"Travels in the Scriptorium"
(Reviewed by Leland Cheuk FEB 12, 2007)
“The old man sits on the edge of the narrow bed, palms spread out of his knees, head down, staring at the floor…His mind is elsewhere, stranded among the figments in his head as he searches for an answer to the question that haunts him.
Who is he? What is he doing here? When did he arrive and how long will he remain?”
Paul Auster’s thirteenth novel, Travels in the Scriptorium, could well be titled Paul Auster’s Greatest Hits. It’s a welcome break from his recent string of turgid and depressing novels like The Book of Illusions (2002) and Oracle Night (2004). Many of Auster’s narrative trademarks are on display in Travels in the Scriptorium: cameos from recurring characters, a Kafkaesque premise and a plot that ultimately spirals in on itself, leaving the reader to untangle. Auster’s thirteenth book turns out to be a worthy synopsis of his first twelve, an excellent place to start for those who haven’t read one of America’s most prolific and under-celebrated authors.
The old man is Mr. Blank and he awakens, disoriented, in a room without a view. He remembers few if any details of his past. To decode his identity, all he has are a few photographs, a manuscript and lingering feelings of inexpiate guilt. One by one, people from his past enter the room. The first is his caretaker, Anna Blume (a reference to the protagonist in Auster’s 1987 novel In the Country of Last Things). Mr. Blank recognizes Anna immediately and knows with certainty that he loves her. He remembers sending her on dangerous missions to foreign nations thirty years before. But what kind of missions? Why were they dangerous? Anna doesn’t say, very possibly because Mr. Blank wouldn’t remember anyway in his deteriorating mental state. Or does she keep quiet for the purposes of Mr. Blank’s mysterious “treatment,” administered by his even more mysterious captors? The relationship between Anna and the old man is the novel’s most poignant and Mr. Blank is made real by his valiant struggle against the ravages of age.
Less successful is the manuscript the old man reads, ostensibly to find out who he is and what he’s done. It’s a fable involving a country called the Confederation and it tells the story of the country’s war against the Alien Territories and the adventures of an operative named Sigmund Graf. Auster’s book-within-a-book device is a blunt instrument, used solely to pound home well-worn themes of the cost of imperialism. The allegory might have worked had it been conceived more originally. As it is, it reads like a Cliff Notes version of Coetzee’s Waiting for the Barbarians. It takes up a good fifth of Travels in the Scriptorium, too much of what amounts to a large novella.
But the manuscript waiting beneath the life of Sigmund Graf, also entitled Travels in the Scriptorium, saves the novel, tying the plot into a neat postmodern bow and crystallizing Auster’s narrative Rubix Cube. While Travels in the Scriptorium is not Auster’s best novel, like his best work, it will keep you thinking long after the final page.
- Amazon readers rating:
from 5 reviews
(back to top)
Bibliography: (with links to Amazon.com)
- The New York Trilogy (1987)
- City of Glass (1985) (graphic novel )
- Ghosts (1986)
- The Locked Room (1986)
- In the Country of Last Things (1987)
- Moon Palace (1989)
- The Music of Chance (1990)
- Leviathan (1992)
- Auggie Wren's Christmas Story (1992)
- Mr. Vertigo (1994)
- Timubuktu (1999)
- The Book of Illusions (2002)
- Oracle Night (2004)
- The Brooklyn Follies (2005)
- Travels in the Scriptorium (2006; January 2007 in US)
Nonfiction:
- The Art of Hunger (1982)
- The Invention of Solitude (1982)
- The Red Notebook: True Stories (1995)
- Why Write (1996)
- Hand to Mouth: A Chronicle of Early Failure (1997)
- The Story of My Typewriter (2002)
- Collect Prose: Autobiographical Writings, True Stories, Critical Essays, Prefaces & Collaborations with Artists (2003)
Screenplays:
- Smoke (1995)
- Blue in the Face (1995)
- Lulu on the Bridge (1998)
- The Center of the World (2001)
- The Inner Life of Martin Frost (2006)
Movies from Books:
- The Music of Chance (2003)
- In the Country of Last Things (2007)
(back to top)
Book Marks:
- Official website for the Paul Auster
- Guardian Unlimited page on Paul Auster and article by the author
- Columbia College article on Paul Auster
- Wikipedia page on Paul Auster
- Reflections on the work of Paul Auster
- Salon.com interview with Paul Auster (1999)
- Guardian Unlimited review of Travels in the Scriptorium
(back to top)
About the Author:
Paul Auster was born in Newark, New Jersey, in 1947. He is the author of numerous novels, screenplays, and works of non-fiction. He is also a poet, translator and film director.
He lives in Brooklyn, New York with his wife, the author Siri Hustvedt.
