remember some events that occurred when I was a small child, before my memory/consciousness kicked in with its "I" and its seeming continuity. Those early events were like discrete beads not yet strung together in a continuous necklace of memory, and I tended to perceive them as though watching a vignette from an external vantage point rather than from inside-out via an "I." The book makes me question the "reality" of conscious identity as we usually experience it. It gave me instead the eerie sensation of the arbitrariness of all that. Carrying it to a further conclusion, I guess we could often do something unexpected, something that doesn't fit. We could be free.
We could also become unmoored.

Peter Aaron, the character telling the story and maybe a more conventional stand-in for the author than the character mentioned above (the artist following her obsessions), compares what happens in fiction to reality: "Anything can happen. And one way or another, it always does." Another way of saying that truth is stranger than fiction, perhaps. But in this book it justifies what the author is doing with character and plot. When I read "Anything can happen," I had to laugh. This author is going to do anything he damn well wants!

He had to do it, though, by having his main character Ben go off the rails. There are consequences to actions even if those actions are taken on the basis of obsession or guilt or thinking it's the one right thing to do.

Why was Ben's abandoned novel named Leviathan, and why did Paul Auster use that name for this book? I don't see that we're talking about the state here, so what is the leviathan? "(J)ust then, in one of those unbidden flashes of insight, it occurred to him that nothing was meaningless, that everything in the world was connected to everything else." That's one big Leviathan!


"A book is a mysterious object, I said, and once it floats out into the world, anything can happen. All kinds of mischief can be caused, and there's not a damned thing you can do about it. For better or worse, it's completely out of your control."


I read and enjoyed one of Paul Auster's books about 30+ years ago: Timbuktu. So I went for a second book: maybe it was The Book of Illusions. That one I couldn't penetrate. I didn't read another one until now. I think I'd like to go for The New York Trilogy or 4 3 2 1.

I was listening on audio. But then I needed to hurry up and finish so I read the last 100 pages in the original hardback format. On audio I had picked up on what seems to me to be the experimental nature of the book, but got more intensely into the eerie aspect when I turned to the book on paper.

Thanks to my local public library for having the book to go along with my Audible version.

I love Auster, and "The New York Trilogy" is probably up there in my top ten books. But "Leviathan" left me deeply unsatisfied. Overall, the structure did not work for me, and while some of the themes and tropes are vintage Auster this time they didn't coalesce.

There was a lot in here, as Sachs trashes one part of his life after another in some search of who-knows-what (success? identity? self-respect?) that just felt repetitive and monotonous. It's not that Sachs is unlikable, but something worse to me: he's uninteresting. He's eclipsed by pretty much every other character in this book: Maria and her faux-verite art projects, the solid rock that Fanny proves to be, even some of the narrator's exploits. Those are the best parts of this book, and every time we go back to Sachs you keep waiting to go back to the other characters for a bit.

Maybe that was part of the point - maybe a search for meaning on someone utterly failed, which everyone else around him tries to coax into greatness. But, as such a person would be, the result is immensely frustrating, and stays at unfulfilled promise...

Lees op internet dat Paul Auster op 77-jarige leeftijd is overleden. Hij schreef een paar prachtige boeken. Dit was qua leeservaring mijn favoriet. Bloedstollend verteld. Wat is jouw favoriete Auster?

2.5/5

Πρώτη επαφή με το έργο του Όστερ. Δε μπορώ να πω ότι έμεινα ευχαριστημένος αλλά ούτε και απογοητευμένος. Ακριβώς στο κέντρο. Η ιστορία ξεκινάει δυνατά αλλά μετά την σελίδα 50, όταν συνειδητοποίησα το πώς θα εξελιχθεί το βιβλίο στη συνέχεια βαρέθηκα εξαιτίας της συνεχής επανάληψης. Τα κεφάλαια είναι μεγάλα (πέντε στο σύνολο) αλλά υπάρχουν επί μέρους κομμάτια σαν "θεματικές ενότητες" που το καθένα καταπιάνεται και με έναν χαρακτήρα. Το πρώτο αρνητικό σε αυτό είναι ο τρόπος γραφής: κάθε "θεματική ενότητα" τελειώνει με ένα είδος cliff hanger του τύπου "κα�� αυτή η επιλογή ήταν που κατέστρεψε τον Σακς" αλλά αμέσως μετά δε συνεχίζει την ιστορία από αυτό το σημείο αλλά κάνει ένα τεράστιο άλμα σε κάποιο διαφορετική χρονική περίοδο ή αντί να μιλήσει για τον φίλο του, μιλάει για τον εαυτό του. Σκοπός του Όστερ είναι να μας κρατήσει αμείωτο το ενδιαφέρον συνεχώς και να θέσει τις βάσεις για να μπορέσουμε να παρακολουθήσουμε την ιστορία. Στην αρχή δουλεύει, μετά κουράζει. Εάν δεν επέλεγε αυτόν τον τρόπο και απλά εξιστορούσε τα γεγονότα χρονολογικά χωρίς τα άλματα, το βιβλίο θα γινόταν μικρότερο και δε θα χρειαζόταν να επαναλαμβάνονται αρκετά πράγματα. Αυτό ήταν ένα από τα αρνητικά που αντίκρισα καθώς διάβαζα τον Λεβιάθαν μιας και τέτοιου είδους γραφή με πειράζει αρκετά. Το δεύτερο αρνητικό είναι η ακατάσχετη φλυαρία. Στα πάντα. Γεγονότα επαναλαμβάνονται, συνομιλίες γράφονται από άλλες οπτικές και το αποτέλεσμα είναι ακριβώς το ίδιο και συνεχώς ο πρωταγωνιστής - συγγραφέας του βιβλίου (και alter ego του Όστερ) αμφιταλαντεύεται μεταξύ της αλήθειας και του ψέματος. Για παράδειγμα: από την αρχή γνωρίζουμε ότι η Λίλιαν είναι ένας παράξενος χαρακτήρας με όχι και τόσο ευδιάκριτη στάση απέναντι στην αλήθεια και το ψέμα. Δε χρειάζεται να αναρωτιέται και ο συγγραφέας και ο Σακς και η Μαρία εάν όλα αυτά που λέει ισχύουν ή όχι ΚΑΘΕ φορά. Μιας και "ακούμε" το συγγραφέα να μας περιγράφει τα γεγονότα ο οποίος δρα και ως "παντογνώστης", αυτές οι επαναλήψεις θα μπορούσαν να λείπουν. Η ιστορία μοιάζει να γράφτηκε δίχως κάποιο αρχικό σχεδιάγραμμα (δε το λέω για κακό αυτό) και με τους ήρωες να κατευθύνουν την πλοκή, αλλά αυτό δε δίνει συγχωροχάρτι στις επαναλήψεις. Μία δεύτερη ανάγνωση θα μπορούσε να κόψει αρκετή φλυαρία.

Για να μη λέω μόνο τα αρνητικά, θα παραθέσω και τα θετικά, που εντελώς περιέργως είναι αρκετά. Αρχικά οι χαρακτήρες. Είναι από τους πιο ενδιαφέροντες που έχω διαβάσει, πολύ όμορφα ανεπτυγμένοι, με τα υπαρξιακά τους, τη φιλοσοφία τους και συνεχώς μεταβαλλόμενοι ανάλογα με αυτά που βλέπουνακούννιώθουν. Η ιστορία κινείται συνεχώς και το ένα γεγονός διαδέχεται το άλλο με απόλυτα φυσιολογικό τρόπο. Βέβαια υπάρχει τεράστια υπερβολή στις συμπτώσεις που ίσως ξενίσει στην αρχή, αλλά άπαξ και συνειδητοποιήσεις ότι αυτό είναι η κεντρική θεματική του βιβλίου, το δέχεσαι. Το βιβλίο μιλάει για το πεπρωμένο και για το κατά πόσο σημαντική είναι η κάθε επιλογή για τον εαυτό σου και τους γύρω σου, όσο μικρή και να φαντάζει. Κάτι που μου άρεσε πάρα πολύ σαν ιδέα, πρωτόγνωρο και διαφορετικό, όμως η εκτέλεση κατακεραυνώνει κάθε ευχαρίστηση στην ανάγνωση κατά την ταπεινή μου γνώμη.

Δεν είναι ένα κακό βιβλίο και μπορώ να καταλάβω γιατί αρέσει σε πολλούς ο Όστερ. Σίγουρα θα το χαρακτήριζα πολύπλευρο, υπαρξιακό και με πολλούς συμβολισμούς (λεβιάθαν = πεπρωμένο / κανείς δε μπορεί να τιθασεύσει τον λεβιάθαν = κανείς δε μπορεί να τιθασεύσει το πεπρωμένο κλπ). Ο Όστερ έχει ταλέντο στο να πλάθει χαρακτήρες, γεγονότα και διαβολικές συμπτώσεις, αλλά η γραφή του με ξενίζει. Σίγουρα στο μέλλον θα διαβάσω ξανά κάποιο βιβλίο του - έχω βάλει στο μάτι τον Αόρατο - και ίσως αναθεωρήσω. Πιστεύω ότι ο Όστερ ανήκει στην κατηγορία "ή του ύψους ή του βάθους, είτε θα τον λατρέψεις είτε θα τον μισήσεις". Εγώ προς το παρόν δε μπορώ να διαλέξω μεριά, εξού και τα 2.5 αστέρια, τρία με τη στρογγυλοποίηση.

Paul Auster – Leviathan
1ª Entrada
Um pacifista, um libertino, um falhado inconsequente, um activista, um bombista, um suicida, o que têm em comum? Quando iniciei “Leviathan” de Paul Auster estava convencido que iria ler um romance sobre uma América neoliberal e as suas repercussões sociais. Estava errado. Se o romance de P Auster decorre numa América dos anos 80 e as consequências do auge do período neoliberal são tangencialmente abordadas, Leviathan é essencialmente um romance pós moderno, um texto sobre a identidade. Benjamin Sachs é-nos apresentado como um mosaico onde todas as características estão presentes desde início, mas a forma como se expressam e a percepção que os outros têm dele vai variando conforme as circunstâncias se alteram. Benjamin Sachs foi simultaneamente pacifista, libertino, um falhado inconsequente, um activista, um bombista e um suicida. Foi isto e muito mais, tal como nós podíamos ter sido, ser ou vir a ser conforme para onde as circunstâncias nos encaminharem.
Leviathan de Paul Auster um belo livro sobre o mosaico que existe em cada um de nós.

2ª Entrada
É uma ficção policial descrita em retrospectiva e com todos os elementos de um bom policial. Tem suspense, tem mistério, tem crime, mete policias e criminosos e nisso tudo usa a imaginação do leitor pois em nenhum destes aspectos o texto é ostensivamente explicito. Mas é muito mais que isso, muito mais que um bom policial.
Há na história contada por Paul Auster inúmeras referências à estatua da liberdade. A primeira destas surge descrita de forma ingénua, com o elemento central desta história Benjamin Sachs a descrever de forma premonitória a contradição de um monumento erigido à liberdade durante uma visita com a sua mãe esta o obrigou a fazê-la todo enfarpelado. Dizia Benjamin Sachs ainda criança, tenho de visitar um símbolo da liberdade e ao fazê-lo, faço-o limitando a minha própria liberdade. Foi uma entrada premonitória para o que a história nos traria.
A estátua da liberdade, um presente do povo francês aos EUA e inaugurada em 1886, representa a liberdade. A liberdade enquanto conceito abstrato, mas é também símbolo de uma nova terra que todos acolhe em liberdade e igualdade. A estátua da liberdade funciona como um farol que sinaliza ao mundo um destino seguro onde todos sem exceção se podem dirigir para encontrarem liberdade e igualdade. Só que liberdade e igualdade são dois conceitos que como azeite e água, não vão bem juntos. É sempre preciso alguma força externa para os “obrigarem” a conviverem um com o outro. Sem esta força externa e se as liberdades forem absolutas, a igualdade é uma utopia que rapidamente fica distópica. Para Benjamin Sachs a estátua da liberdade representa esta contradição, a antinomia entre a acção de um governo que ao propor-se equilibrar as relações entre liberdade e igualdade, acaba por limitá-las a ambas. A estátua da liberdade, neste racional simboliza o Leviathan de Hobbes, e representa um poder que promete liberdade e igualdade e em que o cumprimento das suas promessas resulta em injustiça e opressão.
Este é sem dúvida o significado da radicalização de Benjamin Sachs. Percebe-se que esta foi a intenção do autor, no diálogo que o nosso “revolucionário” tem com Peter Aaron o narrador da história. O diálogo existe, mas a argumentação usada por ambos parece-me demasiado fluida. Enquanto Benjamin explica o porquê da sua transmutação, e fá-lo essencialmente com argumentos colaterais, demasiado pessoais e, parece-me mesmo algo narcisistas e mimados, o seu opositor, o narrador Peter Aaron poderia ter sido usado para trazer para a discussão esta contradição intrínseca entre liberdade e igualdade e qual deve ser o papel do estado enquanto regulador destas pulsões. O autor não aproveitou esta oportunidade para arengar sobre o tema nem sobre as consequências que o neoliberalismo teve na américa de Reagan. É por isso que tenho dificuldade em ver este texto como uma crítica ao neoliberalismo.

3ª Entrada
Mas é um texto claramente pós moderno. É-o na forma como aborda a individualidade de cada um como um mosaico onde a reorganização dos componentes individuais origina um resultado que poderá surpreender mas que sempre lá esteve, só esperava o momento certo para que o reagrupamento resultasse dessa forma. Para além dessa mensagem o autor em múltiplas ocasiões relata-nos diferentes versões de uma mesma realidade deixando o leitor equidistante das narrativas alternativas ao compreender que uma mesma realidade pode ser percepcionada de modo distinto, tudo depende do ponto de vista. É um princípio da pós verdade e um conceito fundamental do mundo pós moderno.
Mas tem ainda mais componentes pós modernos como a ligação ao longo do texto com a figura algo misteriosa de Maria Turner. Esta corresponde a uma protagonista do mundo do espetáculo e da arte performativa. Trata-se de Sophie Calle, uma artista do último quartil do século passado, alguém que colaborou em muitos projectos com Paul Auster e que para neste livro, é só que se supõe, a pedido da própria, lhe forneceu um personagem fundamental e o seu projecto “The Address Book”, um projecto que Paul Auster usa para iniciar a trama e introduzir alguns dos seus intervenientes.

181021: well. i have read 17 books by Paul Auster, over the years (decades...), ranging widely in appreciation from great joy to good to ok, so i have decided to do this kind of (meta? mega?) review of what are his apparent concerns, who are his usual characters, his usual world, his usual interpersonal relationships, how the plot will be driven or informed by coincidence, how these are particularly literary works that yes you can read twice or more...

1) in silence, aside from occasional background hum, politics are never foreground, never truly affecting the plot of his characters, except in one case the protagonist basically starves himself to ensure rejection from the army during Vietnam, but as some of his work was read only so long ago, i might be mistaken on this perception. always, his characters live some versions of his life, nothing but the usual northeastern american, usual educated, slightly leftist, often translator and poet or writer, who has no problems with observing, in a slightly unnerving, removed way, the progress of a friend in his writing or politics, usually impressed, usually envied- but also somehow not a friend he closely follows...

2) having read so many of his works, i cannot help but name this character, this event, involving and essential, familiar, mild confusions of his life in which the narrator is mostly passive and paranoid, that show up to varying styles in each book. he is a postmodern writer, his work never as difficult as modernists. his characters do find time to become essential friends, adopt and play, wonder and scheme, even as he himself denounces his simplest most innocuous acts, innocent acts, that have great consequences that cannot help but support a paranoid idea of himself or his situation. and in a postmodern way of course inserts his name in the phone call for a person he is not... then his character slips into this or that existential void, his character sometimes give up his agency, his life, pulled by obscure guilt, allowing this life that is not his to become his (this other man he is not) life, his character drifting given role or purpose and somehow this pleases him, this comforts him, even or maybe more because it is absurd, in hauling stones, in shattering stones, yes, the world of extending this useless stone wall is absurd in The Music of Chance... but it is at least purpose?...

3) this reaction to the void is what has always drawn me to read him again, starting with the thrice-read The New York Trilogy, in which the narrator adopts various disguises but truly becomes a sort of literary private investigator who is summoned by mistaken identity and, in a postmodern way, must inevitably fail to solve the case of language, of trauma, despite certain work and certain accidents that could help him. then his character waves farewell to the other who has hired him, for whom he has investigated, first of language then of characters then of the plot, the plot without ‘arc’, without solution, without resolution, this hard boiled innocent p.i. who could be considered collateral damage. the usual tropes of the p.i. genre are subverted, though i kept seeing it as a deconstruction, for pervasive deception, for dark ethics, for compromised morality, for inevitable ‘femme fatale’, this case ultimately kind of dissolving rather than ending in triumphant restoration of the pre-crime world, the recovery of a moral, logical world...

4) and then there is what could be subtitles under any of his titles: ‘life as coincidence’, that is what will matter, will build, will reinforce the true helplessness of having a plan for your life, will be so absurdly useful/necessary to keep the plot, even as it crosses from coast to coast, even in the slightly bothersome way this or that other or the narrator himself is too aware of this absurdity but somehow unable to escape, that the world must be fantastic, must be coincidence, comes to believe that rather than plans, the best thing is ‘coincidence’... yes be open to possibilities, yes i can see this but i would prefer to apply any of my limited intellect and emotions to vague promises of ‘plans’, i would like to believe my intentions make a difference, maybe my plans are useful if not ‘successful’, that ‘coincidence’ is by nature so rare, that result in ‘plot’ only seen after the fact, so you will not be able to plan or prepare for all the possibilities, and anyway as the far more helpful the common aspects of life we can prepare for, we name ‘probability’, we name ‘contingency’... this is me musing on philosophical views of even fictional worlds, this is me arguing it, this is me bothered in my ongoing fascination though i live and think of art in another way...

5) and then there are the aspects of his various worlds, the phone books, the essential narrative inside the narrative, that i often find most sad and haunting: that the artistic project, the telephone call, the needed connection, the phone book that ends up as- (unmentioned, is that searcher rewarded? does he starve to death when his exit is blocked?), the subtext that art is maybe necessary, but is more a expression of the futility of any sort of communication from artist to audiences, from character to character. this may just be my prejudice, for i want to believe any is valuable so my own art is worthwhile to create, that communication is possible, is motivating force of art... but some work is lost, no one ever sees what is in that block of paper, poetry? prose? visual art? (Timbuktu) but we lose it as readers as the man who fashioned it loses it through death... because auster does not dive into that realm of something like meaning...

6) some of auster’s work cannibalizes his own work, borrows names if not characters, and i do prefer his shorter work, even his longer almost-conventional work in The Brooklyn Follies, after his abstract novella Travels in the Scriptorium, that seems maybe a parody of itself, some of his work in wtf territory, some that may bother the ‘real’ models, the ‘real’ lives, but then artists have no other source, no limitations, no rules, thus no proprietary sense and here is endless proof that we cannot ultimately communicate because we are a dog, in Timbuktu, we are so secretive about our unknown work, or we are embarrassed by the story and fallout, in Invisible: A Novel, that we film just for ourselves and then kill the artist who wants to share it, after all these years, in The Book of Illusions, or the man who investigates is trapped with nothing but names and phone books and no way to phone in Oracle Night, the experiences of horror when the city is all ghetto and everyone seems to be homeless rag pickers in 'In the Country of Last Things... auster never goes far enough for me, into surrealism, into experimentalism, never elaborates plots that seem interesting, such as the alternative reality of some sort of american civil war (Man in the Dark...

7) so, i have read a lot of him, as it is many years (decades...) past that i began reading postmodern literature, reading only as this award or that award says, reading books of a type, then authors of a type, then select books of a type- but it is only about a decade past that i began to read much philosophy, to add philosophical ideas to what literary theory i had read in and since u.. i have greatly enjoyed rereading some of his work, such as his 'In the Country of Last Things, which is a concise, poetic nightmare. but then i try perhaps uselessly to convince all other readers not to read 4 3 2 1, which is to me a great disappointment, this is not the auster of his best work, for though the concept intrigues, the unfolding narrative is far far far too long...

more like a 2.5

more often than not, if i want to give a book less than 4 stars, I shouldn't be rating it because I'm not the intended audience - it's why I didn't rate the handmaid's tale, and why I put many other books down that i won't post about; there's no point - why would you want to read about my opinion if i don't enjoy the very essence of a book?

but i'm pretty sure i'm the intended audience for this - it's literary crime with a stunning concept. A man blows himself up, and his best friend sits down to write about what happened while the FBI try to put the story together. ARE YOU KIDDING, SIGN ME UP (you could argue that i was never going to enjoy a first person narration from a writer with such an idealized view of women that none of them ever have a second dimension, but no one warned me about that)

and then it goes off the rails. pages on pages spent on learning about these guys' exploits that either have nothing to do with the overarching narrative ( anyone wanna tell me what the point of learning about iris was? anyone wanna enlighten me on why i had to read about how he 'kissed her deep inside the mouth' the night he met her? i SHUDDER to think ) or could have been told in about 20 pages less.  maria's entire character was: she's quirky and weird. she turns into a scorned almost-lover in the last half and i will never understand what the point of that was.  there is not a single woman in here who wasn't a man's something - wife, love interest, friend with benefits, almost-lover, whatever. No woman saw any relationship with a man that didn't have a brush with sex at least once, not to mention that the only female character with more than one trait was fanny; bless her, i may not have gotten through the middle of this book without her.

i don't want 'gender issues' books, it's never something i actively seek out in my fiction, and i stay away from literary fiction because it tends to be melodramatic musings that could well have been essays. literary crime tends to make me happy, though - you've got some sort of high stakes as a background, then all the room in the world to fill with introspection. because of the high stakes and nature of the plot, you have a big chance to steer away from melodrama, and the difficult and highly stressful situations your characters are in, you've got reason to make them look inside themselves and examine who they are, so i have no idea how this managed to be this convoluted and over-dramatic and tone-deaf about women. man. i had such high hopes. how hard is it to write women as just.......... regular people?

i'm putting it at 2.5, only in theory until goodreads lets me, because the bits that were good were really good: the beginning, sachs' character,  sachs' final conversation with the narrator , the prose when there were no women involved, the 'mystery' plot.

i'm sad and i'm disappointed. go read The New York Trilogy and The Book of Illusions, and let's pretend this never happened.

seriously i'll never be able to get that 'i kissed her deep inside the mouth' line out of my head and that makes me depressed

3.4

Este prima carte a lui Paul Aster care nu mă ia pe sus, nu mi se pare sclipitoare (am mai citit Trilogia New York-ului, Un om în întuneric și Palatul lunii), dar e departe de a fi o carte slabă.
Povestea ia tot forma unui thriller, ca și Trilogia NY și componentele seamănă: personajele-scriitori; problema identității și răsturnările de identitate, personalitățile răsucite de accidente și coincidențe care par aproape supranaturale; cartea în carte (Noul Colos în Leviatan, care Leviatan al unui scriitor este și el un substitut al Leviatanului original al celuilalt scriitor). Același univers al simbolurilor răsturnate, tipic lui Auster și totuși, ceva îi lipsește. De fapt, îi lipsesc mai multe lucururi: dacă în celelalte romane citite exista o țesătură aproape onirică / magică ce suspenda neîncrederea cititorului și te făcea să accepți convenția, aici coincidențele sunt exagerate, motivațiile personajelor nu sunt credibile, jocurile minții sunt prea transparente și chiar identitatea personajelor e foarte puțin conturată. Parcă de câte ori începe să urmărească motivația unui personaj, Auster se întrerupe după un paragraf, ca și când s-ar sabota singur, de parcă intenționat le subminează consistența.
Chiar tema centrală, cea a idealismului, a căutării sensului și a sacrificiului pentru idee (democrație, libertate și egalitate, simbolizate de Statuia Libertății, noul colos din Noua Grecie, cea mai mare democrație a lumii - și cea mai ipocrită) e șubred construită. Parcă nu reușește să ajungă la miez.

Totuși, stilistic Auster e grozav, ca de obicei, nici urmă de locuri comune, frazele alunecă elegant și cartea se citește de parcă ai alerga pe o partitură în Allegro.

O alta parabola a scriitorului, in genul Auster. Cuplul Aaron - Sachs m-a dus cu gandul la Dr. Jekyll si D-l Hyde si mi-a placut, din nou, jocul la care am luat parte, citind. Sunt si doua personaje feminine, Maria si Lilian, ce par a fi, insa, unul si-acelasi caracter, prea mult seamana la trasaturile negative, fiind, de multe ori, aproape neverosimile. Totusi, au rolul lor in echilibrul romanului si, bineinteles, un aport destul de important la partea lui spectaculoasa.
Sfarsitul e foarte alert, iar ideea cu care se termina "aventura" lui Peter Aaron e ingenioasa si cand inchizi cartea ai un sentiment de satisfactie. Eu l-am avut

Siamo tutti in balìa del caso. Da un momento all’altro, un amico che non incontri da tempo potrebbe ricomparire sui giornali, perché si è fatto saltare in aria lungo una strada del Wisconsin mentre fabbricava una bomba.
E se tu sei uno scrittore, così come lo era lui, l’urgenza di ricostruire quella stravagante concatenazione di fatti che ha portato alla tragedia sarà troppo forte per potervi rinunciare.

Chi legge molto ha imparato che le trame non sempre sono la cosa che conta di più, ma Paul Auster è senza dubbio un grande narratore, che sa come intrattenere e inchiodarti alle pagine quindi sì, le sue sono prima di tutto delle belle storie. Con degli elementi ricorrenti, è normale. Uomini che scompaiono e altri che tentano di ritrovarli e si tratta quasi sempre di scrittori, con la mente in continuo fermento, sempre alla ricerca di un sentiero da seguire. Misteri, inseguimenti, identità confuse e speculari.

Scrivi di ciò che conosci è la prima regola. E Paul Auster lo fa: in ogni suo racconto si respira il grande amore per la città di New York (anche se in questo caso ci spostiamo spesso nel Vermont), la passione per la scrittura e in ognuno dei suoi doppi letterari possiamo scorgere qualcosa di suo, così come in ogni donna amata sulla carta c’è qualcosa della sua compagna nella vita reale, Siri Hustvedt.
Ma la più grande tentazione per Auster è la metafiction: storie contenute dentro altre storie, rimandi e parallelismi, perché ogni suo intreccio ha vari livelli di lettura e risulta autentico, fluido e coinvolgente.

Questo romanzo è stato dedicato a Don DeLillo e non è una scelta casuale. Leviatano è una storia di amicizia, ma è anche il riflesso di uno dei lati più oscuri d’America, quello del terrorismo e della violenza. È il 1992, il World Trade Center è ancora integro, ma l’aria che si respira è già asfissiante e il ruolo politico e sociale che gli scrittori dovrebbero rivestire è un tema più caldo che mai.

Un altro libro più che riuscito, un’altra bella storia ad opera di uno dei miei scrittori preferiti. Non ho altro da aggiungere.

Siamo sulle 4 stelle e mezzo.

Es la segunda vez que pruebo con un libro de Paul Auster, el primero fue Invisible y ambos con el mismo resultado.

No logro conectar ni con el estilo del autor ni con ninguno de sus personajes, todo parece demasiado construído, excesivo, superficial. Todo tiene que conectarse por producto de la casualidad y resulta cansino soportar semejante rompecabezas de improbabilidades. En especial cuando el narrador se la pasa repitiendo frases más o menos del tipo: "estoy seguro de que si el anterior evento jamás pasaba, lo que pasó en ese momento no se hubiera dado"; "de haberme encontrado a mí ese día, él jamás habría tomado las decisiones que tomó", etc. Hay explicaciones que no vienen al caso, unas cuantas relaciones absurdas y solo algunos fragmentos inspiradores.

Conclusión, este autor no es para mí. Tal vez vuelva a intentarlo con otra de sus obras pero no será pronto.

>Sachs estaba realmente mal de la cabeza, inspirarse en el tipo que mató a un muchacho a sangre fría sin razón alguna para tomar la decisión de hacer algo en nombre de la libertad y la democracia, no tiene sentido. Claro que el siempre había tenido esas ideas patrióticas pero que el tipo a quien el terminó matando con un bate en defensa propia sea su inspiración ya resulta ridículo.

I always mistakenly think this was the first book I ever read by Paul Auster. It wasn't. Moon Palace was. I do remember reading an advance copy of this that I pulled off the shelves of the publisher I worked for at the time. It felt like I was stealing, though he wouldn't have cared, and couldn't have ever known I did that unless I told him. By chance, the day I placed it back on the shelf, the publisher gave it & that Sun & Moon Press book The Art of Hunger to one of the staff members to review. Phew that was lucky. I read it because I knew I was going to have to be dealing with Auster for the press very soon to that day, and I liked what I had read at that point a whole lot. When I first called him at his home, I said, "Mr. Auster?" He said, "How did you get this number?" I said, "Paul from Prairie Lights Books gave it to me." He said, "Yes, this is Paul Auster, what is it I can do for you?" I didn't realize until a year or so later how I was almost a character, post published, in his City of Glass. Dopey, I'm sorry. Leviathan? One of those books that made me live through it the entire time I was reading it.