Oracle Night

"Words, words, words", says Hamlet. Paul Auster, on the other hand, says "words could kill (...) Words could alter reality, and therefore they were too dangerous to be entrusted to a man". But when "Oracle Night"'s narrator realizes so, it is too late -- he has said too many words, and his reality is a way too different. Still working on (or insisting on, depending where you come from) the role of the writer in the society, New Yorker writer Paul Auster has delivered one of his most engaging books in his latest "Oracle Night". Not different from most of his previous work, he focuses on a New Yorker writer, in this case, the protagonist's life will be deeply altered in the course of a week or so. When we first meet Sidney Orr he is leaving hospital and barely knows how the life is outside the facility. He is a writer who hasn't worked for a long time, and seems to be longing to get back to work. What will start this process is a blue Portuguese notebook that he buys in a store that belongs to a Chinese named M.R. Chang. From the moment Orr starts working on his blue notebook something happens -- not only to him, but to Auster's narrative as well. There is a smooth change: we start reading Orr's novel that is a retelling of a minor plot from Dashiell Hammett's "The Maltese Falcon". For some time, "Oracle Night" is a book within a book within a book. At some point, there are three distinctive narratives in one book -- and it is not difficult to follow any of them, because the three are very interesting. This device is nothing new -- A. S. Byatt's "Possession", Ian McEwan's "Atonement" to name a few--, but in Auster's hands it is still interesting. What fascinates most when he uses such a device is fact that he is trying to expose how (un)limited is the work of a writer. Different from 'real life' a writer can leave something unfinished. If he doesn't know what to do with his narrative he may toss his work aside and start a new one. In 'real life' there is not tossing -- one must deal with the problem. It is impressive that a novel about words and its powers is so thin. Auster is economic with his words, because like Orr, he knows that they can kill, alter reality --that, after all, they are too dangerous. It's been a long time since I last read a book that gave me so much pleasure -- that is why "Oracle Night" receives my highest praises and recommendations.

Sidney Orr est un écrivain. Il se remet d'un long séjour à l'hôpital. Après plusieurs mois d'inactivité il recommence à écrire... dans un carnet bleu... Sidney n'est pas le genre de personnages auxquels nous a habitués Paul Auster, par exemple comparé à Fogg de Moon Palace, il est des plus banal. Mais là où Paul Auster frappe fort c'est dans les descriptions, il me semble qu'il n'a jamais aussi bien décrit ses personnages. Il les rend très vivants, on reste accroché à leurs moindres faits et gestes. Chaque mot est à sa place, Paul Auster maîtrise tout. Impressionnant! Dans Le livre des illusions, le cinéma occupe une place majeure, ici c'est la création littéraire, un sujet qui pourrait être banal chez un autre que Paul Auster mais encore là Paul Auster épate par sa façon de rendre les choses réelles, plus réelles que la réalité. Il nous entraîne dans des situations abracadabradantes et on y croit. Et pour le plus grand bonheur des fans, on y retrouve ses thèmes de prédilection, le hasard toujours le hasard, New York et etc. Lire un nouveau roman de Paul Auster c'est comme retrouver un vieux copain. Je crois que quelqu'un qui ne connaît pas Paul Auster ferait mieux de lire son oeuvre dans l'ordre, Auster est ce genre d'auteurs qui fait de nombreux clins d'oeil et ça serait alors passer à côté de ce qui fait en partie le charme de le lire. À lire bien sûr et surtout faut lire toute l'oeuvre de ce grand auteur.

I've always liked Paul Auster, though I've found some of his last few works (Timbuktu, House of Illusions) somewhat less powerful than his earlier novels (Music of Chance, Moon Palace, Leviathan). But Oracle Night is fantastic, really his best work in years. Anybody who has ever liked anything they've read by Auster should read this one. The usual themes are present: loss, chance, memory, and that ever-present Austerian curiosity, the windfall of funds; but the intricate novel-within-novel structure (including, yes, yet another novel nested inside) makes the reader feel like he's living a dream.A masterwork. Buy this book.

This little book gave me that rare experience of being absolutely unable to stop reading the thing! I had read, and so thoroughly enjoyed, The Music of Chance some years ago, that upon fininshing, I immediately went back to the beginning and read it again. I don't know why it's taken me so long to read another Auster, but I was certainly not disappointed. I loved M.R. Chang, Ed Victory, and Sidney Orr - even the horrible Jacob is intriguing, almost sympathetic in his way, before the awful and unexpected denouement. I didn't feel the ending was abrupt, as some reviewers have - maybe it's the kind of book that's too good to have to stop reading, or writing. Curse you, Paul Auster! Now I have to read all your other books.

Sidney Orr is just recovering from a near fatal illness, and is thinking about starting back to writing. He stumbles into a little stationery shop owned by a mysterious Chinese, and purchases a unique last-of-its-kind notebook from Portugal. With just such seemingly unrelated details, author Paul Auster lures you into his alternate reality, a world of haunting questions and mysteries.Is there anything more to life than chance? Does anything have meaning? What is the nature of time? And most importantly, can fantasy become reality? Does the writer with his fantastic creations actually bring about future events?Author Auster, who wrote The Book of Illusions, is a master at creating what a psychiatrist would call "dissociation"--the splitting of consciousness. With apparent ease he has the reader following three stories at once--story within story within story--and slipping into something like a trance. He fixates the reader's attention with Chinese stationers and secretive spouses and leads the reader off track with rambling footnotes that go on for several pages. He is extremely skilled at this. I can't tell you much about the plot--you will just have to read it yourself--but I can tell you that you will be--well--entranced. I highly recommend this one! Reviewed by Louis N. Gruber.