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A review by scarlet_begonia21
In the Country of Last Things by Paul Auster
4.0
4.5/5
This was a very interesting story, told in the form of letters/notebook writings from a young girl living in a frightening, chaotic, dystopian city. Anna's writings to an unknown reader describe the story of her coming to the city to find her brother but being unable to leave.
For well over a year, we follow Anna's life in this illusionary world where memories fade and people literally become thinner and thinner until they disappear. There are several references to things burning away, rotting/fading away, the landscape and cityscape turning to rubble and disrepair, and even the specific ways in which people can chose to cease their existence and commit suicide (leapers, runners, dream-like euthanasia clinics, or hiring an assassin).
There were several not-so-subtle references to the notion that Anna isn't a reliable narrator and the paramnesic story that she unfolds is a fantasy.
In discussing her depressing new reality in the city, where every day is worse than the day before, Anna notes that "by talking of the world that existed before you went to sleep, you can delude yourself into thinking that the present day is simply an apparition, no more or less real than the memories of all the other days you carry around inside you."
She describes the city when she first travels there "as though we were entering an invisible world," and her stories are often littered with warnings that her memories may be "just a guess" or "vague, filled with inconsistencies and blanks." Later, while living at the Woburn House, Boris plainly states to her that "it's all an illusion."
Like other Auster novels, there are common themes of loss, disappearance, and altered reality. It was very well written, but I did not enjoy the narrative style (epistolary/letter style) and that is what kept it less than 5 stars.
This was a very interesting story, told in the form of letters/notebook writings from a young girl living in a frightening, chaotic, dystopian city. Anna's writings to an unknown reader describe the story of her coming to the city to find her brother but being unable to leave.
For well over a year, we follow Anna's life in this illusionary world where memories fade and people literally become thinner and thinner until they disappear. There are several references to things burning away, rotting/fading away, the landscape and cityscape turning to rubble and disrepair, and even the specific ways in which people can chose to cease their existence and commit suicide (leapers, runners, dream-like euthanasia clinics, or hiring an assassin).
There were several not-so-subtle references to the notion that Anna isn't a reliable narrator and the paramnesic story that she unfolds is a fantasy.
In discussing her depressing new reality in the city, where every day is worse than the day before, Anna notes that "by talking of the world that existed before you went to sleep, you can delude yourself into thinking that the present day is simply an apparition, no more or less real than the memories of all the other days you carry around inside you."
She describes the city when she first travels there "as though we were entering an invisible world," and her stories are often littered with warnings that her memories may be "just a guess" or "vague, filled with inconsistencies and blanks." Later, while living at the Woburn House, Boris plainly states to her that "it's all an illusion."
Like other Auster novels, there are common themes of loss, disappearance, and altered reality. It was very well written, but I did not enjoy the narrative style (epistolary/letter style) and that is what kept it less than 5 stars.