Oct 23, 2009 02:19 PM
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(Updated Nov 06, 2009 10:36 PM)
Disclaimer – the review as well as the book might stir up forgotten disturbing thoughts/images.
Remember the war on Iraq? Remember the abducted hostages? Their harrowing executions right in front of camera? How many of us were shaken by them? How many of us were disturbed, had nightmares, cringed at the thought of those blurry images? Well, it seems Paul Auster saw it too. And he wanted to do something about it – so he weaved a story around and called it ‘Man in the dark’. And this, like all his previous works is just as addictive. After you read Oracle night and The book of illusions, any other Auster book will almost leap at you from the bookshelf.
Man in the dark is the story of August Brill – a 72 year old retired book critic who has seriously damaged his legs in a car accident. He is unable to sleep at night and weaves stories in his mind in the dark. His characters have multiple identity(a signature Paul Auster trait), there are parallel worlds and stories inside a story.
The year is 2007. Brill’s protagonist is a man called Owen Brick. He belongs to the real world, the America of 2007, but by a strange science fictionesque trait he gets transported to another world where the twin towers are still standing and the date September 11th does not ring a bell. America is at war but not with Iraq. The United States of America has become disunited states of America and it is at war with itself – a civil war. Brick keeps going back and forth in the 2 different worlds and is assigned to do a task which will lead to the end of war. As the fictional story moves on and approaches end, we are shown reality and fiction merging – the names from Brill’s life collide with the characters from his story and just when the creation is about to meet the creator(brick is about to meet Brill!), the fictional story ends. And this happens not so abruptly. I actually think it’s quite smooth; almost apt, sudden yet plausible.
And then Brill begins with his own story. We learn of his past life, his love – lost once and then regained. It’s quite endearing – the conversations between Brill and his grand daughter, the way this unusually sentimental old man tells his family’s story to his grand daughter. His nights are still void of sleep but there is no more need for fiction. Now real life recollections replace it - life with its bittersweet memories, his wife, his daughter, his grand daughter - and the lives revolving around them. Some of the recollections are ghastly, brutal. But the ultimate purpose is to heal, find hope. Towards the end Brill/Auster deftly manages the miracle of resurrection. The broken down family is one again and they all seem ready for tomorrow.
Excerpts
Katya – you are pulling my legs, right?
Brill – I don’t pull legs. Men with bad legs don’t do that. It’s against our religion.
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Brill – Rose Hawthorne was not much of a poet, was she?
Miriam – No, pretty awful, in fact.
Brill – but there is one great line. as great as anything I ever heard.
Miriam – which one?
Brill – As the weird world rolls on.
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Brill – “The story is about a man who must kill the person who created him, and why pretend I am not the person? By putting myself into the story, the story becomes real. Or else I become unreal, yet one more figment of my own imagination. Either way, the effect is more satisfying, more in harmony with my mood – which is dark, my little ones, as dark as the obsidian night that surrounds me.”
The surreal quality of paul Auster’s writing is still there in this book though the science fiction(almost) angle is quite new. This, by far is the most political of his books. Had it not been for his intelligent story telling skills, you will be irritated somewhat. I have always found Paul Auster to be uncannily, pathologically detailed about physical suffering – be it accidents, hunger or insomnia. This book is no different.
At the end of it, this is the story of one family and their coming of age. And I for one feel some kind of a kinship with this family, these characters. They are all sensitive people, all of them going thru losses of their own(apart from a recent common loss). They all need each other – this defunct 3 generations of a family living under one roof. They all seek solace, apart from each other, either in books or movies.(Brill and his daughter Miriam are writers; the grand daughter Katya is a to be film editor). Their care for each other is life affirming and this is where hope lies in the book. What will you need to fight war and its horrors if not family bonding and solidarity? And contradicting himself, for once Auster gives us a proper end. Somewhat regular, almost predictable – yet full of hope for tomorrow.
Conclusion – 3.5 stars to the book. I usually relish the confused hypnotic state Auster’s books leave me in after I finish his books. So his regular readers might be disappointed somewhat at the regularity/predictability of the end. But the times we live in are obscure and there is a call for lucidity/deft handling of sensitive issues. There is enough confusion around anyway. The easy answers the book gave me, made me hope, how can I complain? Do read it, there is enough scope to use your imagination and exercise the little grey cells of your brain.
