Paul Auster Walks the Long Valley of Grief in a New Novel
I can hear the whingeing already: Nothing happens in this novel.
…we’ve got a bookish and earnest male protagonist and author’s proxy (Auster is a family name in the novel). We’ve got narrative instabilities that have us reading closely from Baumgartner’s point of view and then from some offstage “Pigs in Space”-type narrator’s: “Perhaps this odd confabulation will help the reader understand our hero’s state of mind at that particular moment.” Auster also splices in poems and pieces written by Baumgartner and his dead wife, Anna; forays into their past; and extended metaphors that require some unpacking. So it’s definitely a Paul Auster novel. Albeit more tender and less playful than some of his other work.
…who lost his wife nearly 10 years ago in a freak accident and has been caught between hanging on and letting go — or even pushing away — ever since. He has been severed from something essential but still feels its presence, much like the experience of phantom limb syndrome…
The novel walks us through what he thinks about and, more important, how he thinks. How his thoughts assemble and fall apart, how they produce a kind of cumulative power…
“Baumgartner” opens with Sy burning his hand on a pot handle, falling down the stairs and forgetting to call his sister. He’s trying to work, but the phone keeps ringing. The UPS lady shows up to deliver books Sy doesn’t want but has ordered just to ensure she comes to his door. In sum: Sy is old, lonely, frail, and his life is starred with these small events in a constellation that proves explosive enough on this morning to push him out of his emotional impasse. It also pushes the novel into gear to begin exploring and excavating Sy’s memories.
