Invisible

But Paris is Paris. Paris alone is real says John (who is not really John) in part IV of this novel. He has just listed all the characters in the novel and all the places they lived and worked emphasising that they have all been invented on the instructions of one of the central characters in the

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story and as this is basically a memoir by Adam Walker (who of course is not Adam Walker), who died before it could be completed then the reader is only certain of one thing - Paris is Paris.

This may make the novel sound complicated, but it is certainly not that. It is more or less a linear story told in four parts. Adam Walker writes in the first person in part I concerning an incident that happened 38 years ago when he was a student. A chance meeting at a party got him involved with a political lecturer Rudolf Born and his enigmatic lover Margot. Born takes a liking to Adam as does Margot and they offer to fund him in setting up a new literary magazine, an enterprise that Adam; a student of literature and would-be poet would almost give his right arm to do. Adam is seduced by Margot, but still seems to be on good terms with Born, however a violent incident occurs one evening when he is walking home with Born in a New York (not really New York) side street. A young black man is murdered and Adam is certain that Born committed the act. Born threatens Adam to keep quiet and while Adam wrestles with his conscience Born flees to Paris. What Adam did next is written in part II in the form of a manuscript which he sends to an old college friend 38 years later and is written in the second person. Adam reveals that he has only a short time to live as he is suffering from leukaemia and he begs his friend John (who is now a successful novelist) to read his story with a view to possible publication. John is intrigued and he travels to Adams home to meet him for dinner, but he is too late Adam has died 6 days earlier, but has left a series of notes as to how he wants his story to continue. John rewrites these in part III in the third person and part IV is his own investigation where he tracks down the surviving characters to discover what had happened to Adam.

The story Adam tells in his manuscript also reveals an intense incestual relationship with his sister, which she denies and so although his carefully written manuscript seems to be telling a true story almost a confessional, it could be partly or wholly a fantasy. A plausible tale written by and witnessed by different people but it is the story unfolding that makes this book such a page turner. Paul Auster is noted for his ability to turn stories on their head, to make them seem real, confessional, but just a little disorientating, so the reader cannot quite believe them. Invisible has all the hallmarks of an Auster novel; it is his fifteenth, but as well written as it is, it brings nothing new to the table. An entertainment with the usual dollops of sex and intrigue and of course the twin themes of writing and being a novelist takes another turn round the block. I enjoyed the read, but it felt like Paul Auster was writing well within himself, but still I rate it at 3.5 stars.

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This is a complex novel, both structurally and plot-wise. It consists of 4 parts, the first three of which take place in 1967, and the fourth taking place 40 years later.

Part I is narrated in the first person by Adam Walker. It is the spring of 1967 and he is a student at Columbia when he meets

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Rudolf Born, a visiting professor from France. Born and his girlfriend Margot befriend Adam, and Born offers to finance a literary magazine for Adam to develop and edit, something Adam considers a dream come true. He fully intends to accept the challenge, until he witnesses a shocking act of violence that changes his life forever.

In Part II, we learn that Adam has sent the first-person narrative set forth in Part I to his former college roommate Jim, who is now a successful writer. As the novel continues, the framing device for the remainder of the book becomes one in which Jim pieces together in various ways the remainder of Adam's story. Adam wrote Jim that he wanted to continue with his story, but feels blocked and seeks advice. Jim advises that Adam consider telling the story in something other than the first person. We then read the continuation of Adam's story, ostensibly, as with Part I, written by Adam. The story narrated in Part II takes place over the summer of 1967 and is narrated in the second person ("You"). In this section, Adam bides time in New York sharing an apartment (and possibly more) with his sister Gwynn, as he awaits traveling to Paris in the fall for his junior year abroad.

Part III details what happened while Adam was in Paris in the fall of 1967. This section is narrated in the third person, and is ostensibly written by Jim from detailed notes Adam left for him.

The final part takes place forty years after the events which occurred in 1967. Jim has travelled to Paris, and while there seeks out some of the people with whom Adam had interacted in the fall of 1967. Adam's story (and Born's) is finally completed by the diary entries of one of those people, originally written in French and translated.

Throughout, beyond the story Adam wanted to tell about the life-changing events of 1967, questions are being raised about whether a story in a novel can be "true," what makes it true, does it make a difference who tells the story or how it is told? All sorts of issues are raised about the art of writing. I suppose this can be considered meta fiction, which I usually like.

In fact, I liked this one a lot (but then, I've liked most books by Auster that I've read), and I definitely think it deserves a place on the 1001 list. I realize that maybe I haven't made it sound that interesting in that I've kept the plot details rather vague, but I've always found Auster's plots to be imaginative and engaging, and this one was no exception.

Recommended.

4 stars

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I finished reading his latest book Invisible a week or so ago. It was a great novel and it displays many of his favourite tricks and characteristic verve in the writing. I've been musing about what to say about it for a few days, and am finding it very difficult indeed to describe its brilliance

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adequately and to give a synopsis without spoilers, so I am going to be deliberately vague about plot and concentrate on other aspects.

Invisible is one of his multi-layered best - I loved it. The key character is a young man, Adam, who has a defining moment in his life which has big consequences, and he looks back on what happened that spring in his memoirs.

Written in four parts, we start off in the first person, hearing the story through Adam himself. In the second we move onto a second person narrative, then the story is taken over in the third person by a friend from Adam's student days. In the final part, Adam is all but invisible, but the consequences of what happened back then still resonate as the tale is drawn to its conclusion

One of Auster's favourite devices is to embed a book within a book and using an author as a central character as he does here. There is always a strong psychological element to his books and in this novel, truth and memory are intertwined in the memoir with shocking events and tender moments but which are real and which imagined?

Invisible is up there with his best, and I highly recommend it. (Book supplied by Librarything Early Reviewers).

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I found this novel quite unlike many of the other Paul Auster novels I've read in the past. It still has a few of the qualities of experimental fiction, though the main character one can't trust is definitely not as obvious or at the forefront as his other works. There are also a couple of other

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perspectives that are at play, especially later on in the book, and the oddity of having a protagonist that switches his own perspective from first person to third person in order to conquer the writer's block about events in his own life.

Without saying too much, I really like any works of art whether it be films or literature that call me to question and really think about everything I've thus far read that I took for granted and consider it with a different light. This novel recalled the novel I read not too long ago by Julian Barnes entitled The Sense of an Ending...it's actually quite difficult to figure out the truth and one can't fail to consider that each reader might sense a bit of her or his own sense of the story based upon her/his own life experiences and how she/he has come to understand the world...this may have been Paul Auster's own intent (and that of Julian Barnes as well) but I'm not sure.

In any case, it is an interesting read and will probably benefit from a second or third read in the future. It involves a whole host of interesting subjects from civil rights, murder, literature translations all the way to incest and death. Only Auster could really tackle these heavy topics in a way that makes us consider them in this specific way in the narrative of a complex character. The novel is an easy read but don't read it too fast or you may not catch the way Auster commands his language and challenges the reader. It may not be a perfect work but it is well worth reading.

pg.84 "For the sad fact remains: there is far more poetry in the world than justice."

pg. 132-133 "She is the only person you can talk to, the only person who makes you feel alive. And yet, happy as you are to be with her again, you know that you mustn't overburden her with your troubles, that you can't expect her to transform herself into the divine surgeon who will cut open your chest and mend your ailing heart. You must help yourself. If something inside you is broken, you must put it back together with your own two hands."

pg. 216 "Books should be treated with respect, even the ones that make us ill."

pg. 293 "I sometimes confuse my thoughts about the world with the world itself. I'm sorry if I offended you."

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A great book, telling of the remembrances of a man who, in 1967, got mixed up with the wrong people. Great until the last chapter, where I got totally lost.

This is an intriguing and well-realised book. Auster certainly has the ability to draw the reader quickly into the plot: a young, idealistic student is drawn into a dark world of sexual interplay and violence when he is selected to start a magazine by an ageing academic with a seedy, black side to

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his character. I was carried through the book, with its multiple narrative voices, and found it a quick read but not a shallow book. The narrative shifts created an interesting counterplay between characters but I think that Auster took it too far into the arena of a literary exercise on occasion, with an unnecessarily obtuse and mechanistic second person narration period. Nonetheless, an interesting novel by a storyteller who is obviously a consumate professional.

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The Short of It:

Thoughtfully structured, Invisible is just the kind of brain candy that a true reader craves.

The Rest of It:

The story itself is simple. Adam Walker is dying. Before doing so, he decides to share his life story with an acquaintance from his years at Columbia. Jim, who has agreed to

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read the story and provide feedback where needed, is given the story in parts.

The first part is innocent enough. It’s where Adam meets Rudolf Barn and Rudolf’s mysterious girlfriend, Margot. The couple takes an immediate liking to Adam. The relationship is complicated in that Rudolf has offered Adam a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity…to start-up a magazine. This is an offer that Adam cannot refuse, but wait… there is an attraction to Margot. That’s where it gets complicated.

As Adam’s story is delivered in parts, Jim is not sure what to think. The story centers around a violent act, incest and these rather eccentric characters. What at first appears to be Adam’s life story, sort of morphs into what Jim thinks might be fiction or fantasy, but he can’t be sure, so he does a bit of his own research to find out.

Invisible is complicated in structure…there are multiple narrators, passages told in flashbacks, etc. However, it’s not a difficult read. In fact, it’s quite short for a novel and goes quite quickly, but there’s something about it that piques the senses. Auster’s use of language is admirable, but his ability to keep you slightly on the edge of your seat is what I enjoyed the most. This is not a mystery or thriller by any means but when he touches on incest I was like, “What? Did he just go there?” Yes, he goes there and gives you just enough to be utterly creeped out and disturbed and then pulls back to allow you a moment of reprieve.

It’s that delicate use of tension that pulls you in. I found myself hanging on every word. At times, it reminded me of The Talented Mr. Ripley. There’s the larger than life Born, the sexual tension, the lure of adventure. It’s packed with ambiguity, yet when you finish the novel, you somehow know how things turn out. When I finished it, I immediately wanted to read it again. Not because things were not clear, but because it’s just that kind of novel. It’s multi-layered and complex but in the best possible way.

You should know that there are some sex scenes that could be considered graphic. However, it’s the incest that will most likely disturb you the most, if you happen to be sensitive to that sort of thing. I am usually not, but there was one point where I remember squirming a bit in my seat. That said, I quickly got over it and felt that Auster’s handling of that particular scene was quite well done. If you enjoy sophisticated fiction and complex structure, you will definitely enjoy Invisible. It is one of my favorites for 2010.

My book club meets in September to discuss this book, but I won’t be able to attend due to back-to-school night. I think it is going to be a lively discussion as there is a lot to discuss

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I've been an Auster fan for quite awhile, and I enjoyed ''Invisible'' quite a bit. Told in shifting narratives, ''Invisible'' centers around writers and writing and creates an almost sinister attitude at times with its dry descriptions of the violence that engulfs its characters. The layering of

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the narratives and storylines is effective and fascinating, and Auster pulls off what could be a literary trick with aplomb.

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A very good review by Evening All Afternoon of Paul Auster's New York Trilogy prompts me finally to write about Invisible, which I have had in my TBR pile for quite some time.

Some of those who have read the Trilogy might have been left wondering, like me, if it was actually intended as a real novel

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at all, rather than just an exercise for a creative writing class. Am I alone in finding that all the obsessive behaviour and constantly shifting (and often uncertain) identities get in the way of the story, which is any event pretty thin? Having bought it as a result of all the hype which surrounded it, I ended up being dreadfully disappointed.

If so, relax, for Invisible is a different animal entirely. Yes, it is told by various narrators from various different viewpoints, and moves between the past and the present, but on this occasion it all works, and the reader feels challenged but never downright bewildered.

Auster uses the device of an author struggling to finish a book, and enlisting the help of a third party in order to do so. Death, natural and otherwise, a detective style investigation, and sex make up the mix. It is difficult to say much more about the plot without spoiling the ending.

In fairness I should point out that I have never read any of Auster's other books (which many admire and respect), but on the evidence of the Trilogy, which frankly I did not enjoy, Invisible came as a very pleasant surprise. It is well written and well crafted, each of the three main characters coming across with their own voice. I would happily recommend this book to anyone

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As other books from Paul Auster, you get involved with the story, especially the characters, and there are also some elements of tragedy, which makes the story passionate. However, altough I really had fun reading the book, I felt a kind of anti-climax as the story unfolds. It is a good book, above

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average for sure, but not as impacting as previous ones like Leviathan and Oracle Night. Maybe for one that didn't read Auster before it would be a really great book. For the ones already used to the autor, it may feel like slightly repetitive.

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In 1967, Adam Walker was a student at Columbia, an aspiring poet, when he meets a visiting professor of International Affairs, Rudolf Born, and his French girlfriend Margot at a party. They start a friendship, and Born offers to hire Walker to start a new literary magazine. This comes to a sudden

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halt when Born commits an act of violence and Walker refuses to cover it up. Born flees the country to his native France. Margot had preceded him there, after their relationship had ended, after she and Walker had a brief affair and Born announced that he was marrying a French woman. Walker then travels to Paris for a semester abroad, where he meets up again with Margot and Born.

This story is told primarily through a memoir being written by Walker in the present day, where he is dying of cancer. He sends two chapters of his manuscript to an old college buddy he had not been in contact with since those days. Some other details of the story are told by two other players in Walker's story.

What we are presented with raises questions about the borderline between memoir and fiction. How much can we trust what each of the characters in this story says about their life and motives? The story itself is an interesting one, and the book is a very quick read. At just over 300 pages it was easily completed on the quiet weekend that devoted to it.

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Every Auster book is worth reading, although he can be quite dry and is rather fond of notebooks. Invisible is another tale of writers and writing but mixes up the plot a little this time. Although the quote on the cover that he is America's only writer under sixty with any claim to greatness is

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the most preposterous thing I have ever heard there is no doubt that Auster is a great writer.

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The novel is intriguingly written, with the various narrators, but this isn't exactly a new trick. That the main story failed to grab me was the biggest issue. I'm not a massive fan of this sort of modern fiction, so it's maybe not a surprise I felt this way, but I was given a copy so I read

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through Invisible.

Not terrible by any means, just sort of average.

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My first Paul Auster book. It was a bit contrived; each section with not only a different narrative voice but in a different person; with a plot that didn't really hold together for me. Oddly, it seemed almost a device to showcase fairly powerful prose about incest with the protagonist's sister,

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surrounded by a sinister not quite believable plot.

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At times this novel is confusing, primarly from not following conventional rules of syntax. However, the plot eventually lets you forget this but this doesn't occur until with last third. It is very easy to forget who is narrating at which point (the story has three narrators over four parts) and I

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found I enjoyed the latter part of the novel more. Had I not been reviewing it, I might have given up quickly in the novel. The ending felt incomplete to me and very disappointing but what I did like was the clever twists leaving the reader unsure as to who to believe.

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Having not read any Paul Auster I was looking forward. It was an okay book but a bit disappointing given the hype around this author. I felt the ending did not fit the tone of the book and it was a let down. I may read more of his books but will be looking for the "best" of his previous works. Too

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many good books out there to waste time with an author with a reputation who really is not as good as his press.

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Outstanding read. Our hero is a literature student, Adam who with his sister is haunted by his dead sibling. His parents are damaged and he and his sister become close as a result and resolve to live exemplary lives. Their love for one another becomes incestuous in nature and Adam is telling the

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tale. There is a novel within a novel here and a truly evil character. Everyone who is telling the story is somehow not in it. Very tender and sweet. A very intelligent read.

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Just below average, for me.

A promising start failed to amount to any significance or poignancy.

In my opinion, a truly great book has to do something different- conjure fantastic imagery, describe things and people in a thoughtful, insightful and original way, have self-propelling narrative or

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make you identify with characters' emotions, words and actions.

A classic does all three.

Unforunatley, 'Invisible' does none of these adequately, which casts it into the realm of literary mediocrity in my opinion. However, it's easy to read and flows nicely, so I can see how people would enjoy it.

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Paul Auster has been one of my favorite author since I was in college. I anxiously await every new book he releases. "Invisible" was very different than I expected. You almost always get a young, struggling author, and their life-changing drama. I was shocked, but not unpleasantly so, by the sexual

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charge in this book. As uncomfortable as the scenes were, they were also so perfectly written, that you couldn't help but continue through it, and appreciate that portion of the story later. "Invisible" is twisted, mysterious, and leaves you curious, just as the characters are. You're left out of the final truth by the story and the character's deaths. It almost makes you feel helpless and begging for Auster to go back and tell you what really happened. But that's the genius of Auster, too. He never gives you too much, and he never leaves you thinking that you've got him all figured out.

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I'm a huge fan of Auster's meta-fiction, so picked this up with relish. As ever, he plays with the nature of narrative, the blurring between fact and fiction, and the identity of first-, second and third-person. His prose is spartan, to the point of poetry (fitting, given the identity of the

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narrator), and if it were from anyone else, I'd be gushing praise. But the Auster bar is very high indeed, and this falls just a little short.

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It’s been a prolific decade for my favourite author, Paul Auster –he has just published his sixth novel of the noughties. As prolific as he’s been, he’s also published some of his weakest works –I don’t care for the crowd-pleasing Brooklyn Follies nor Travels in the Scriptorium,

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although at least they’re better than Timbuktu, his late nineties novel told through the eyes of a dog. I rate his new novel, Invisible, the second best of the six of the decade, after The Book of Illusions. It is the most typical of his whole career, with many of his recurring elements appearing – a mysterious stranger, a change of fortune, a struggling poet translating French texts, a random act of violence, and a framed narrative.As almost always happens in Auster’s novels, the protagonist is a male New Yorker born in 1947 and a student at Columbia. Adam Walker is a college student and aspiring poet and the novel is about the defining year of his life, 1967. Adam meets a mysterious stranger at a party – Rudolf Born – who makes him an offer that will change his life; Born will pay Adam to edit a literary magazine. Born is called away on business, and Adam is seduced by Born’s girlfriend, Margot. Yet it isn’t this that causes a rift between them, but Born’s violent stabbing of a mugger. Adam spends much of the rest of the novel hoping to see justice served on Born for the murder. In between, he has lots of sex with his sister, and even though there’s been hints of incest in Auster’s work before (In The Country of Last Things, The Red Notebook, from memory) it is the sexual explicitness of this novel that is its most atypical feature. Usually Auster summarizes sex without going into much detail at all, but this time he is more anatomical.Complicating the story is a complicated framing device. The first part about Walker meeting Born and things going wrong, is revealed to be the first chapter of a manuscript Walker has written in the present day and sent to his friend Jim, a famous writer. Walker is terminally ill and is trying to finish the memoir before he dies. (A situation which recalls Thomas Effing telling Fogg his life story in Moon Palace for his obituary, and Hector Mann bringing Zimmer to his ranch to see his secret films before he dies in The Book of Illusions.) After Jim’s framing, the second part of the novel is told in second person to overcome Walker’s writer’s block. The third part of the novel is filled out by Jim from Walker’s rough notes. As Walker’s narrative ends, Jim does some detective work, tracking down the people involved and trying to solve some of the mysteries. It is a compulsively readable story, fascinating and littered with insights into the way we make meaning of life and how we decide what to do with ourselves. In her review, Lionel Shriver contended that there is nothing to take away from the book, that it’s like a glass of lemonade. I think part of what she is noticing and what disappoints her is an insistence by Auster that his narratives attempt to mimic some of the randomness of life, with both its coincidence and its failure to resolve. I read a reviewer once describe Auster’s work as a handful of smooth stones rubbing against each other, but not yielding anything as simple as meaning.

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Paul Auster's new novel Invisible is the story of Adam Walker, a student at Columbia University in 1967, who meets the enigmatic Rudolf Born and Margot, Born's girlfriend, at a party. Born offers to fund a literary magazine which Walker will edit. Before this can take place, Walker and Born are

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held up at gunpoint. Born pulls a knife on the mugger and stabs him. Walker later finds that Born has actually murdered him. Born flees to Paris and shortly afterwards, Walker follows.
While in Paris, Walker rekindles his affair with Margot and decides to exact his revenge on Born by telling Born's new partner Helene the truth about her future husband. Walker's friendship with Helene's daughter suffers as a result of this revelation.
The story is picked up 40 years later as a memoir written by the dying Walker and sent to his old college friend Jim Freeman. In this memoir, we learn more about Walker and his relationship with his sister. The last section of the novel is told by Cecile, Helene's daughter, who visited Born years later on the island of Quillia.
As with much of Auster's work, the novel conceals more than it reveals but is never less than fascinating and is a very good rerad.

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A complex, well-knit story with an ending that made this one of the best books Auster has ever written. The themes are the same as always, but now in addition to words that have been failing Auster and his characters, it seems that even the world and the people in it have failed him. There is a

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sense of hopelessness in what comes to world politics and the ongoing wars. Looking forward to Sunset Park!

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This was my first Paul Auster book, and though he'd come highly recommended I wasn't sure what to expect. Its strength was it's simplicity, the clarity of the events and emotions it conveyed being achieved without hyperbole. The plot features a literature student at a US university in 1967, and

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focuses on on his relationship with his sister and the strange web of events he is drawn into when he encounters a French academic. Though interesting, despite the significance of the events described, there is little drama. I will read more of his books .

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