Throughout Paul Auster's prolific writing career, his playful use of language and his explorations into what constitutes `reality', has never disappointed, though his work, appears to be becoming freer, taking more risks, expecting his readers to travel with him, as he pushes the literary envelope. Auster's, Travels in the Scriptorium, is his best metafictional piece, comparable to the most noted postmodern works of Borges, Kafka, or Calvino.
Like most of Auster's novels, the prose is deceptively simple, creating a palimpsest of plot upon plot, scurrying up one direction, abruptly turning in another to then make connections that the reader would never forecast, but feeling satisfied at the story's end.
On the surface, Scriptorium is a `report' about a certain individual that the all-knowing narrator of the novel chooses to call Mr. Blank for lack of a better name. The character has no recollection of who he is or where he is and strives to come to terms with his lack of memory and strange surroundings.
Mr. Blank is in a small room with a bedside table where a phone is placed, a desk and a window that cannot be opened from the inside. We are told that the subject, Mr. Blank, is being photographed once every second ". producing eighty-six thousand four hundred still photos with each revolution of the earth."
(P.126-7)
In other words, disturbingly, his every movement and word is being recorded by some unknown `authority' or `other'...on all the objects around his small cell, are pieces of tape where is written the name of the particular object: lamp, wall, desk, bed etc.: the narrator goes on to speculate:
"What cannot be known at this point is whether he is reading the word on the strip of tape or simply referring to the wall itself. It could be that he has forgotten how to read but still recognizes things for what they are and can call them by their names, or, conversely, that he has lost the ability to recognize things for what they are but still knows how to read." (P.127)
As the story unfolds, little by little, we meet new characters that certainly know Mr. Blank, however, he does not know them, but feels as if there is a familiarity, and in one case, real love, for the character Anna, who truly does love the old man revealed through her actions.
We come to the end of the novella to discover the whole tale is merely a literary artifice, a creation, that, if the narrator chooses, will go on forever, but only on the narrator's whim.
My favorite part of the story is when Mr. Blank must finish the unfinished story by the author, John Trause. (A character in another Auster novel, Oracle Nights) At first, he reads the manuscript which ends abruptly, and Samuel Farr, the doctor, asks him to finish it aloud. Time runs out and Dr. Farr must leave before Mr. Blank can finish the story. Later, impatient with Farr not returning, Mr. Blank decides to finish the story, aloud, all alone. There are many alternative ways the story can go, all explored by Mr. Blank, until he produces the best one. This is a notable example of reader-response criticism in action.
Tales of the Scriptorium is also a tale that can be an investment for the reader, the reader given the opportunity to grab the tale and push it in many directions. The book is also a tongue and cheek criticism of the third person singular, the all-knowing narrator, controlling every facet of the `realist' novel...the reader merely a passive recipient. This is an excellent example of using the artifice of the novel, playing with its traditional forms, and cleverly revealing these forms for what they are.
A dedicated reader of Mr. Auster for many years, he never ceases to astound me with his constant experimentation, entertaining experimentation with the art form called the "novel".
In other words, disturbingly, his every movement and word is being recorded by some unknown `authority' or `other'...on all the objects around his small cell, are pieces of tape where is written the name of the particular object: lamp, wall, desk, bed etc.: the narrator goes on to speculate:
"What cannot be known at this point is whether he is reading the word on the strip of tape or simply referring to the wall itself. It could be that he has forgotten how to read but still recognizes things for what they are and can call them by their names, or, conversely, that he has lost the ability to recognize things for what they are but still knows how to read." (P.127)
As the story unfolds, little by little, we meet new characters that certainly know Mr. Blank, however, he does not know them, but feels as if there is a familiarity, and in one case, real love, for the character Anna, who truly does love the old man revealed through her actions.
We come to the end of the novella to discover the whole tale is merely a literary artifice, a creation, that, if the narrator chooses, will go on forever, but only on the narrator's whim.
My favorite part of the story is when Mr. Blank must finish the unfinished story by the author, John Trause. (A character in another Auster novel, Oracle Nights) At first, he reads the manuscript which ends abruptly, and Samuel Farr, the doctor, asks him to finish it aloud. Time runs out and Dr. Farr must leave before Mr. Blank can finish the story. Later, impatient with Farr not returning, Mr. Blank decides to finish the story, aloud, all alone. There are many alternative ways the story can go, all explored by Mr. Blank, until he produces the best one. This is a notable example of reader-response criticism in action.
Tales of the Scriptorium is also a tale that can be an investment for the reader, the reader given the opportunity to grab the tale and push it in many directions. The book is also a tongue and cheek criticism of the third person singular, the all-knowing narrator, controlling every facet of the `realist' novel...the reader merely a passive recipient. This is an excellent example of using the artifice of the novel, playing with its traditional forms, and cleverly revealing these forms for what they are.
A dedicated reader of Mr. Auster for many years, he never ceases to astound me with his constant experimentation, entertaining experimentation with the art form called the "novel".
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