Auggie Wren’s Christmas Story by Paul Auster (EPUB)

Description

A timeless, utterly charming Christmas fable, beautifully illustrated and destined to become a classicWhen Paul Auster was asked by The New York Times to write a Christmas story for the Op-Ed page, the result, “Auggie Wren’s Christmas Story,” led to Auster’s collaboration on a film adaptation, Smoke. Now the story has found yet another life in this enchanting illustrated edition with Argentine artist Isol.It begins with a writer’s dilemma: he’s been asked by The New York Times to write a story that will appear in the paper on Christmas morning. The writer agrees, but he has a problem: How to write an unsentimental Christmas story? He unburdens himself to his friend at his local cigar shop, a colorful character named Auggie Wren. “A Christmas story? Is that all?” Auggie counters. “If you buy me lunch, my friend, I’ll tell you the best Christmas story you ever heard. And I guarantee every word of it is true.”And an unconventional story it is, involving a lost wallet, a blind woman, and a Christmas dinner. Everything gets turned upside down. What’s stealing? What’s giving? What’s a lie? What’s the truth? It’s vintage Auster, and pure pleasure: a truly unsentimental but completely affecting tale.

User’s Reviews

Reviews from Amazon users which were colected at the time this book was published on the website:

⭐In this slim book, Paul Auster authors a new version of a Christmas Story. The book recounts a very interesting story about what Christmas means to so many. It represents a time of hopefullness and wishes that people have and how they may come true.The obvious similarity between Auster’s story and O. Henry’s “Gift of the Magi” involves the giving of gifts, one person to another, but not in the regular way we give gifts at Christmas. In this book, by a simple twist of fate, Auggie Wren, the protagonist comes upon a wallet, that was dropped. For a long time, Auggie just keeps the wallet, but eventually he attempts to give it back to its owner.Upon arrival at the owner’s house, it turns out, that he is not there at the time. However, the grandmother of the wallet owner is there. And she is blind. Yet, she allows herself to accept the visit and perhaps the spirit of Christmas by allowing Auggie to represent her grandson, as the Grandmother to believe that he is who she wishes him to be. Likewise, Auggie allows himself to accept a gift that is given in a very unusual manner.While Auggie believes that even blind, the women knew he was not her grandson, yet she allows Auggie to act as the grandson, because that is her most personal wish at that time. In return for this favor, the grandmother in turn gives unknowingly, a gift to Auggie. Auggie though is bothered by the manner in which he acquired the gift and goes back to return it. When he arrives, the Grandmother no longer is resident at the apartment.What actually happens to her, Auster never reveals. However, the concept of the story is tightly bound to the giving of gifts, one to another, and with the gifts, there is both sorrow and love. As each gives what they have, and each sacrifices what they have, in order to please the other.Such is the case in this book as well. The book is highly recommemded for those who have a familiarity with “The Gift of the Magi” and also with “A Christmas Carol” by Charles Dickens. A good familiarity with those stories enhances the reader’s understanding of Auster’s point.Because of the books short text, it can be read in lest than 30 minutes, but it is strongly advised that the reader reread the book immediately after finishing it the first time, in order to get the full flavor and impact of Auster’s version of Christmas.

⭐Auggie Wren runs a store where you can buy tobacco and magazines. One day a youth steels a few paperbacks and Augggie Wren runs after him. The young man loses his wallet and Auggie stops to pick it up. He looks in the wallet and finds the addressof what turns out to be the grandmother of our young delinquent. ( I can’t tell anymore without spoiling the plot ).Film director Wayne Wang was seduced by this little story and it was he who persuaded Paul Auster to write the script for “Smoke”. (1994).The present edition of “Auggie Wren’s Christmas Story” has two parts. The first part is a kind of introduction and uses a scene from the film where Auggie shows his photo collection to Paul. Even in this introduction reality and fiction are intertwined to become one and the same.(And isn’t this the true value of literature, to erase the borderline between dreams and every day reality ?).The second part is the story like it was told by Harvey Keitel in “Smoke”.At the end Paul Auster says: ” As long as there’s one person to believe it, there’s no story that can’t be true.”

⭐I purchased this book because I’m re-reading Paul Auster’s books and this was one I hadn’t run across. Despite Amazon’s utterly outrageous price of nearly seven dollars for what is, essentially, a short story requiring a ten minute read – it was worth it. Auster provides just enough detail and characterization to allow the reader to employ their imagination – and in spare and effective writing. Now I’m going to have to find the movie ‘Smoke’ that this story served as a basis for!

⭐I collect Christmas stories, and have built up quite a “Christmas Library” of my own.I can tell you this is not your typical Christmas story. It is a unique Christmas story. If you are expecting a nice Christmas miracle kind of story this is not the book for you.It is however, a very thought-provoking book about the moral dilemmas we all make at times. This story makes you question yourself – “What would I have done?”I recommend it.

⭐Loved to discover this book with its uniqueness. Paul Auster and his weird yet easy to identify with heroes and narratives. Puts the reader in a grim yet majestic world of those transparent people whom we are used to ignore yet in this book become major in the plot and also, consequently, to our lives…

⭐I liked that it wasn’t the run of the mill Christmas read with predictability and everything tied up nicely at the end. Very short, read in 10 mins, maybe less. Still, I enjoyed it and makes one think, sometimes “wrong” or “right” is all in the perspective.

⭐Save your money. Did not like this story at all.

⭐Part of our Christmas tradition. A sweet story.

⭐The story contained in these pages is a short one, yet featuring the colourful character of Auggie Wren, Brooklyn cigar store proprietor, it overflows with meaning, optimism and humanity. Fans of Auster will nod at the author’s traditional appearance in his own work, casting as he does, some doubt about whether the story is a “true” one or merely another work of fiction. “Auggie Wren’s Christmas Story” exists in that uncertain, unknowable hinterland between Auster’s reality and the reader’s. Beautifully bound and illustrated, for existing disciples of Paul Auster, this is a neat and welcome trinket that will sit proudly in the collection. For newcomers, both the tale itself and the accompanying images drawn so playfully by illustrator “Isol” will serve as a useful entry point for the ambiguous worls of the author.

⭐I first heard this story in the film ‘Smoke’ which Harvey Keitel narrates to William Hurt and I couldn’t help but hear his voice as I turned the pages. It is a small, compact, little book which can read in a single sitting. Found some of the illustrations a little strange but the hardcover and size would make for a lovely stocking filler or simply one to add to the Auster collection.

⭐Granted I didn’t read this for kicks. It was for university because we had to study the movie “Smoke” which was based in this story.I didn’t know it was short and so small, but what lacks in size it gains in depth. A really lovely story. Personally I recomend it…if possible with the movie Smoke afterwards.

⭐Talking from the perspective of an Auster loving home, this little book was not disappointing at all. It was short, but non pretentious and the illustrations are original.

⭐I believe this story belongs in a land where if you go looking for good things, you don’t find them (and I’ve been looking for this one for over a decade), but then, one day, by chance, quite unexpectedly, something good will find you. If that sounds overly sentimental, well, shucks!

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