Travels in the Scriptorium

Travels in the Scriptorium
Customer Review: Metaficition, not better fiction
Paul Auster is capable of exquisite storytelling, but I found this one hard work.

Mr Blank finds himself in a locked room, unable to remember how he got there - or much else. Some of the objects in the room have written labels to indicate what they are called. (For those of you who don’t recall their Philosophy of Language 101 we’re being told to explore the relationship between the physical world and words - and blow me down, it gets even cleverer - occurring in a fictional universe, a construct of language and the author’s imagination!)

The cast of characters that visit Blank in his room are drawn from Auster’s previous works. Reviewers elsewhere with far more patience and application than me have listed the novels from whence they’ve all sprung. But essentially, we’ve got an exercise in self-referencing that may tickle the obsessive pedants amongst you, but will leave those hoping for a good yarn cold.

This should appeal to Auster readers that would list `The New York Trilogy’ as his best work (I wouldn’t). For me, various goings-on in a locked room have limited appeal, but the book is as well-crafted and readable as one expects from Auster. It also has the redeeming quality of being short: those who enjoy it may re-read it all the sooner and those who do not have little cause to rue too much misspent reading time.

(Anyone utterly captivated by the central conceit of this novel should try the work of John Barth, especially his doorstep-sized offering `Letters’.)

This one wasn’t quite my cup of tea, but I’ll still give Auster’s next novel a go - I just hope he’ll be letting his characters get out more.

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