Note | The Music of Chance by Paul Auster, Faber and Faber, 1990 (in progress)

Information of the Book

The 6th long novel by Paul Auster.

Form, Style & Structure

Background of the Work & Author

Synopsis (Summary of Entire Novel)

Summaries of Each Chapter

1

A firefighter in Boston, Jim Nashe resigned his job, and he wandered around entire US by Saab for one whole year until the money to run out.

His wife, Thérèse divorced him, then he expectedly inherited two hundred thousand dollars by his estranged father. He purchased a new Saab 900, set up a trust fund for his daughter Juliette, then disposed of his house and things, and he played 40 pieces by his piano until the day it was sold.

He had wandered by Saab for one and two days, his money only about fourteen thousand dollars left. At the end of summer, when he was wandering along the back-country roads, he came across a thin, bedraggled and twenty-two or twenty-three young man, Jack Pozzi.

2

Nashe helped Pozzi.

Outline

Timeline

Plots & Episodes (Plot & Episodes)

Characters

Jim Nashe – The narrator of this novel. He worked as a firefighter in Boston for 7 years. Unexpectedly he inherited two hundred thousand dollars by his father had been got in touch for over thirty years. He dropped out a university, and worked as bookstore salesman, furniture mover, bartender, taxi driver and so on, then he became a firefighter.

Jack Pozzi (Jackpot) – A thin, small and twenty-two or twenty-three young man.

Thérèse (§ 1) – The ex-wife of Nashe. She walked out after Nashe’s father had passed away.

Juillette (§ 1) – The daughter of Nashe and Thérèse, 2 years old.

Nashe’s sister lived in Minnesota (§ 1)

Father of Nashe (§ 1) – He abandoned Nashe when Nashe was two, and he spent in a small California desert town.

Donna (§ 1) – The sister of Nashe.

Ray Schweikert (§ 1) – Nashe’s brother-in-law brought up Juillette.

Antonelli (§ 1, p. 10) – A piano tuner.

Fiona Wells (§ 1, p. 13 – 15 ; 17) – A journalist had written an article about Nashe as a firefighter. Nashe happened to meet at a bookstore in Barkley, stayed her house 4 days, and made love with her. But she was reconciled with ex-boyfriend.

Groups

Locations

Boston

Minnesota

Northfield

Barkley – Fiona Wells lived in.

Places

Key Elements, Key Words & Key Phrases

A red two-door Saab 900 – The first unused car Nashe purchased. He purchased by the inheritance of his father.

Baldwin uplight Piano (§ 1, pp. 9 – 10) – This descriptions playing the piano by Nashe is very impressive and beautiful. metaphor of story, rules and randomness. It looks like a small scale of wandering US by car. It signifies life must be end.

Descriptions of driving (§ 1, pp. 10 – 11 ; 16 – 17)

Cultural Things on This Novel

Shakespeare (§ 1, p. 13)

Music

Mysterious Barricades by Couperin (§ 1, p. 10)

Fats Waller’s Jitterbug Waltz (§ 1, p. 10)

Impressive Scenes & Important Descriptions

Riddles (Mysteries) & Questions

Thought & Philosophy

Interpretations, Remarks & Analysis

The first paragraph is a part of the answer or the thought of this novel.

Minimalism like Ghosts. The world of this novel is monotonous.

Conclusion

Details of the Book

The Music of Chance
Paul Auster
Faber & Faber, London, United Kingdom, 15 Mars 2011
208 pages, £8.99
ISBN: 9780571229079

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Works of Paul Auster

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Synopsis & Review | Moon Palace by Paul Auster, Faber and Faber, 1989

Summary Synopsis

Marco Fogg was born in Boston. He lost his parents in his childhood. So his uncle Victor brought him up. He managed to graduate Columbia University in a very poor and harsh condition, to keep a promise to uncle Victor. Then he had stayed the Central Park as a homeless for a month, he was founded and helped by Kitty Wu and Zimmer, and he recovered.

Then he found an odd job at the student department office of Columbia. The job was to go with a strange blind old man, Thomas Effing a friend or a speaker, and to hear his life full of ups and downs and to write his autobiography. The autobiography had finished, Effing passed away on purpose.

Marco sent a copy of the autobiography to Effing’s estranged son Solomon Barber, then he visited to New York to see Marco…

Book Review

Paul Auster’s 5th long novel published in 1989. And the first full-scale long novel by Auster. A story of young man, and it describes and traces his adolescence and its hard life by his first person viewpoint. And it includes many sub-episodes of sub-characters, then they connects finally. I think parts of this story might be based on Auster’s real experiences.

The first grand narrative by Paul Auster. There are many characters, scenes and episodes and various elements. The New York Trilogy and In the Country of Last Things are preparation for full-scale writings. This novel is one of consequence of Auster’s former works from The Invention of Solitude to In the Country of Last Things. In this novel, profound self-searching or think of identity and good storytelling are wonderfully combined.

In the begging, this novel is only a story of a miserable and lonely young man and his self-searching. But many episodes connects and this story develops a grand family history of three ages. Then Macro solved his riddle and found family roots.

Effing’s talks in chapter 4 and 5, are long, dull and hard to read like the cave Effing stayed. Effing’s job and talks are a kind of spiritual trial for Marco. Thorough this trial, Marco’s mind grew up, he spent a happy time for a while and he found the key to solve the riddle of his family like to see a light from a dark cave.

For twenty-years, I had live with an unanswerable question, and little by little I had come to embrace that enigma as the central fact about myself. My origins were a mystery, and I would never know where I had come from. This was what defined me, and by now I was used to my own darkness, clinging to it as a source of knowledge and self-respect, trusting in it as an ontological necessity. (p. 286)

This description is the most important one of this novel, I think. This is the meaning, the message or the thought of this novel. Loneliness, hardship and to have nothing were Marco’s identity, pride and restraint for Marco. Marco had been lived by this negative identity or motivation. Also his riddle of roots were solved, so he unexpectedly lost even this negative identity and motivation, and he must live from zero. At the same time, he lost all his family, blood relations and friends.

The Moon is the most appeared symbol in this novel. For example, Moon Palace, egg, uncle Victor’s bands Moonlight Moods and Moon Men, 1969 Apollo 11 Moon landing and Ralph Albert Blakelock’s Moonlight. I think it is the metaphor signifies light in the darkness, or hope in tragedy. In the end, Marco must live from zero but his mind was relived and he found the hope of life, his adolescence ended and his new life started to begin.

Details of the Book

Moon Palace
Paul Auster
Faber & Faber, London, 5 Feb 2004
320 pages, £8.99
ISBN: 9780571142200

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Note | Moon Palace

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Synopsis & Review | The Locked Room by Paul Auster, Faber and Faber, 1988 (Originally Published in 1987)

Summary Synopsis

Fanshawe was the best friend of mine. He was smart, sophisticated and striking but excellent normal boy. Dropped out of Harvard, he became a crew of an oil tanker, then wandered around Paris and South France. And he wrote much of writing such as novels, poetry, dramas and notebooks. But he didn’t want to publish them.

He got back to the United States, then he married Sophie. But he suddenly disappeared from her, after three or four months he had promised he would publish the manuscripts within a year.

Sophie requested me to publish Fanshawe’s manuscripts. Then the Fanshawe’s books earned a great reputation and sold well, so we got a certain amount of money from the books. And I became a kind of agent of his books and wrote articles and reviews about him. I got the job to write a biography of Fanshawe, so I went to Paris and South France for searching the traces of him. Then I lost myself in searching for and thinking about Fanshawe…

Book Review

I think this novel is an autobiographical story of Paul Auster. The story indicates a self-reflection or self-affirmation of Auster himself.

Auster reflected his very hungry youth to Fanshawe, he got on Tanker and wandered around Europe, Paris and the South France. Episodes and histories of the narrator and Fanshawe resemble his real experiences appeared on his autobiographical essay the Art of Hunger. On the other hand, he reflected older him after he had became writer.

The main and exterior story of this novel is the narrator sought Fanshawe’s whereabouts. But the true theme of this novel is Fanshawe’s true intention, and philosophical questions to what are today’s human identity and the meaning and the meaninglessness of life and writing, and considerations on to create a story and its difficulty.

And the title The Locked Room means the locked room of the country house in South France, where Fanshawe had shut himself up. The room is the metaphor of Fanshawe’s locked true intention and mind.

Fanshawe was the alter ego or the other self of the narrator. The more the narrator pursued for and thought about Fanshawe, he felt difficulty and complexity like looking at himself or his doppelgänger. And Auster reflected himself on the two characters. So I think this complexity might be arose from the self-referring act as Auster sees Auster himself.

Different to Auster’s former two novel, this novel doesn’t modelled on detective stories. But this novel is a story of “hide and seek”, to search Fanshawe’s whereabouts and riddles. And the narrator said his act was like a detective. And, so, I think the narrator is not only detective of facts about Fanshawe, but also it seeks Fanshawe’s mind and true intention.

There’s a triple self-reflection or self-affirmation and story-telling structure was constructed by each one of Fanshawe, the narrator and Auster, I think. The narrator described things about Fanshawe. Auster described things about the narrator (and Fanshawe). By this self-reflection structure, this novel expresses and asks an answerless question of what are writing and the self.

This novel is slippery one. For example, there’s no description of content of Fanshawe’s writings, and there are no answer, result and destination. Also this novel is a writing about writing or a novel about writing novel. And words of Fanshawe’s red notebook was “their final purpose was to cancel each other out“ (§ 9, p. 313), also the notion can apply to this novel, the content of this novel is to cancel each other out. So there was no answer and solution, and only a state of contradiction was remain. No answer should be the answer of this novel and the consequence of the New York Trilogy.

The storytelling is very excellent and thrilling, also the philosophical considerings about writing and existence are significant. Auster succeed in compose this beautiful and thoughtful story by his real experiences. He splendidly expressed worth, delight agony and misery of writing and life.

Details of the Book

The New York Trilogy
Paul Auster
Faber & Faber, London, 2 Jun 2011
320 pages, £5.99
ISBN: 978-0571276554
Contents:

  • City of Glass
  • Ghosts
  • The Locked Room

Related Posts and Pages

Note | The Locked Room

Note | City of Glass

Synopsis & Book Review | City of Glass

Note | Ghosts

Synopsis & Book Review | Ghosts

Works of Paul Auster

Literature / Littérature Page

YouTube Paul Auster Commentary Playlist

YouTube Literature & Philosophy Channel

Books by Paul Auster (US)

eBooks by Paul Auster (US)

Audiobooks by Paul Auster (US)

Paul Auster Author Page (US)