ISBN: 0805073205
Henry Holt & Company, 2003
I've always wondered if novels about novelists are of interest to anyone other than writers themselves (be they successful or aspiring). It seems like many authors writing in the novelist-on-novelist genre speak only to this specialized audience of prospective novelists. Paul Auster, however, is one author who likes to write about his own kind, yet continues to be consistently entertaining and provocative in doing so. Auster's latest novel Oracle Night, is another exploration on why we write, and what kind of power that writing actually holds.
Auster's protagonist, Sidney Orr, is a marginally successful Brooklyn author who finds himself in a writing dry spell after a mysterious accident leaves him handicapped. We meet Sidney after he has recovered enough to start getting back to his daily routines: Getting the daily newspaper, having lunch at a diner or pizzeria, and running chores for his wife Grace. It is on one of these trips that Sidney stumbles into The Paper Palace, a curious paper shop that he had never noticed before-which is of course odd, as Sidney's daily activities consist of little else but walking around his neighborhood.
Henry Holt & Company, 2003
I've always wondered if novels about novelists are of interest to anyone other than writers themselves (be they successful or aspiring). It seems like many authors writing in the novelist-on-novelist genre speak only to this specialized audience of prospective novelists. Paul Auster, however, is one author who likes to write about his own kind, yet continues to be consistently entertaining and provocative in doing so. Auster's latest novel Oracle Night, is another exploration on why we write, and what kind of power that writing actually holds.
Auster's protagonist, Sidney Orr, is a marginally successful Brooklyn author who finds himself in a writing dry spell after a mysterious accident leaves him handicapped. We meet Sidney after he has recovered enough to start getting back to his daily routines: Getting the daily newspaper, having lunch at a diner or pizzeria, and running chores for his wife Grace. It is on one of these trips that Sidney stumbles into The Paper Palace, a curious paper shop that he had never noticed before-which is of course odd, as Sidney's daily activities consist of little else but walking around his neighborhood.
Sidney pops into the curio shop and meets its eccentric owner, M.R. Chang, a venture capitalist of sorts, who sees opportunity for success in the writer-heavy Brooklyn neighborhood. Stocked with the normal goods, Sidney finds one very interesting object in the shop, a blue Portuguese notebook that for some inexplicable reason holds a very powerful draw on him. He purchases the notebook and heads back home to resume his normal day-to-day activities, hoping to come up with an idea promising enough to grace it's pages.
Following the purchase, Sidney finds himself reinvigorated with the need to write. On the advice of his mentor, John Trause, Sidney appropriates the story of Flitcraft, a minor character from Dashiell Hammet's The Maltese Falcon as his first project. The theme of the Flitcraft story is how a random occurrence can completely shift the path of a person's life. Hammet's character has a good job and a good family life, then one day gives it all up and disappears after a near tragic accident as he is passing a construction site. Both Sidney and Trause find Flitcraft's tale to be a compelling enough story with innumerable possibilities.
Following the purchase, Sidney finds himself reinvigorated with the need to write. On the advice of his mentor, John Trause, Sidney appropriates the story of Flitcraft, a minor character from Dashiell Hammet's The Maltese Falcon as his first project. The theme of the Flitcraft story is how a random occurrence can completely shift the path of a person's life. Hammet's character has a good job and a good family life, then one day gives it all up and disappears after a near tragic accident as he is passing a construction site. Both Sidney and Trause find Flitcraft's tale to be a compelling enough story with innumerable possibilities.
Setting down with his new blue notebook, Sidney creates his Flitcraft in the form of Nick Bowen, a high-profile New York book editor. Bowen, Sidney decides, has just received an unpublished manuscript entitled Oracle Night from the granddaughter of the late Sylvia Maxwell, a major literary figure. On his way home from work, Bowen is nearly decapitated by the dislodged head of stone gargoyle, thus beginning his Flitcraft tale. Bowen hightails it on the first plane out of New York, bringing with him only the clothes on his back and the copy of Oracle Night.
From here on in, Auster's Oracle Night splits time inside and out of Sid's creation, describing, in equal parts, Sid's own life, and the life of his character. Sid finds the words pouring out of him at a pace he hasn't had since before his accident. Could the newfound verve be due to the mysterious notebook? Sid seems to think it has helped him, but can't believe that it has some kind of power over his writing. That is until he finds that Trause has been using the very same notebooks for his own novels. "Those notebooks are very friendly, but they can also be cruel, and you have to watch out you don't get lost in them," warns Trause.
From here on in, Auster's Oracle Night splits time inside and out of Sid's creation, describing, in equal parts, Sid's own life, and the life of his character. Sid finds the words pouring out of him at a pace he hasn't had since before his accident. Could the newfound verve be due to the mysterious notebook? Sid seems to think it has helped him, but can't believe that it has some kind of power over his writing. That is until he finds that Trause has been using the very same notebooks for his own novels. "Those notebooks are very friendly, but they can also be cruel, and you have to watch out you don't get lost in them," warns Trause.
And the notebook soon shows its cruelty. Sidney sends Bowen off to Kansas City and sets him up with an eccentric named Ed Victory, a newly retired cab driver who inhabits an underground bunker full of historical phonebooks. Bowen becomes Victory's apprentice of sorts, spending his days helping out in the Bureau and obsessively reading and rereading Oracle Night. But then Sidney gets stuck. He's got Bowen set in this bunker with nowhere to go, and he's running out of pages in the notebook. Not to mention that his wife, Grace, has pulled a Flitcraft of her own disappearing and leaving no trace of where she's got off to. Could it be that Sidney subconsciously predicted this whole chain of events, and entered them into his own fictionalized story? Auster takes this on as the central question in Oracle Night.
Auster plays this out in a number of ways as several characters in Sidney's novel mirror those in his real life and Auster drops hints connecting Sid's reality and his fiction throughout Oracle Night. For example, when Sidney describes the relationship between Bowen and Sylvia Maxwell, it simultaneously describes the author's own connection with his characters:
Auster plays this out in a number of ways as several characters in Sidney's novel mirror those in his real life and Auster drops hints connecting Sid's reality and his fiction throughout Oracle Night. For example, when Sidney describes the relationship between Bowen and Sylvia Maxwell, it simultaneously describes the author's own connection with his characters:
