Rating: 
Summary: A thrilling postmodern turn of events.
Review: "Leviathan" is an amazing ride through chance, coincidence, and the forces that control us all. A wonderful tale of one man exploring and trying to understand the life of his best friend. Thrilling! An adventure that keeps surprising the reader, but the many layers of storytelling elevate it above your common novel. Full of humor and sadness, my mind is happily spinning after reading this novel.
Rating: 
Summary: Entertaining, thought provoking and erotic
Review: A Leviathan is a "sea monster" or whale or "whopper" and, by extension, an euphemism for "lie" or "liar". It is not the title of this book but the title of a novel by a character in the book. Leviathan is also the title of Thomas Hobbes famous tome which examines what is meant by "freedom", power, the nature of human thought, and the exercise of power of humans in constant motion. As an artifact, Paul Auster's work has been polished until it sparkles and, like a dream, perhaps surreal, seems more real than waking life. Accordingly, I found it memorable with the writer, Auster, the power to make this work resonate. I thought his characterisation was vivid, even the least of them, such as little Maria who, at five years of age, exercised her power in destroying a relationship between her mother, Lillian, and novelist and serial bomber Benjamin Sachs. Sachs is on a journey of redemption and forgiveness and charity after killing Lillian's husband, and Maria's father, Reed Dimaggio, teacher and environmental activist.
There are a number of stories within the novel and the characters themselves have stories of their own. Beautiful Lillian had, for example, "made three different stories" of her break up with husband Reed, " one of the stories might have been real. It was even possible that all of them were real - but there again, it was just possible that all of them were false" (p. 185).
The mosaic of the various yarns do contribute to the overall pattern and do come to a satisfying conclusion.
Nevertheless, the concerns with co-incidence, chance, truth, reality, and the capacity for self deception by humans are abiding themes. There is a special thanks at the front of the book to Sophie Calle for permission to mingle fact with fiction(!!!???).
All right already, I may be a bit peculiar but I did also enjoy the erotic element of this work. Maybe it is my appreciation of film noir heroines.
An engrossing and entertaining read. Highly recommended.
Rating:
Summary: Entertaining, thought provoking and erotic
Review: A Leviathan is a "sea monster" or whale or "whopper" and, by extension, an euphemism for "lie" or "liar". It is not the title of this book but the title of a novel by a character in the book. Leviathan is also the title of Thomas Hobbes famous tome which examines what is meant by "freedom", power, the nature of human thought, and the exercise of power of humans in constant motion. As an artifact, Paul Auster's work has been polished until it sparkles and, like a dream, perhaps surreal, seems more real than waking life. Accordingly, I found it memorable with the writer, Auster, the power to make this work resonate. I thought his characterisation was vivid, even the least of them, such as little Maria who, at five years of age, exercised her power in destroying a relationship between her mother, Lillian, and novelist and serial bomber Benjamin Sachs. Sachs is on a journey of redemption and forgiveness and charity after killing Lillian's husband, and Maria's father, Reed Dimaggio, teacher and environmental activist.
There are a number of stories within the novel and the characters themselves have stories of their own. Beautiful Lillian had, for example, "made three different stories" of her break up with husband Reed, " one of the stories might have been real. It was even possible that all of them were real - but there again, it was just possible that all of them were false" (p. 185).
The mosaic of the various yarns do contribute to the overall pattern and do come to a satisfying conclusion.
Nevertheless, the concerns with co-incidence, chance, truth, reality, and the capacity for self deception by humans are abiding themes. There is a special thanks at the front of the book to Sophie Calle for permission to mingle fact with fiction(!!!???).
All right already, I may be a bit peculiar but I did also enjoy the erotic element of this work. Maybe it is my appreciation of film noir heroines.
An engrossing and entertaining read. Highly recommended.
Rating:
Summary: Hopelessly Charmed
Review: After reading The New York Trilogy, I immediately had to buy this book. Auster continues obsessing over certain ideas clearly weaving much of his own life into his novels. The mind of Auster had already grabbed me by the time I read this book and continues to interest me after reading it.However, much of the criticism of Leviathan leveled by other reviewers is warranted. He does seem to make the book a tad Hollywood in its action at times. Auster is constantly left piecing together tangent stories, for example when he describes the artistic experiments of one of the narrator's lovers. He attempts to piece these stories together under the guise of style, a "music of chance" type thing that brings the thousand stories of the naked city into one novel. In retrospect, this seems a little forced and contrived to possibly meet publishing deadlines for his next novel. Perhaps he should have broke this book up into three related novellas like The New York Trilogy. One cannot escape, however, his haunting narrative and interesting scenes. The bits and pieces of the plot are so interesting in and of themselves (if not as a whole) that this book is well worth reading. This sit-tradgety forces the reader into eccentric circumstance, closes out each quandrum for the protagonist without true resolution, and leaves the reader disturbed. However, the peculiar thing is the sense of beauty Auster always seems to convey in his somewhat dark prose. He makes the view of the world as an uncertain place filled with vague human purposes enchanting. Leviathan probably will not go down as Auster's greatest book, nor as his best introductory reading. However, this work is worth reading because it is very Auster. For lack of a better conclusion, a mediocre book by him is ten times better than most of what's written today (except maybe Don DeLillo whom the book was devoted to).
Rating: 
Summary: Mildly interesting - too slow.
Review: After reading the reviews I figured this book must be a great work of literature. I didn't even get interested in the story until halfway through and even then I was only mildly interested. The pace was too slow and way too may digressions. I just kept wondering 'when is this book going to get good?'.
Rating:
Summary: Clever, ambitious, entertaining
Review: An excellent novel from one of the best writers in contemporary American literature. The protagonist Benjamin Sachs, ex-con war resister turned brilliant novelist, is one of Auster's most creative characters. At times the relationship between Sachs and the book's narrator Peter Aaron reminded me of Kerouac's Dean Moriarty and Sal Paradise. I often find it annoying when novelists choose writers as their protagonists, but Auster pulls it off. In his novels, Auster manages to follow a pattern without becoming formulistic. As is often the case in his other work, Leviathan features wild coincidences, cat-and-mouse detective chases and oddball characters who struggle to understand the motives for their own actions. The main flaw in this novel, in my opinion, is the development of Reed Dimaggio. Although he only appears in one scene, he is an important character that hovers like a ghost over the final third of the novel. Auster sketches the outline of a fascinating character, but never gives us enough information to fill in between the lines, and we're never able to understand why he reacts the way that he does in that one fatal scene. Dimaggio is a vital link in the bizarre chain of events that brings the novel to its conclusion, but in that we're never able to make sense of his behavior the rest of the pieces don't quite fall into place. That said, I found Leviathan to be a entertaining and remarkably intelligent novel which I read in 100 page gulps. Auster does not have many equals in current American fiction. Leviathan is clever novel with big themes, in which everyone is a little bit crazy, we're all a random mishap away from true madness, and isolated though we may be in this world we find that we're all connected in ways that we least expect. Highly recommended.
Rating:
Summary: Non-stop narriative; Auster at his best.
Review: Auster's _Leviathan_ is a book I stumbled upon, and, ultimately, I am glad I did. The juggernaut of the plot mixed with the harrowing frame story kept my interest focused and sure. The flows and ebs of the novel were natural, with a hard punch of an ending.
Rating:
Summary: Astoundingly banal.
Review: Briefly: "Leviathan" suffers, tragically, from a deep lack humanity and Auster's kitsch "book within a book" gimmick employment. Folks, this is a rewrite of the far superior "The Locked Room". Still, it almost makes it; had the development of Sach's and the narrator's relationship been more deeply considered this may have been quite good. At each point in the novel we are given a situation that brings us almost, not quite, a little bit further... to the development of any sort of dynamic between the characters. Relationships go from white to black with the drop of a hat. Somewhat contradicting myself, Auster could have successfully dropped all relationships in the novel for a development of a philosophical theme.
Rating:
Summary: The Terror Of True Freedom
Review: Even though I've enjoyed Paul Auster's more recent screenplays, and the movies that came from them, it's a shame he abandoned novel writing as his primary mode of expression. He reached a real peak with LEVIATHAN, one that he's never matched since. The visual image in this novel is the Statue of Liberty. It's theme is how terrifying REAL freedom is, and how desperately each of us will conspire to avoid facing it in our lives. It's a brilliant piece of writing, and the best of Auster's line of truly interesting and unsettling stories. If you're just starting out with Auster, though, you should take the time to read his novels from the beginning. You'll notice a couple of interesting things, if you do. First, Auster has said that he tried to start each of his novels where the last one left off. For instance, MOON PALACE ends with a man driving across the USA, and THE MUSIC OF CHANCE begins with a man doing just that. Then, a quirky touch by Auster, there is an umbrella that appears at some point in each of his novels, and you'll watch it go through a kind of evolution as the novels go by. And, anyway, these books contain some really fine writing. Auster probably won't be remembered as one of the GREAT American authors (though I think Don Delillo [to whom LEVIATHAN is dedicated] very well might!). But Auster is very much in touch with the Zeitgeist of the times. HIGHLY recommended!
Rating:
Summary: excellent!
Review: i am slowly becoming obsessed with paul auster! he is a brilliant writer who sneaks into your mind and does a little jig! after reading 'new york trilogy' i had to read 'leviathan'-- now i can't wait to start 'double game' by sophie calle, an art-piece about the novel 'leviathan'. auster rocks! i obviously recommend this novel!
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