Paul Auster is one of those writers who creates art out of necessity rather than desire. “Writing is no longer an act of free will for me; it’s a matter of survival,” he said.
But Auster has not just been surviving, he has been shaping contemporary literature and defining genre through the individual’s reaction to tragedy.
Auster first made the distinction between writing as entertainment and writing as art. He explained that since the inception of the novel, the predominant literary task has been entertainment.
However, he added, there has always been a “subcurrent of so-called, I don’t even know how to define it, serious writers–artists, people trying to present some new view of reality that’s always been with us, but [artistic writing] has always been a much smaller strain.”
Auster is of that strain, presenting the reader with his view of reality and the quest for identity.
“Fiction has always been about discussing and exploring the individual’s place in the world. That’s the job of the novelist. With the world always changing, it is our job to try to figure these things out,” he commented.
Auster’s particular contribution to modern fiction has been his feelings toward dealing with devastation.
“How we cope with loss as human beings is a big subject for me. It’s one of the things that defines us as human beings,” he said.
“Tragedy,” Auster said, “can happen at any moment. Nothing is secure; the boundary between life and death is very small. It is just a small membrane, really ? things happen, it seems, for no apparent reason.”
His books contain these magical transformations of tragedy to desire, and from that, Auster creates life. Auster’s fiction tries to get people to realize that, even with tragedy, life can go on, but not as it was.
“Every human being lives with loss and grief. We lose people we love, and as we get older, more and more of the people we love are gone. [Loss] is something I think people don’t pay enough attention to today,” Auster said. “The attitude is that people die and you’re supposed to get over it. A few months, a few weeks, and you’re back to living your consumer life.”
To Auster, defining identity and exploring the individual–as real writers should do–is inseparable from the way in which people live with catastrophe. By furthering literary genre and adding new themes and variations on reality, Auster is not only an engulfing author, filling his novels with a bit of the surreal, a bit of fact and a bit of fiction, but is helping to further our understanding of life and death.
“The Book of Illusions,” Auster’s latest, is a story about college professor David Zimmer, who lost his wife and children during a plane crash. Confronted with depression, the character finds salvation in the silent films of Henry Mann.
For a year, Zimmer writes about Mann’s mysterious disappearance and is content. When a letter arrives from someone claiming to be Mann’s wife, announcing Mann had read Zimmer’s book and would like to meet him, it is as if fate has tossed Zimmer from one hand to the other–from grief and loss to desire and confusion.
This novel contains all the classic Auster themes–loss, grief and redemption. It promises to be an instant classic by the reviews it has received, even though Auster said, “I try not to think about any of this (the press). People say the damndest things, and I just try to tune it out.”
Paul Auster will be reading at the Wisconsin Book Festival Friday at 7:30 p.m. at the Orpheum Theatre on State Street, followed by some of contemporary fiction’s brightest stars, including Lorrie Moore, Charles Baxter, Mark Winegardner, Kyoko Mori and Jane Hamilton.
