The Brooklyn Follies

I loved The Brooklyn Follies. I loved it on a lot of levels. I didn't object that Auster traded in some of the more literary tone of his other works for the formerly corporate persona of Nathan. There is something really nice about the way the plot is set up for the characters. When Nathan tells us that he came to Brooklyn to die, we know that he is going to turn around and find a way to live. You take all the accidental meetings, little coincidences, improbable stories and put them together and the effect is charming. Really charming. Because it is Auster, of course, you know that it isn't *that* charming. All the redemption and the little personal triumphs pale against the greater disaster to follow. No better way to make the inhuman clear for what it is then to contrast it with what passes for comedy. What I particularly like is that I don't get the sense that Auster priveleges one aspect of the book over the other. The human stories become richer when seen in the light of the future, but don't really seem unimportant. And if there was a message for me to take out of the book, it would have been something like that: the details of living are important, even when set against things very far out of our control. But Auster says that message much better than I ever could. So don't read this review. Go read the book. Recommended for fans of smart fiction, already fans of Auster or not.

Paul Auster can be many things. He can be detached, whimsical, mysterious, wry, playful, serious, and even surrealistic. In "The Brooklyn Follies," Auster shows he can be compassionate and warm as well. The narrator of "The Brooklyn Follies" is Nathan Glass, a divoced, cynical, 59-year-old survivor of a crumbling life who has moved back to his childhood neighborhood in Brooklyn to spend his remaining days quietly waiting for his death. But the book isn't about Glass -- it's about the people he spends his days with. Some are people he's met since moving back, and others are relatives he's known for decades. In some way, each character in the book has a life as flawed and broken-down as his. If that sounds depressing, understand that this is not a cynical or depressing book at all. As a matter of fact, it's just the opposite, because Auster digs beneath the disappointment and pain that his characters have suffered through, and shows them not as wretched troubled souls, but as human beings capable of finding happiness and fulfillment despite themselves. I've probably read just about every novel Paul Auster has ever written, and I liked most of them a lot, but I don't think I was affected by any of them as much as I was by "The Brooklyn Follies."

The narrator of this book is Nathan, or Uncle Nat, depending upon who you are and how old you are. Nathan comes to Brooklyn to die after a bout with cancer. His wife and daughter are estranged, his nephew, to whom he had been close, has drifted away and his niece ran off years ago and did not even attend his sister's funeral. With that dreary opening setting, this book is uplifting. Having come to Brookly to die, Nathan runs into his genius nephew who has dropped out of a doctorate program to work in a used bookstore after a term as a NY cabbie. From there, Nathan's life begins to have purpose and focus. He encounters a group of fine, interesting characters, enters their lives and, in turn, his life is opened and renewed. There are reunions, new friends, deaths, estranged relatives, saved relatives, dreams, dreams shattered - everything one would find in a life - in this book. With Nathan, the reader gets insinuated into the lives of Auster's terrific characters. One appreciates Nathan as a huge-hearted guy - the uncle everyone wants. Nathan's open-mindedness and open heart should be a lesson to us all. But this is a character driven book, and Auster's characters are unique and finely drawn. His insights into their relationships are equally fine. There is no cardboard character nor any paper-thin relationship in this book. Even better, every character, no matter how unique, is believeable. Despite realistic events such as death and estrangement, this book is a glass half full view of life. Nathan's world just gets better and better as he invests himself in relationships with family and new friends. Although Nathan the narrator says this book is about his nephew, it is really about his triumphant return to a full life after a despondent return to Brooklyn to die. Not only does he not die, but he finds life as he probably had never known it before. Auster's writing and character portrayals are both superb. This book is highly recommended.

In this book, Auster gives us a slight variation on his usual style. This book is more jovial, more amusing and less intellectual than most of his prior work, but with no less impact. Perhaps the jovial authorial style is relative to the fact that Auster is trying to point out that our lives are fun, sadness and Folly. Our protagonist is a 59 year old retired insurance salesman who decides after a bout with cancer to get divorced and to move back to Brooklyn, the home of his youth. During his first several months as a returning resident of Brooklyn, Nathan engages in writing a book called "Human Follies." In fact, it is much of his own folly he tries to prepare to put in his book. And yet, through the process of living in Brooklyn and meeting people he knew and did not know, Auster elucidates their lives as seen by Nathan and Nathan interprets for us how the events are both folly and serious. While the story is based on a family in crisis, it is also based on Brooklyn, morality, politics, sex and love; it is also based on the follies of the human mind. Auster shows that folly is a part of all people's lives, and that so is the business of living. The characters in this book are involved with many messy life mistakes, but the book is also about redemption. Those who have thrown their lives to the winds of Folly, can at some point, reclaim their lives and go on. Perhaps the goal is to be happy, no matter what one's life and Follies represent. If one is happy, then what more can one really and truly ask of life? The book is recommended for all readers who are observers of life and its various vicissitudes. It is intense in its observations, but easy to read and absorb. Once again, Auster has created a true masterpiece of modern literature. All readers who are looking for a clue to the life of fun and folly should read this book. It has serious and significant enlightenments on the ways in which people meet the challenges of life, some surviving, and some not surviving. Truly a great read, it is highly recommended.

Nathan is a retired life insurance salesman who has lung cancer that has gone into remission. Recently divorced, the assets split amicably, he decides to go back to his roots and live the rest of his life in Brooklyn. He rents a flat in his old neighbourhood and slowly settles into what seems to be a quiet retirement. Nathan has also started to write a book of sorts, "The Book of Human Folly", an account of every blunder, embarrassment, idiocy and inane act he has committed and experienced throughout his long life. These tales of life's absurdities are also about other people, revealing the pure folly of the human condition. The narrative for the most part centres on Nathan's nephew, Tom, a failed academic who has given up on life, where they coincidentally meet in Brooklyn, and grow to be good friends. This short summary may appear boring, a book about normal people living mundane lives, but that's what makes this novel so good, the mundane becomes the miraculous, the ordinary the extraordinary. Paul Auster is arguably one of the greatest living American writers working today. Reading his novel's is a captivating journey into the extraordinary, a glimpse at possibilities, an opportunity to view the world from a different perspective, and in some cases, one changes and sees life differently, a sometimes for the better. I'll never forget my first Auster novel, "A New York Trilogy" becoming totally submerged in a world so alien, so odd and so fascinating, that it was astounding to discover an author with such talent and erudition. This writer had something special happening, thus I read everything I could get my hands on: "Moon Palace", "The Music of Chance", "Leviathan" and "Mr.Vertigo", which happens to be one of the most original tales to come out in the last twenty-five years. "The Brooklyn Follies" had me enthralled from the first chapter, wanting to know more about these characters, their talents, loves and mishaps, coming to the conclusion, that we are by and large a strange species, and at bottom, it is our need for companionship, love if you will, that gets us into trouble but also keeps us struggling, at times making life worth living, and sometimes a living hell. Nathan is at worst a cynic, although a man who really wants to do the right thing, help his apathetic nephew, reconnect with his only daughter, innocently flirt with the married waitress at his lunchtime haunt, (which has dire consequences) and write about the human condition. Nathan is everyman, a good soul and has grown not to take life too seriously, which he has discovered comes with age. This is a compelling novel about ordinary people with dreams and aspirations, disappointments and triumphs, embarrassments and success - a depiction of the modern human condition with all its craziness, stupidity and humour. An excellent novel.