Description
From the author of the forthcoming 4 3 2 1: A Novel - a spare, powerful, intensely visionary novel about the bare-bones conditions of survival In a distant and unsettling future, Anna Blume is on a mission in an unnamed city of chaos and disaster. Its destitute inhabitants scavenge garbage for food and shelter, no industry exists, and an elusive government provides nothing but corruption. Anna wades through the filth to find her long-lost brother, a one-time journalist who may or may not be alive. New York Times-bestselling author Paul Auster (The New York Trilogy) shows us a disturbing Hobbesian society in this dystopian, post-apocalyptic novel.
Collection
Publication
Penguin Books (1988), Edition: Reprint, 208 pages
Media reviews
Library Journal
In a book-length letter home, Anna Blume reports that her search for a long-lost brother has brought her to a vast, unnamed city that is undergoing a catastrophic economic decline. Buildings collapse daily, driving huge numbers of citizens into the streets, where they starve or die of exposureif
Show More
they aren't murdered by other vagrants first. Government forces haul away the bodies, and licensed scavengers collect trash and precious human waste. Weird cults form around the most popular methods of suicide. Anna tries to help, but the charity group she joins quickly runs out of supplies and has to close its doors. A number of post-apocalyptic novels have been published recently; Auster's, one of the best, is distinguished by an uncanny grasp of the day-to-day realities of homelessness. This is a scary but highly relevant book. Show Less
Publisher's Weekly
Imagine an American city in the near future, populated almost wholly by street dwellers, squatters in ruined buildings, scavengers for subsistence. Suicide clubs offer interesting ways to die, for a fee, but the rich have fled with their jewels, and those who are left survive on what little cash
Show More
trade-in centers will give them for the day's pickings. This enthralling, dreamlike fable about a peculiarly recognizable society, now in the throes of entropy, focuses on the plight of a young woman, Anna Blume. Anna has memories of a gentler life, but comes to the city in a "charity ship" to hunt for her missing brother. She first finds shelter with a madman and his wife and later experiences a brief idyll with a writer, Samuel Farr.Together they live in the deteriorating splendor of the marbled public library. Promise is ultimately rekindled when the survivors consider taking to the road as magiciansan action implying that art and illusion can save. Auster, an accomplished stylist, creates a tone that deftly combines matter-of-factness and estrangement. The eerie quality is heightened by the device of a narrator who learns everything from Anna's journal. Show Less
User reviews
LibraryThing member shabacus
I have nothing against post-apocalyptic stories. I'm not a fan of despair. Sadly, "In the Country of Last Things" used the setting merely as a conveyance mechanism for despair, without stopping to teach us anything of value along the way.
Early chapters provide a sort of grand tour of a bleak,
At no point are we allowed to see Anna as any more than a weary, desperate remnant of a person. Even the "good" times she describes are filtered through the smoky glass of her present reflection.
I question how well the author was able to get into his narrator's head. Several passages rang particularly untrue; the lesbian scene and its immediate aftermath felt gratuitous and hollow. In other places, Auster managed to adequately convey the grinding torment of Anna's existence, though not in a way that made me sympathize with her.
The novel does end with a note of hope, but without anything approaching what might be termed a climax. Thus, the novel reveals itself for what it is: a tired and tiring travelogue to a place we would never want to visit, in the company of a character I would never care to know.
Early chapters provide a sort of grand tour of a bleak,
Show More
poverty-stricken cityscape, in which the last vestiges of the old world are sloughing off, revealing the inhumanity of its inhabitants. Our narrator, Anna, then switches to a tale of how she came to be there, and the various events and misadventures that beset her along the way.At no point are we allowed to see Anna as any more than a weary, desperate remnant of a person. Even the "good" times she describes are filtered through the smoky glass of her present reflection.
I question how well the author was able to get into his narrator's head. Several passages rang particularly untrue; the lesbian scene and its immediate aftermath felt gratuitous and hollow. In other places, Auster managed to adequately convey the grinding torment of Anna's existence, though not in a way that made me sympathize with her.
The novel does end with a note of hope, but without anything approaching what might be termed a climax. Thus, the novel reveals itself for what it is: a tired and tiring travelogue to a place we would never want to visit, in the company of a character I would never care to know.
Show Less
LibraryThing member writestuff
Anna Blume arrives in an unnamed city to search for her brother - a journalist who has vanished without a trace. The city is one of unspeakable destruction and horror, where dead people lie in the street (either by their own hand, or from hired assassins, or from starvation or violence). Things
Paul Auster's novel is written from Anna's point of view - and presented in a letter she writes to someone in her past. For Anna, there is no going back "home."
Unable to go back, and uncertain about going forward, the reader learns how Anna survives and what she finds in a place where everything seems to be lost.
The novel is not particularly hopeful - the characters not only lose the past, but also their faith.
The novel is well written and I found myself turning the pages seeking the same answers that Anna seeks. Auster offers a glimmer of promise - but, ultimately I finished the book with a feeling of disappointment.
Show More
disappear daily along with memories. To survive, Anna becomes an object scavenger, gathering up things from the past to sell for food and shelter. Who and what can survive in this bleak and desolate city?Paul Auster's novel is written from Anna's point of view - and presented in a letter she writes to someone in her past. For Anna, there is no going back "home."
Unable to go back, and uncertain about going forward, the reader learns how Anna survives and what she finds in a place where everything seems to be lost.
The novel is not particularly hopeful - the characters not only lose the past, but also their faith.
The novel is well written and I found myself turning the pages seeking the same answers that Anna seeks. Auster offers a glimmer of promise - but, ultimately I finished the book with a feeling of disappointment.
Show Less
LibraryThing member jlparent
Grim dystopian society related by narrator and yet there are moments where she finds joy even among the rubble of society. Not a light read but I enjoyed it.
LibraryThing member aegossman
Amazing voice, compelling and it sucked me in immediately... very dark, amazing book I am ashamed for having not read until now.
LibraryThing member sscarllet
In the Country of Last Things was a journal about a womans life as she hunts for her lost brother during the colapse of civilization. Even though a name is never give to the city for some reason I always pictured it as New York. Auster descriptions danced around me as I read about the trials and
Paul Austers writing was sparce, not a word was wasted. I wish there had been more. I could have read for much longer.
I would definitly recomend this book to others.
Show More
tribulations of Anna.Paul Austers writing was sparce, not a word was wasted. I wish there had been more. I could have read for much longer.
I would definitly recomend this book to others.
Show Less
LibraryThing member MSarki
A very enjoyable read and one that took me by surprise.
LibraryThing member amuskopf
odd but compelling novel
LibraryThing member eclecticheart
In the Country of Last Things is a sublime dystopian novel which, from what I've seen, doesn't get a lot of attention. It was the first Paul Auster book I read and it turned me into a lifelong fan. Very dark, as is to be expected given the genre. Let's hope things don't go to this extreme in the
Show More
real world. Show Less
Awards
The Guardian 1000 Novels Everyone Must Read (Science Fiction and Fantasy)
Original language
English
Original publication date
1987-04-20