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A review by thegbrl
Invention of Solitude by Paul Auster
4.0
"In the darkness of the solitude that is death, the tongue is finally loosened, and at the moment it begins to speak, there is an answer. And even if there is no answer, the man has begun to speak."
Glad that my first reading is complete. I am planning to use this as one of the related texts for the English Extension I elective, 'Literary Mindscapes', alongside Rilke's Duino Elegies to encounter the relationship between text and world in a philosophical, existential, and metaphysical way. (At least that's the plan at this point).
Paul Auster's The Invention of Solitude was quite a difficult and laborious read, particularly The Book of Memory, though I must note that it was a moving meditation on grief, loss and the intensity of 'being'. Auster exploits a Heideggerian interrogation of selfhood, being and 'existenz' in a way that alienates and invites, creating a luminous dichotomy of inner turmoil and inner tranquility. As the protagonist, Auster himself, delves into the depths of his grief and the 'presentness' of his life, he comes into contact with realism and surrealism as they intertwine in human life. Reading this novel illuminates the rich tapestry that enlivens the human experience, particularly when the human person is forced into the light of solitude. One is left ruminating on the properties of solitude as it relates to creativity, a Rilkean concept, but an existential truth that must necessarily be confronted.
I particularly enjoyed the shifting tone from Portrait of an Invisible Man to The Book of Memory, and the way Auster frames the narratives of both. In the former, Auster approaches himself from the intimate, first person perspective, in a linear narrative. Logically sound and emotionally appealing, this section allows the responder to locate themselves within the themes of the text and experience its lyricism. The latter, however, begins to encroach on one's internalised or repressed notions of self, being and existence in a wider reality. Whereas Portrait of an Invisible Man brings to light personal themes of loss and grief in the memoir form, The Book of Memory expands this experience to the ways that memory shapes, challenges, ignites and transforms one's identity. Rich intertextuality, allusion, and the invocation of great literary thinkers emphasise the expansive, cosmic experience of texts through the consideration of linguistics, semiotics, and semantics, shifting the focal point from real and tangible, to real and intangible, yet ever-present. Perhaps Auster is arguing that it is only through the alienation of self that one can realise the nature of their own reality. Through the exercise of reading The Invention of Solitude, the act of writing is not lost, but brought to the forefront of self-reflexivity. In so doing, Auster masterfully expresses his own personal loss in an all encompassing, experiential way, with writing serving as the means to achieve a sort of ‘textual materialism’, grounded in one’s social reality.
Glad that my first reading is complete. I am planning to use this as one of the related texts for the English Extension I elective, 'Literary Mindscapes', alongside Rilke's Duino Elegies to encounter the relationship between text and world in a philosophical, existential, and metaphysical way. (At least that's the plan at this point).
Paul Auster's The Invention of Solitude was quite a difficult and laborious read, particularly The Book of Memory, though I must note that it was a moving meditation on grief, loss and the intensity of 'being'. Auster exploits a Heideggerian interrogation of selfhood, being and 'existenz' in a way that alienates and invites, creating a luminous dichotomy of inner turmoil and inner tranquility. As the protagonist, Auster himself, delves into the depths of his grief and the 'presentness' of his life, he comes into contact with realism and surrealism as they intertwine in human life. Reading this novel illuminates the rich tapestry that enlivens the human experience, particularly when the human person is forced into the light of solitude. One is left ruminating on the properties of solitude as it relates to creativity, a Rilkean concept, but an existential truth that must necessarily be confronted.
I particularly enjoyed the shifting tone from Portrait of an Invisible Man to The Book of Memory, and the way Auster frames the narratives of both. In the former, Auster approaches himself from the intimate, first person perspective, in a linear narrative. Logically sound and emotionally appealing, this section allows the responder to locate themselves within the themes of the text and experience its lyricism. The latter, however, begins to encroach on one's internalised or repressed notions of self, being and existence in a wider reality. Whereas Portrait of an Invisible Man brings to light personal themes of loss and grief in the memoir form, The Book of Memory expands this experience to the ways that memory shapes, challenges, ignites and transforms one's identity. Rich intertextuality, allusion, and the invocation of great literary thinkers emphasise the expansive, cosmic experience of texts through the consideration of linguistics, semiotics, and semantics, shifting the focal point from real and tangible, to real and intangible, yet ever-present. Perhaps Auster is arguing that it is only through the alienation of self that one can realise the nature of their own reality. Through the exercise of reading The Invention of Solitude, the act of writing is not lost, but brought to the forefront of self-reflexivity. In so doing, Auster masterfully expresses his own personal loss in an all encompassing, experiential way, with writing serving as the means to achieve a sort of ‘textual materialism’, grounded in one’s social reality.