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An old man awakens, disoriented, in an unfamiliar chamber. With no memory of who he is or how he has arrived there, he pores over the relics on the desk, examining the circumstances of his confinement and searching his own hazy mind for clues. Determining that he is locked in, the man--identified only as Mr. Blank--begins reading a manuscript he finds on the desk, the story of another prisoner, set in an alternate world the man doesn't recognize. Nevertheless, the pages seem to have been left for him, along with a haunting set of photographs. As the day passes, various characters call on the man in his cell--vaguely familiar people, some who seem to resent him for crimes he can't remember--and each brings frustrating hints of his identity and his past. All the while an overhead camera clicks and clicks, recording his movements, and a microphone records every sound in the room. Someone is watching. Both chilling and poignant, Travels in the Scriptorium is vintage Paul Auster: mysterious texts, fluid identities, a hidden past, and, somewhere, an obscure tormentor. And yet, as we discover during one day in the life of Mr. Blank, his world is not so different from our own.… (more)
User reviews
LibraryThing member LisaLynne
This thing was bizarre just for the sake of being bizarre. The long description of the old man getting a hand job from his nurse? Yuck. The ridiculous descriptions of the cameras and recording devices and monitoring? Not interesting enough to be a spy novel, too ridiculous to be anything else.
LibraryThing member SqueakyChu
If you’ve ever seen the television program called “The Twilight Zone”, you’ll have an idea of what an eerie read this book is. The feeling it gave me was the same.
As the story begins, we encounter an unidentified man, whom we shall call Mr. Blank, waking up in a room containing the bed on
As the story progresses, we readers, along with Mr. Blank himself, attempt to discover his identity and the context of the environment in which he finds himself. He peruses the contents of the typewritten pages on the desk for clues to his own history or where he might be.
If this sounds intriguing to you, then grab this quick and engrossing read. If postmodern fiction is not your thing, you might want to skip it. For me, the bizarre ending of this book has me very much wanting to read more of Paul Auster’s works.
As the story begins, we encounter an unidentified man, whom we shall call Mr. Blank, waking up in a room containing the bed on
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which he’s lying, a desk with piles of papers on it, and a chair. Mr. Blank has no idea where he is or even who he is. There are several things within the room which are labeled with a single word. He is not sure if he is a prisoner in this room or if he can get out. The window shade is down so he has no idea of what “out” would even be like. There are people who occasionally come into his room and then later leave. Mr. Blank thinks he might know them, but is not sure. As the story progresses, we readers, along with Mr. Blank himself, attempt to discover his identity and the context of the environment in which he finds himself. He peruses the contents of the typewritten pages on the desk for clues to his own history or where he might be.
If this sounds intriguing to you, then grab this quick and engrossing read. If postmodern fiction is not your thing, you might want to skip it. For me, the bizarre ending of this book has me very much wanting to read more of Paul Auster’s works.
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LibraryThing member labfs39
Part puzzle, part mystery, and part postmodern commentary, I loved how this book kept me guessing until the very end when my head spun around so fast I had to go to the chiropractor. It's not your everyday straightforward narrative, but it's also not so esoteric that you start to snooze just from
"Interrupt all you like. We're involved in a complicated story here, and not everything is quite what it seems to be."
An old man wakes up to find himself alone in a small room with complete amnesia. The only clues are stickers conveniently labeling "wall", "lamp", "desk"; and a pile of photographs and several manuscripts on the desk.
"He can't remember how long he has been here or the nature of the circumstances that precipitated his removal to this place. Perhaps he has always been here; perhaps this is where he has lived since the day he was born. What he knows is that his heart is filled with an implacable sense of guilt. At the same time, he can't escape the feeling that he is the victim of a terrible injustice."
In an existential kind of way, the old man begins to explore his physical and psychological boundaries. I don't want to give away too much, so I'll just say it's a fun read.
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reading the jacket flap. It would make a great group read, because it's a book begging to be discussed."Interrupt all you like. We're involved in a complicated story here, and not everything is quite what it seems to be."
An old man wakes up to find himself alone in a small room with complete amnesia. The only clues are stickers conveniently labeling "wall", "lamp", "desk"; and a pile of photographs and several manuscripts on the desk.
"He can't remember how long he has been here or the nature of the circumstances that precipitated his removal to this place. Perhaps he has always been here; perhaps this is where he has lived since the day he was born. What he knows is that his heart is filled with an implacable sense of guilt. At the same time, he can't escape the feeling that he is the victim of a terrible injustice."
In an existential kind of way, the old man begins to explore his physical and psychological boundaries. I don't want to give away too much, so I'll just say it's a fun read.
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LibraryThing member HvyMetalMG
Very strange story a bit reminiscent of a Twilight Zone episode where the author is the main character and hasn't figured that out exactly. Maybe would have been better had I dropped a few tabs of Acid because Auster must have been on something similar when he wrote this.
LibraryThing member denni
Metafiction that nods in the direction of Becket and Kafka. A day in the life of Mr Blank who awakes in an institutional room sparsely furnished with a bed, desk, chair and telephone. Unsure whether he is patient or prisoner, beleaguered by amnesia and a sense of guilt he discovers an unfinished
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manuscript and a pile of photographs on the desk. Fleeting moments of recognition occur as he is visited by a handful of characters who medicate, question, feed, sexually service and instruct him. Sparsely written pedestrian at times this is a book for Auster aficionados. The visitors are all characters from his body of work. The portrayal of the discomfort of ageing, both intellectual and physical is both moving and at times, amusing. We are told that the characters will live on,independent of the author, figments of another mind etc etc.....ho hum. Show Less
LibraryThing member bragan
This is a tricky book to talk about for those who haven't read it. On the one hand, I think it's the sort of thing where it's probably best if you go into it knowing as little about it as possible. On the other hand, I think it's also the sort of thing where if you approach it with the wrong
I'll also say that the conceit, which I twigged to gratifyingly early on, is one that appealed to me, and that in the end the whole thing worked for me, in its own strange way. Whether it should have worked quite that well, I'm not at all sure. As soon as I finished it, I started thinking back on specific details, wondering exactly what they might mean or if they actually meant anything at all.
Basically, it's an odd little literary experiment of a book, but an interesting and I think a worthwhile one. And it's short enough that it can (and probably should) be read in one sitting.
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expectations, the result might be really frustrating. So, well, I'll say this: it opens with an old man sitting in a white room without knowing where he is or how he got there or even quite who he is. And I'll also say that if, based on that, you're expecting a plot or a puzzle to solve, you're likely to be disappointed. Because what this book is doing is something much more... abstract.I'll also say that the conceit, which I twigged to gratifyingly early on, is one that appealed to me, and that in the end the whole thing worked for me, in its own strange way. Whether it should have worked quite that well, I'm not at all sure. As soon as I finished it, I started thinking back on specific details, wondering exactly what they might mean or if they actually meant anything at all.
Basically, it's an odd little literary experiment of a book, but an interesting and I think a worthwhile one. And it's short enough that it can (and probably should) be read in one sitting.
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LibraryThing member BooksForDinner
A fun little indictment of the author by the author.
LibraryThing member HenkEllermann
An engaging story about a man, mr. Blank, who is seemingly trapped in a sterile room. He has no idea why he was put there. Mr Blanck's mind is fragmented, unfocussed, and his behavior is erratic, not unlike that of a mental patient. A few people enter the room, one at a time (mostly). They
At a certain moment Mr Blank reads a story and is later asked to complete it. He completes it in his mind with great ingenuity and imagination. How the story is related to mr Blank's past is left in the open. The second story he reads, consists of the first paragraphs of this book itself. It describes Mr Blank sitting in his room (or cell), wondering what he is doing there. He does not however complete that story.
So far so good, the book is engaging, with a few nice twists, and very well written. It has a nice theme, namely writing and the life of fictional characters.
Only the ending I found annoying. I don't understand why Auster includes the last paragraphs in which he makes it explicit that Mr Blank is a fictional character and where he adds some terrible cliches on the nature of the fictional character (mr Blank in this case).
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gradually bring back pieces of his past. The story of his life however remains fragmented. At a certain moment Mr Blank reads a story and is later asked to complete it. He completes it in his mind with great ingenuity and imagination. How the story is related to mr Blank's past is left in the open. The second story he reads, consists of the first paragraphs of this book itself. It describes Mr Blank sitting in his room (or cell), wondering what he is doing there. He does not however complete that story.
So far so good, the book is engaging, with a few nice twists, and very well written. It has a nice theme, namely writing and the life of fictional characters.
Only the ending I found annoying. I don't understand why Auster includes the last paragraphs in which he makes it explicit that Mr Blank is a fictional character and where he adds some terrible cliches on the nature of the fictional character (mr Blank in this case).
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LibraryThing member vpfluke
This is the first Auster novel in some time that I felt I wanted to read all the way through. There is a sense of things aren't what they seem, and I felt intrigued enough to want topeer around the door.
Mr. Blank is locked in, and the description in the novel makes it into a physical reality. But
The novel can also be seen as commentary on what happens to older people. How they can't function like their younger years, how fleeting memory is, how to fathom the strangers about. How angry one can be when the body doesn't function correctly. But the midrange of the body has its own functioning, including sex.
Not entirely satisfying novel, but a good cause to ponder.
Mr. Blank is locked in, and the description in the novel makes it into a physical reality. But
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is Blank suffering from the locked in syndrome, and the protagonist knows he can't get out of it. There is a suggestion that he could walk away, but can he really?The novel can also be seen as commentary on what happens to older people. How they can't function like their younger years, how fleeting memory is, how to fathom the strangers about. How angry one can be when the body doesn't function correctly. But the midrange of the body has its own functioning, including sex.
Not entirely satisfying novel, but a good cause to ponder.
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LibraryThing member danimak
Like some of Auster's other work, there isn't any fixed narrative framework to rely on (lines are blurred between author [both Auster and authors within the book:] characters and you, the reader) which is a risky thing to do but somehow very satisfying. The narrative does unexpected things, stories
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detach themselves from the storyline and become the author's reflections on what to do with his characters. Somehow it's not the point to have the story end traditionally with all questions answered, and experienced Auster readers don't expect this. The point is the prose, which is in itself all one needs to have enjoyed the book, and the text's unexpected transformations, flexibility and playfulness. Show Less
LibraryThing member helices
Auster can be very mystical. Many of his earlier books have been examples of that – actually, most of them (the exception perhaps being “The Brooklyn Follies”). “Travels in the Scriptorium” is mystical from start to finish. The author excels in easy language that gives a sombre meaning.
But what is it about, actually? Who is Mr Black? How come one recognises the names of so many of the characters? I’m still not sure, but I have theories. The good Paus really has twisted my mind. And it feels good.
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Auster kan vara mystisk. Många av hans tidigare alster har visat prov på det - egentligen de flesta (med undantag av "Dårskaper i Brooklyn, kanske). "Travels in the Scriptorium" är mystisk från början till slut. Författaren briljerar i lätt språk som ger en dunkel mening. Och "Historien i historien" som AUster är fenomenal på.
Men vad handlar det om? Vem är mr Blank? Hur kommer det sig att man känner igen namnen på så många figurer i historien? Jag är fortfarande inte säker, men jag har mina teorier. Den gode Paul har verkligen satt griller i huvet på mig. Och det känns bra.
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And “the story within the story”, that Auster does phenomenally well.But what is it about, actually? Who is Mr Black? How come one recognises the names of so many of the characters? I’m still not sure, but I have theories. The good Paus really has twisted my mind. And it feels good.
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Auster kan vara mystisk. Många av hans tidigare alster har visat prov på det - egentligen de flesta (med undantag av "Dårskaper i Brooklyn, kanske). "Travels in the Scriptorium" är mystisk från början till slut. Författaren briljerar i lätt språk som ger en dunkel mening. Och "Historien i historien" som AUster är fenomenal på.
Men vad handlar det om? Vem är mr Blank? Hur kommer det sig att man känner igen namnen på så många figurer i historien? Jag är fortfarande inte säker, men jag har mina teorier. Den gode Paul har verkligen satt griller i huvet på mig. Och det känns bra.
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LibraryThing member SmithSJ01
I was so excited at the prospect of this book but was left wondering if my time could have been better spent doing something else .... anyone want to join me in watching paint dry??
The concept is great and I enjoyed the initial waking up in a room not knowing what was going on etc. This is what I
The writing style would get a 1 star. I don't enjoy writers who stray from the conventions of syntax and unfortunately Auster didn't use speech marks, a particular bug bear of mine. It was therefore difficult to ascertain on occasions whether we were reading the present day narrative or one of the many stories. Auster has tried to be clever but has seemingly failed. There are other authors out there who can pull off this concept very well. If you've got a few hours spare give it a go but really, I'd recommend trying something else.
The concept is great and I enjoyed the initial waking up in a room not knowing what was going on etc. This is what I
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give the novella 2 stars for, as I so wanted him to open the door and see what was outside but he just didn't dare - it reminded me a lot of Bentham's panopticon (or see Foucault). I liked all the characters coming in to see him without Mr Blank really knowing who they were - they had all provided photographs, but I couldn't work out why the pictures were so old, this confused me. But perhaps, as they were characters from Auster's other books, and appeared as that age in those novels? I don't know with not having read anything else by hime. To be honest I don't think I will if this is anything to go by.The writing style would get a 1 star. I don't enjoy writers who stray from the conventions of syntax and unfortunately Auster didn't use speech marks, a particular bug bear of mine. It was therefore difficult to ascertain on occasions whether we were reading the present day narrative or one of the many stories. Auster has tried to be clever but has seemingly failed. There are other authors out there who can pull off this concept very well. If you've got a few hours spare give it a go but really, I'd recommend trying something else.
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LibraryThing member denina
A grave disappointment. After the liberated narrative of Brooklyn Follies, Auster is back in the same rut, pondering the themes of authorship, identity and reality vs. fiction. Blaah.
LibraryThing member miriamparker
This one didn't grab me the way his others have.
LibraryThing member duck2ducks
This book is described as something of a puzzle; fortunately, the secret being easy to figure out doesn't detract from its enjoyment. The way the narration doles out pieces of the old man bit by bit, especially at the very beginning, is a pleasure to behold, and what the novella has to say about
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aging, memory, and the twofold power and danger of stories is magnificent. Show Less
LibraryThing member BookBindingBobby
An interesting read, but detached emotionally. If you're in the mood for a bit of a trippy intellectual puzzle, try it.
LibraryThing member adamallen
Travels in the Scriptorium is an entertaining and mysterious novella. It is my first exposure to Paul Auster (I'm noticing a trend of my picking up new authors a lot lately) and I really like his style of writing. It's intentionally obscure without being sci-fi (at least in this case) and it plays
It's a great little mystery that doesn't conform to reality. It's imagination perfectly blended with a multidimensional maze. Of the 145 pages, you'll probably start piecing some things together (slowly) at 100 but your reading will only speed up to see if you're correct in your analysis. It's an enjoyable story and it's of a style that I gravitate to frequently. I'd say that I wish the book was longer but then it would have likely have contained unnecessary fluff. My gratitude Mr. Auster!
**SPOILER ALERT (Highlight)**
The book is about an old man, Mr. Blank, who awakens to find himself in a sparsely furnished room and has no idea what's going on. He doesn't know why he's there, who his captors are (or if he's being held), what occurred in his past, etc. The story is largely his interaction with people who come to visit him - physician, lawyer, caretakers, etc. - and his attempts to learn more about them and his past through them. His female caretakers are giving him pills ("per his prior instructions") to keep him on his "treatment" which seems to be an effort to remain on a permanent mental vacation.
On a desk in the room, he has photos of the people who come to visit and stacks of paper which appear to be unfinished manuscripts. He reads these stories periodically and discussions about them are held with Mr. Blank's guests. The only thing he really learns from his visitors is that he sent them "on various missions over the years, and, ...perhaps some of them, or many of them, or all of them, did not fare so terribly well, even to the point of being subjected to unbearable suffering and/or death."
He has different connections with some of the people. For example, Anna is someone that he knows he loves beyond explanation but he does not know why. One of the people, an inspector, asks him to remember details about a book that Mr. Blank read many years before. He indicates that his very existence may depend on it. The relationships add to the mystery of Mr. Blank's situation and surroundings.
Beginning at around page 140, Mr. Blank picks up one of the manuscripts on the desk that is titled Travels in the Scriptorium and is roughly 140 pages in length. He begins to read it and we (I/you) as the reader learn that it's the same book that you hold in your hand - it's the same text as the first 3 or 4 pages of this book. Then we come to the last two pages of the book where it begins:
"It will never end. For Mr. Blank is one of us now, and struggle though he might to understand his predicament, he will always be lost. I believe I speak for all his charges when I say he is getting what he deserves - no more, no less. Not as a form of punishment, but as an act of supreme justice and compassion. Without him, we are nothing, but the paradox is that we, the figments of another mind, will outlive the mind that made us, for once we are thrown into the world, we continue to exist forever, and our stories go on being told, even after we are dead...Mr. Blank is old and enfeebled, but as long as he remains in the room with the shuttered window and the locked door, he can never die, never disappear, never be anything but the words I am writing on this page..."
So, we learn that these are the characters in his book who are making him immortal along with them. Or has he written himself into this room? Or is this Mr. Auster looking into a reflection of a reflection of a reflection ad infinitum?
*****END OF SPOILERS*****
Well done Mr. Auster. I look forward to your next episode.
QUOTES I ENJOYED:
"...for in that was the first time he ever held a girl's hand, what he remembers most keenly now is the sensation of having entered a new world, a world in which holding a girl's hand was a good to be desired above all others..."
"...passion is and always will be blind to all but one thing..."
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in the area of movies like Memento, authors like Jonathan Carroll, Palahniuk, etc. albeit more tame. Honestly, anyone who reads this review and then reads Travels based on those comparisons may think I'm way off base. I'm certainly speaking in generalities and for some reason, these come to mind. The closest true comparison I can make is an episode of The Twilight Zone.It's a great little mystery that doesn't conform to reality. It's imagination perfectly blended with a multidimensional maze. Of the 145 pages, you'll probably start piecing some things together (slowly) at 100 but your reading will only speed up to see if you're correct in your analysis. It's an enjoyable story and it's of a style that I gravitate to frequently. I'd say that I wish the book was longer but then it would have likely have contained unnecessary fluff. My gratitude Mr. Auster!
**SPOILER ALERT (Highlight)**
The book is about an old man, Mr. Blank, who awakens to find himself in a sparsely furnished room and has no idea what's going on. He doesn't know why he's there, who his captors are (or if he's being held), what occurred in his past, etc. The story is largely his interaction with people who come to visit him - physician, lawyer, caretakers, etc. - and his attempts to learn more about them and his past through them. His female caretakers are giving him pills ("per his prior instructions") to keep him on his "treatment" which seems to be an effort to remain on a permanent mental vacation.
On a desk in the room, he has photos of the people who come to visit and stacks of paper which appear to be unfinished manuscripts. He reads these stories periodically and discussions about them are held with Mr. Blank's guests. The only thing he really learns from his visitors is that he sent them "on various missions over the years, and, ...perhaps some of them, or many of them, or all of them, did not fare so terribly well, even to the point of being subjected to unbearable suffering and/or death."
He has different connections with some of the people. For example, Anna is someone that he knows he loves beyond explanation but he does not know why. One of the people, an inspector, asks him to remember details about a book that Mr. Blank read many years before. He indicates that his very existence may depend on it. The relationships add to the mystery of Mr. Blank's situation and surroundings.
Beginning at around page 140, Mr. Blank picks up one of the manuscripts on the desk that is titled Travels in the Scriptorium and is roughly 140 pages in length. He begins to read it and we (I/you) as the reader learn that it's the same book that you hold in your hand - it's the same text as the first 3 or 4 pages of this book. Then we come to the last two pages of the book where it begins:
"It will never end. For Mr. Blank is one of us now, and struggle though he might to understand his predicament, he will always be lost. I believe I speak for all his charges when I say he is getting what he deserves - no more, no less. Not as a form of punishment, but as an act of supreme justice and compassion. Without him, we are nothing, but the paradox is that we, the figments of another mind, will outlive the mind that made us, for once we are thrown into the world, we continue to exist forever, and our stories go on being told, even after we are dead...Mr. Blank is old and enfeebled, but as long as he remains in the room with the shuttered window and the locked door, he can never die, never disappear, never be anything but the words I am writing on this page..."
So, we learn that these are the characters in his book who are making him immortal along with them. Or has he written himself into this room? Or is this Mr. Auster looking into a reflection of a reflection of a reflection ad infinitum?
*****END OF SPOILERS*****
Well done Mr. Auster. I look forward to your next episode.
QUOTES I ENJOYED:
"...for in that was the first time he ever held a girl's hand, what he remembers most keenly now is the sensation of having entered a new world, a world in which holding a girl's hand was a good to be desired above all others..."
"...passion is and always will be blind to all but one thing..."
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LibraryThing member klinew
Travels is reminiscent of earlier Auster works that I've read, Ghosts, for example. An unnamed character attempts to unravel the mystery of his life and how he has found himself to be a captive, perhaps, in a room with a number of familiar but not quite recognizable guests. With only photographs
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and "typescripts" to keep him company, the character, Mr. Blank, begins to read, finding the guests, photographs, his history and the typescripts inexplicably linked, the tale unravels. A nice mystery that kept me interested until the final page. Show Less
LibraryThing member Steven_VI
Even though this isn't Auster's finest, I finished it in a single day. The 'mystery' about the main character's identity wasn't that difficult to decipher, and in the end the repetition was rather cheap, but still the very last paragraph was surprising. All in all the experiment of keeping the
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story confined to a single room isn't worthy of repetition... Show Less
LibraryThing member kvrfan
A Twilight-Zone-type story, as if told by MC Escher. The mystery: who is the old man confined in this room, lacking memory, and why is he here?
LibraryThing member clipped
Not one of the great Paul Auster's but any of his books are still worth the read
LibraryThing member wrmjr66
I wanted to like this book. It started as the sort of post-modern story that can have an eerie power in its meta-fictional presentation of the story. Unfortunately, it devolved into something thin and predictable. I'm sure I'll try Auster again, but this was a disappointing introduction.
LibraryThing member MikeFarquhar
Travels in the Scriptorium is a different beast altogether. It’s a slim book, and tells of a man in a fairly featureless room, where objects have simple labels attached to describe what they are, with no memory of who he is or how he got there. He is visited by several people, each of whom talk
This isn’t a book you can come to cold. The characters who visit Mr Blank in his room are all drawn from Auster’s previous books, and we are being invited into a philosophical deconstruction on fiction, language and imagination that takes a bit of work to puzzle through (well, it took me a bit of work to puzzle through). It’s difficult to say how much I enjoyed it; Auster’s style is deceptively simple, but as ever, he is clearly skilled. When IU puzzled out a bit of it, I felt rewarded – but I left with a feeling that there were probably further layers that I still wasn’t getting, so there’s a vague dissatisfaction to it too.
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to him of matters related to him and his past, and offer clues as to what is going on.This isn’t a book you can come to cold. The characters who visit Mr Blank in his room are all drawn from Auster’s previous books, and we are being invited into a philosophical deconstruction on fiction, language and imagination that takes a bit of work to puzzle through (well, it took me a bit of work to puzzle through). It’s difficult to say how much I enjoyed it; Auster’s style is deceptively simple, but as ever, he is clearly skilled. When IU puzzled out a bit of it, I felt rewarded – but I left with a feeling that there were probably further layers that I still wasn’t getting, so there’s a vague dissatisfaction to it too.
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LibraryThing member updraught
Intriguing if somewhat predictable.
LibraryThing member TheIdleWoman
This was my first experience of Paul Auster and my appetite has certainly been whetted. More novella than novel, this slim book tells the story of a day in the life of Mr Blank. An old man, he sits in a sparsely-furnished room with no idea of who he is or where he is. He can't tell whether he is a
On the plus side, this is a quirky, clever story which simply presents a series of facts and leaves the reader to gradually draw their own conclusions. Although I might have found the knowing conceit a bit trying if it had lasted throughout a full-length novel, Auster gets away with it here. His blend of playfulness and pathos reminded me a bit of Borges, although I suspect that comparison also sprang to mind because of the themes of reading and reality that underpin Mr Blank's existence. In the long run, this book probably won't stick in my mind, but it provided a welcome diversion, and I'll certainly be more likely now to give the rest of Auster's novels a try.
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prisoner or a guest, and he is connected to the wider world only through the series of people who come to visit him. To say much more would be to risk giving things away. There is something very stylised about the action, in which every small gesture or action is faithfully recorded, but this doesn't bother me too much because Mr Blank is starting from scratch, almost, and everything may have significance. Perhaps the thing which I did find tiresome was Auster's emphasis on Mr Blank's bodily functions, which I don't believe we need to know about in quite so much detail. On the plus side, this is a quirky, clever story which simply presents a series of facts and leaves the reader to gradually draw their own conclusions. Although I might have found the knowing conceit a bit trying if it had lasted throughout a full-length novel, Auster gets away with it here. His blend of playfulness and pathos reminded me a bit of Borges, although I suspect that comparison also sprang to mind because of the themes of reading and reality that underpin Mr Blank's existence. In the long run, this book probably won't stick in my mind, but it provided a welcome diversion, and I'll certainly be more likely now to give the rest of Auster's novels a try.
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Awards
Dublin Literary Award (Longlist — 2008)