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A review by mrswythe89
Tilfældets musik by Paul Auster
3.0
Ooooh, I think I am done with Paul Auster for a while. It is very unfair of him to build up this thing that looks like a plot and add lots of atmosphere (protagonist picking up things and feeling mysteriously that it was the right thing to do! and so much weight attached to the moment that you think it must be important to the plot. And then he never mentions it again) and Foreboding and what not, and then to fail to DO anything with all that. I mean, he does literary things. There is a lot of musing and whatnot. Protagonist feels changed, or happy, or sad, or murderous, or whatever. But you never find out why he's there, or what's the deal with the wall he has to build, or why the eccentric millionaires are keeping him there -- I am not explaining this well, but there is no point explaining it because, okay, here come spoilers
Paul Auster builds up a plot and then literally ends the book with "Suddenly they were all run over by a truck."
You say postmodern, I say AAAAAAARGH!
It is not that I dislike all literary fiction or that I disagree with the Times Literary Supplement when they say "Auster is that rare bird, an experimental writer who is also compulsively readable." And I like that he is experimental and you are not entirely sure where he is going to go; it feels like flying because there are none of the conventional restraints on the plot (like, oh, that there should be an ENDING). But sometimes this can grate. Personally I like for my books to have a POINT.
Note also casual sexism. I suppose this is noowah and casual sexism is almost a prerequisite, but fortunately I am not required to put up with genres where casual sexism is a prerequisite.
Read [book: City of Glass]; it's better, though [SPOILER] kind of lacks an ending in a similar way.
Paul Auster builds up a plot and then literally ends the book with "Suddenly they were all run over by a truck."
You say postmodern, I say AAAAAAARGH!
It is not that I dislike all literary fiction or that I disagree with the Times Literary Supplement when they say "Auster is that rare bird, an experimental writer who is also compulsively readable." And I like that he is experimental and you are not entirely sure where he is going to go; it feels like flying because there are none of the conventional restraints on the plot (like, oh, that there should be an ENDING). But sometimes this can grate. Personally I like for my books to have a POINT.
Note also casual sexism. I suppose this is noowah and casual sexism is almost a prerequisite, but fortunately I am not required to put up with genres where casual sexism is a prerequisite.
Read [book: City of Glass]; it's better, though [SPOILER] kind of lacks an ending in a similar way.