Travels in the Scriptorium by Paul Auster (EPUB)

Description

Paperback. Uncorrected proof copy. Minor mark on spine. Pages are clean, binding is sound, and text remains clear throughout. T

User’s Reviews

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

⭐The New-York trilogy’ and ‘The music of chance’ are a part of the best novels I ever read. In these novels imagination becomes reality, leading to psychological chaos and loss of identity in a meaningless world. Disappointed by novels like ‘The Book of Illusions’ and the ‘Brooklyn Follies’. They suffered from long-windedness and a rather insipid plot not to mention a tendency to banality. Just as I almost removed his name from my list of favorite writers, he publishes ‘Travels in the Scriptorium’. Are we back in the days of ‘ Music of Chance’?. I believe not. There is more social engagement , but above all there is more sense of absurdity. It is as if the author wants to create more distance between him and the reader, as if he wants to be alone with his characters. In ‘The Music of Chance’, the sense of the absurd was already very strong but there was a total social disengagement.A word or to about the principal characters. An old man finds himself in a small room. A miniature camera is planted in the ceiling right above him and a few microphones are also hidden. The camera takes one picture after the other of the old man ( Big Brother is watching.) He knows nothing: where is he? why? Who is he? Is this a prison? Or a psychiatric hospital? He has a strong sense of guilt but at the same time he feels that he is the victim of an injustice.Then there is Anna. Anna is… is what? Well we don’t know exactly. Is she a nurse? An angel? A Guardian Angel maybe? Is she family? In any case she is always very kind and helpful. For an unknown reason she gives him three different pills every morning along with his breakfast.”I’m not sick!” “It’s for your treatment”. Ah, his treatment! Anna says she loves the old man and she wants a kiss on her lips. Mystifying, isn’t it?The story is build upon what several people wrote down during their stay in a similar room – or the same room ? – the moment in time is also different. Are the manuscripts written by one person or more? (In a medieval abbey, the room where some of the monks copied their manuscripts was called a scriptorium. You could “travel” from one desk to the other.)I gave this novel five stars because this is Paul Auster at his best. He writes with a sense of humor about people. These people are trying to make the best of it, living in a hostile, cruel or indifferent world.

⭐Here’s the thing: if you’ve been reading Paul Auster for a long time, you’re going to love Travels In the Scriptorium because it was written for you. Meaning, this little devil is so full of Easter eggs from Auster’s past works that longtime readers will have a field day.Because I’ve read many of Auster’s works, it’s hard for me to disassociate what I’ve read before and look at Travels In the Scriptorium objectively as a stand-alone project. If I were going to recommend this book to new Auster readers, I would say it is once again a captivating story that makes expert use of metafiction. Auster often submits stories-within-stories in his writings, and Travels In the Scriptorium is no exception. Furthermore, Auster explores his classic themes of isolation, identity, and self-analysis.To the experienced Auster fan, I would say that yes, while Auster once again presents a story-within-a-story, and while he once again delves into ideas of isolation and ambiguous identity, he does so in a fresh, enjoyable manner. I compare Auster’s talent to that of Michael Jordan. Sure, when Jordan played, there came a time when we’d seen most of it all before, yet we still couldn’t take our eyes off of him because he made each dunk, each three-pointer, and each cross-over a thing of beauty, something far and away better than anything anyone else could ever hope to do.Such is Auster. I’ve read all of these themes before and seen most of the techniques, but he makes it all seem original with each new outing. Consequently, though I won’t spoil the book, Travels In the Scriptorium covers new metafictional ground for Auster, and I think if anyone deserves to try something like what occurs in this book, it’s Auster.I wouldn’t recommend Travels In the Scriptorium as a first read for someone new to Auster, but to those loyal Auster fans, it was a real delight for reasons you’ll notice almost immediately.~Scott William Foley, author of The Imagination’s Provocation: Volume I

⭐I was very pleased with the quality of the book itself. Just like new, the front, back, and all pages in between. I’d read the novel by Paul Auster years ago, and remembered how special it was. Reading it the 2nd time was excellent also. I highly recommend this book, and for next reading, the 3 books in Auster’s New York Trilogy. The books take you over with thought-provoking dialogue and scenes, and if you are like me, you finish them and then want more.

⭐quick read, sat down and was done in a few hours. auster is the best at telling a story within another story and travels is no exception. the book could have had a thousand endings and auster has the nerve to leave his readers wondering…great as always

⭐Like all of Auster’s novels, this is also one of a kind. Unpredictable and constantly inventive.

⭐Favourite book highly recommend this book it will keep you guessing.

⭐It’s important to me, Mr Blank. My whole life depends on it. Without that dream, I’m nothing, literally nothing.Mr Blank wakes up. He’s in a room. He has no memory, but, conveniently for him, everything is labelled. The chair. The bed. The desk. The lamp. The blind. Even the wall. Unbeknownst to Mr Blank, there’s a camera in the ceiling that takes a snapshot once a minute. There are microphones too, even in the bathroom. Walking is difficult for Mr Blank, standing too. He gets these dizzy spells. He’s wearing striped pyjamas. The desk is stacked with papers, photographs. This is intriguing to him. He gets out of the bed and attempts to approach the desk, but he gets dizzy again and collapses to the floor, so that he has to crawl. It’s humiliating, or it would be were there anyone else around to see it. But he makes it to the desk and looks through the photographs. One is familiar, a young woman, but he doesn’t know from where. He thinks she may be called Anna. Then there’s a knock at the door. It’s Anna.Anna gives him pills, three different colours. They are keeping him drugged. Anna washes him. To keep him sweet, she renders him a minor sexual favour. He is to meet somebody later, and this somebody had requested that he wear all white, so Anna dresses him in a tennis outfit. Then she makes him breakfast. Mr Blank asks her questions, but she’s largely evasive. This done, Anna leaves. Mr Blank goes to the desk and begins to read the papers. They are a manuscript, written in the style of a report, apparently detailing an alternative history of the conquest of the United States. There is political intrigue. Then Flood comes.Flood is a cockney ex-policeman. He seems angry. He’s lost his job and his family, and he thinks Mr Blank is to blame. He demands to know details of a dream Mr Blank once had, in which he features; it’s somehow related to a novel Mr Blank once read, and is the key to Flood’s problem. Things are becoming more and more confusing, disorientating. Mr Blank can’t help Flood, Mr Blank has no memory. Flood leaves. Mr Blank returns to the manuscript.As the days pass, there are small, discombobulating changes. The text of the manuscript alters slightly, the labels on objects are rearranged. Mr Blank suffers occasional memories from his childhood, but they are few and far between, and frustrating. Then there are more visitors. And the closet.Travels in the Scriptorium is an exercise in meta-fiction. In places it resembles a detailed exercise from a creative writing class. Toward the end, Auster delivers what amounts to instructions for building a plot. I’m told that, barring Mr Blank, all of the characters feature in his previous novels; but I’m a little like Mr Blank here, I can’t place them. That’s the effect of Travels in the Scriptorium. It’s a short novel, 130 pages, little more than a novella, but it will leave you full of questions and wonder, gasping for breath and questioning your own existence. What does it all mean? Does anything exist outside of the room? When the other characters leave, do they cease to exist? What is in the closet? Auster’s hypnotic voice makes Travels in the Scriptorium an absolute page-turner, despite the apparent lack of action. Five stars.

⭐I wanted to like this more and perhaps after a second reading I may review the rating. For now though I have to remain honest to my feeling that although there was much I admired about the concept and the philosophy that drives it, the characters feel a little too shallow to fully immerse me in the world. It felt like we were heading to that ‘wow’ moment at the end but it was more like an ‘oh’ moment. So I suppose it was a little anti-climactic in that respect. That doesn’t detract from the beautiful writing that Austere always displays and I’m planning on reading more from him. Also, as I previously mentioned, I really like the notion and the abstract sense of existence it evokes, but as it stands this was just ok … for now.

⭐The reviewer that mentioned the twilight zone was spot on. This may have been written as a script for tales of the unexpected…A man writes a book about a man in a room who does nothing.One day the man who does nothing reads the book that’s being written about him and throws it over his shoulder in despair…. the end.There, just saved you 132 pages of reading!However, don’t be put off, Austers’ other books are worth reading, there’s some real genius there, just not here.

⭐If you are into meta-narratives and postmodern literature this is a great gem. Good for starters in postmodernism and Paul Auster as well considering the length of the novel.

⭐As a writer, I found this book riveting. It’s a cross between a psychological thriller and a mystery and I was rather proud to have guessed the ending(!) but it didn’t spoil the fun

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