Rating: 
Summary: The inner life of Martin Frost
Review: I believe this is the best we've seen from Paul Auster, and I've read (and mostly loved) almost everything he did. It's a book that's written with elegancy and emotion and that -I believe-, wether you like it or not, won't leave you completely cold.The protagonist, David Zimmer, lives the life of a dead man. His wife and kids have died in a plane crash and he watches life go by getting drunk alone and contemplating the possibility of suicide. One day, by watching a clip on T.V. from silent argentine film comedian Hector Mann, he laughs, and that laugh saves his life. To fill his days and to keep himself alive, he writes a book about Mann and about his mysterious disappearance in 1929. When that book is over, he struggles to find another thing to work on, when all of a sudden he receives a letter claiming that Hector Mann is still alive and wants to speak to him. One of the things a lot of readers dislike about this novel is the way in which a plot is aborted giving place to a completely different one, the way chance seems to rule the game. I think this is the proof that Auster's style has finally matured and established in a solid position. Whether you like that meandering style or not is a totally different matter. I also discard the possibility that he's repeating himself: in tone this is an entirely novel work, with typical Auster trademarks. "The book of illusions" is a masterpiece and a book I will be rereading many times. Its title is misleading and perfect.
Rating:
Summary: An illusion you'd like to see again
Review: "If someone makes a movie and no one sees it, does the movie exist or not?" This is one of the tantalizing paradoxes which underlie The Book of Illusions, Paul Auster's tenth novel. Auster is consumed with delineating the myriad mirages which the world is made of, the mysteries which consume us and the personal realities which no one else can comprehend. The narrator of Illusions, David Zimmer, is a man in the throes of grief over the accidental deaths of his wife and sons. While channel surfing one day, he happens upon a film clip of silent film comedian Hector Mann, who had disappeared in 1929 and is considered long-dead. He begins to search out the forgotten films of Mann, eventually publishing a book on the subject, and is floored when he receives a letter inviting him to visit with Mann, who is now a recluse directing films for his own satisfaction. In past efforts, Auster has veered stylistically from the post-modern mysteries of his New York Trilogy to the Saul Bellow-like personal explorations of Moon Palace and Leviathan. Here, Auster balances his two passions, intertwining a warmly graceful tale of personal loss and redemption with his obsession with stories within stories, coincidences, mirrors, mazes, and masks. As Zimmer tells it, it is "a book of fragments, a compilation of sorrows and half-remembered dreams." Auster manages an impressive feat within his pages; he creates a written world of celluloid illusions so wonderful, so precise, that one wishes Mann's filmography was not only a myth of Auster's imagination. Zimmer's discourses on Mann's use of facial expressions, slapstick, and melancholy within the silent film framework prove Auster could have a second career as film historian if he so wished. The illusion of film is not Auster's only quest; it is the illusions that make up the solid universe which ultimately fascinate him. Understanding that the novel itself is an illusion, Auster opts for a stylistic artifice along the lines of his entirely style-driven City of Glass, deliberately luring the reader in with his involving tale, then disassociating the reader with clever statements that draw attention to themselves (for example, a sexual encounter is described as a "spectacle of verbs"). Auster's post-modern sensitivities can alienate the reader to frustration at points; the coincidences in the narrative pile up at a frightening pace. He is aware of this conundrum, explaining that "the truth was that most things made no sense . . . the laws of physics stipulated that every person in the world occupied a certain amount of space - which meant that everyone was necessarily somewhere." It's a neat piece of writing, but it comes across as a cheat, a deus ex machina to hang plot contrivances upon. However, the ultimate effect of The Book of Illusions is an elegant despondency that never outstays its welcome. Auster fashions a world of loss, of grief, of mourning, rebirth, and betrayal. If, in the end, it is all an illusion, then it is a masterful one.
Rating: 
Summary: Three and a half stars. Kind of plodding.
Review: I find Auster's ideas interesting, but his execution plods a litle. I didn't find this book to be brilliant, but it was capably done, a little melodramatic in content, but I think authors are all killing themselves to sell books these days. I think the reader is well advised to consider this book in that light: as a product. Like a suspense movie without the suspense, for example. It's nothing particularly special or enlightening, but if you are looking for something interesting to read, it will do. It won't disappoint unless you are looking for something to transform your life or knock your socks off. For transformation, read Nabokov. For socks-offing, read Margaret Atwood's Oryx and Crake.
Rating:
Summary: An excellent novel
Review: I actually listened to this book read by the author (which I usually don't like), but found it to be excellent on many levels. The audiobook is paced well, and Auster does a good job with the reading -- authors are very often poor at reading their own novels. As to the novel, I was completely drawn into the story, and I like the layered plotting and lack of easy answers. The story concerns a man whose loss of his family has left him shattered. He loses himself in the story of a vanished silent film star, and in researching this man, he is brought into a relationship with a damaged woman. Auster's writing is incredible, and the allusions to Hollywood reporting, Hawthorne's short stories, and ultimately to the nature of illusions are consistently interesting and used well throughout the novel. Initially I avoided the book because I'm not much interested in silent movies, and the jacket blurbs just didn't excite me. Don't make the same mistake I did in putting this off ... and if you commute, listen to the audiobook, it's well worth the price.
Rating:
Summary: Excellent
Review: Fresh from churning out a couple of misfires (editing a collection of NPR listeners stories, and writing a novel narrated from a dog's point of view) Paul Auster is back in form with Book of Illusions, a work which combines the best of his talent for storytelling with his ability to elegantly weave complex plot elements which hop effortless back and forth in time. The story-within-a-story is a familiar characteristic of Auster's novels (an excellent example is Thomas Effing's tale in Auster's excellent novel Moon Palace); to his credit he manages to employ this device without allowing it to become clichéd. In Illusions, Auster spins a new variation on the theme by creating a silent picture era movie star whose story is uncovered by the novel's protagonist David Zimmer, a Vermont intellectual who is trying to recover from a devastating personal tragedy. Hector Mann is an enigmatic Latin American immigrant who made a small splash in the 1920's by producing a series of clever two-reel silent comedies and then disappeared without a trace. The character which Mann played was sort of a white-suited haberdasher Charlie Chaplin with a dash of Don Juan, an unlikely mix and all the more compelling because of the way that Auster manages to bring him to life by describing the thin plots of his comedies. Perhaps not surprisingly, a Hector Mann two-reel comedy much like a typical Paul Auster novel writ small: a simple story becomes complicated as elements are introduced one by one and the charismatic protagonist is left to fend for himself. An example is The Teller's Tale, in which Mann is trying to count a stack of money, deal with some workmen, keep his suit clean, and all while attempting to flirt with a pretty secretary. Auster writes "At first, it looked as though nothing could distract Hector from completing his task in record time. Then, ever so gradually, little streams of sawdust began to fall on his jacket, and not so many seconds after that, he finally caught sight of the girl. One element had suddenly become three elements, and from that point on the action bounced among them in a triangular rhythm of work, vanity, and lust: the struggle to go on counting the money, the effort to protect his beloved suit, and the urge to make eye contact with the girl." Auster has a fine appreciation for the artistry of film, and the Mann character shows his reverence for elegant mix of conflict, timing, and slapstick that went into the golden age of silent pictures. This, however, is just the inner circle of a nested series of stories. From the black and white comedies we zoom out to Mann the actor and the story of his flight from Hollywood. This story itself is nested within a story which occurs decades later as Zimmer sets out on the trail to uncover Mann's disappearance. Book of Illusions compares the best of Auster's novels (New York Trilogy, Leviathon, Moon Palace). Auster somehow manages to create compelling three-dimensional characters and put them into fantastic situations in a believable and elegant way. Highly recommended.
Rating: 
Summary: Nothing New
Review: After reading Mr. Auster's dopey Timbuktu (I wrote a damning review of that too) I thought the man was out of ideas, and The Book of Illusions proves it. Paul Auster is to literature what AC/DC is to rock music: His early stuff was great, but now it all sounds the same, a repackaging of the same material. I saw Angus Young interviewed one time and when asked why AC/DC has made the same album ten times in a row he became irate and said "You're wrong! We've made the same album twelve times in a row!" I only wish Mr. Auster had the same modesty. Simply put: Enough already with the stupid coincidences having to do with people's names; enough with coming a second away from death; enough with having someone save you and then feeling like you have to serve them to make cosmic amends; enough with characters who have reached the absolute bottom of the spiritual barrel. Enough. If you're new to Mr. Auster, read the NY Trilogy or Moon Palace or The Music of Chance - even Leviathan. Those are where his ideas thrived, were alive, were penetrating and fresh. His recent efforts are all stale and predictable, just like an AC/DC song.
Rating:
Summary: I loved this book!
Review: Paul Auster shows just how great a writer he is with this book.
You are immediately wrapped up in the world of Hector Mann. The descriptions of the films created by Mann display the unending depth of Auter's imagination. Auter also gives a lesson on how to develop characters. This is one of the best novels I have read in a long time. Bravo
Rating: 
Summary: Good overall !
Review: A nice and pleasant experience reading this book. I would rate it 3.7 or 3.8 Nothing really special but a very fine story !
Rating:
Summary: Illusions & Delusions
Review: In this book Auster continues to dazzle readers with a unique and powerful writing style. His sentence structure and precision in language makes virtually all his books a pleasure to read. This one is no exception. The story is one of disbelief and increduality, like many of Paul's books, the plot is a virtual illusion. But the book is a book of fiction, that is written almost as a detective story, with pieces of information being slowly revealed to the reader as he goes along. In fact, perhaps the only negative criticism of the book would be, that the first 200 pages have its moments where the story is just a bit droll, but the reader is pushed forward, by the magnificence of Auster's writing. In essence, Auster has a protagonist who is living in an elusive dream world, chasing after information about another person who also lived in a complete dream world, and at the same time, meeting a romantic partner, whose identity is in and of itself, never fully resolved for the reader. Yet as all great books of literary triumph, this book pulls the reader back over and over again, until the end is reached. The book is mind expanding in the way it shows life as both reality and illusion. And it is concrete in that it reveals many things that all humans feel, but do not always express. The book should be read by all people, seeking to expand their limited view of reality and to join Paul Auster in the belief, that much of what is real, cannot be seen, or appears to be either an illusion or a delusion.
Rating:
Summary: Nothing Is At It Seems
Review: In Paul Auster's THE BOOK OF ILLUSIONS, a man who is returning from the dead ends up searching for one everyone thinks is dead.
The protagonist of THE BOOK OF ILLUSIONS is David Zimmer, a professor of literature in Vermont. David is a writer, himself, and he researches authors who have simply "disappeared from sight." David is "returning from the dead," himself after having been emotionally shattered when his beloved wife and two sons were killed in the crash of an airplane, an accident for which David blames himself, at least in part. One night, however, when David is watching television, he see a clip from an old Hector Mann silent film comedy and finally laughs spontaneously for the first time in months. It is Hector Mann, and David Zimmer's fascination with him, that will propel the plot of THE BOOK OF ILLUSIONS.
Hector Mann is one of those people David Zimmer finds fascinating...people who simply "dropped out of sight." In the middle of what looked like a very promising career, Hector Mann left his Hollywood house one winter day in 1929 and was never seen again, prompting everyone around to believe him to be dead. Evidence to the contrary has now surfaced, however, in the form of "Hector Mann" films that are being sent to various film archives and film schools around the world. David decides to research these films and write a book about them and their creator.
David can't find out much about Hector and what he does learn seems to be conflicted. One source says Hector was Argentinian, another says he was European. One says he had a genuine Spanish accent, another that it was fake. One says he grew up in the lap of luxury while another says he and his family were barely able to make ends meet. Then something happens that would seem to clarify everything for David. He receives a letter from a woman named Frieda Spelling who claims to me none other than Mrs. Hector Mann. And, she has even more surprising news...Hector is still alive, though ninety years old, and he wants to see David.
Just as David decides that Frieda can't possibly be who she says she is and turns to a new book (the translation of Chateaubriand), fate brings Alma Grund to his door who insists that he accompany her to Terra del Sueno (that name is a clue to the entire plot of this book) and Hector Mann. There are a dozen "Hector Mann" films in Terra del Sueno, says Alma...films that will be destroyed once Hector is dead...and Frieda wants David to see them and chronicle them for posterity. I loved the book up until this point. But it is at this point that David does something so out of character that I couldn't understand why Auster wrote included it in the book. I know he must have a good reason, but I sure couldn't figure it out.
It's hard to say any more with out revealing the plot and it is so very good. I will say this...there is not much in THE BOOK OF ILLUSIONS that is as it seems to be. After the first half, the reader must constantly question Auster, David Zimmer and himself, as well, about what is real and what exists only in the imagination. This doesn't make for a nebulous narrative, though. Far from it...Auster is far too good a storyteller for that and, when I reached the book's end, I felt satisfied. A little puzzled still, I will admit, but satisfied and, almost awed at Auster's skill.
I am a fan of books that "show" and not "tell," but Auster is a writer who, more often than not, "tells." In this case, I don't mind it. Auster never preaches to us. His books never contain polemic at the expense of storytelling.
THE BOOK OF ILLUSIONS is a very different kind of story. I would recommend it only to readers who like a little mystery in their storytelling and ones who have the patience to decipher what can, at times, be a very convoluted plot.
|
