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“This is without a doubt one of the strangest books I've ever read. I always describe Paul Auster as an American Haruki Murakami, because the two writers do have a lot in common, most notably their use of surrealism. But here, Auster has crafted a story that is much more surreal than anything Murakami has written (that I've read, at least). While this is a trilogy in some senses (there are three completely separate and independent novella-length stories within its covers), it is also, in another sense, a single book, united by its use of common themes, motifs, and even character names that are reused without any resemblance to their former owners. In each of the three books, I thought I was detecting a pattern, a building up toward a certain plot twist, the idea that the two antagonistic characters in each story were in fact the same person; but this twist never happened. That's not, apparently, what any of these stories were about, leaving me a bit baffled. What were they about, then, one might logically ask. The thing is, I still have no idea. And that's one of the things I like about the Trilogy. One might be tempted to call the book "a detective story about detective stories", but that would be wrong. While each of Auster's novellas feature detectives, or at very least people engaged in detective work, none of them are detective stories, because detective stories are about the unraveling of a mystery; whereas Auster's book is about the mystery itself, and it is the mystery is what endures. Each of the stories have a climax and and a solid ending, but none of them have the denouement that is typical of most stories, but which is especially typical of the detective story. So Auster's book is a mystery story, in that its subject is mystery. It is itself a mystery, much more so than any of Murakami's works (though Murakami has his owns strengths and his own areas where he far surpasses Auster). And that's what makes it so wonderful. ”
Michael wrote this review Saturday, February 11, 2012.
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