Moon Palace
 |
| Faber & Faber |
Paul Auster
1989
Other Paul Auster Reviews- The Invention of Solitude - The Country of Last Things - Moon Palace - The Art of Hunger - Mr. Vertigo - Timbuktu - The Book of Illusions - Oracle Night - Invisible
“That was the trouble. The land is too big out there, and after a while it starts to swallow you up. I reached a point when I couldn't take it anymore. All that bloody silence and emptiness. You try to find your bearings in it, but it's too big, the dimensions are too monstrous, and eventually, I don't know how else to put it, eventually it just stops being there. There's no world, no land, no nothing. It comes down to that, Fogg, in the end it's all a figment. The only place you exist is in your head.”
I finished reading Moon Palace four days ago, but it's taken me a while to open up a Wordpad file to try and make sense of the novel I'd just read. My first reaction was to decide that this was one of the best works of fiction I'd ever read, and for a short while the best. Fast-forward to now and I'm leaning away from the latter statement but certainly towards the former, but it's all on a very contextual basis, which is what reading is all about, I suppose. All of our opinions on what makes great literature is shaped by our past reading experiences, and there are so many thousands of worthwhile books of all genres out there that we all follow our own paths, for better or for worse. The shaping of this path and the constant growth of individual context is what keeps me addicted to reading, and also draws me to particular authors who revel in exploring grand themes or obsessions over numerous books. My favourite authors all do this; Orwell, Murakami, Pratchett, Bukowski, Vonnegut, and of course the unique Paul Auster. A polarising figure for some, he has dedicated his writing career to exploring his own obsessions within maze-like neo-noir stories.
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Published in 1989, Moon Palace is one of Auster's earlier novels (having already made his name with The New York Trilogy) but since I feel well-acquainted with most of his later work it felt like a perfect culmination of everything he'd been trying to show me so far. Had I read it earlier I know it wouldn't have had the same impact- the same reason why I feel the need to re-read more than a couple of Auster books- and for that reason I absolutely understand why Moon Palace probably isn't for everybody, but for me it was absolutely amazing. In many ways it strikes me that of the Auster bibliography it's most similar to the recently reviewed Book of Illusions, where a lead character on the verge of spiritual and physical death is saved by exposure to knowledge of the past of an enigmatic elder, with that story reflecting the narrator's own character arc in the style of magical realism.
The narrator, the curious MS Fogg, is a simulacra of Auster himself. A young man living and attending college in Brooklyn, his life is a shambles. When his uncle, his only known living relative, passes away (leaving him nothing but his thousand-strong collection of books) MS consciously decides to abandon his fate to the whims of the universe, essentially living in poverty and nearly starving, eventually living homeless in Central Park before being rescued by his only friends. Trying to recover from hitting an absolute low, MS applies for a job as the personal assistant of an old man named Thomas Effing. Effing, I think, is one of Auster's greatest creations, a devious, manipulative and decrepit shadow, whom constantly tests the wits of his new man servant (not too unlike the plot of Mr. Vertigo). When Fogg gains some measure of trust, Effing lets him in on the real job he's there for; to record Effing's own self-written obituary; leading in to another Paul Auster favourite, the story within a story.
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For me, the strange tale of Thomas Effing's life is the real meat of the book, putting into context as it does the road that Fogg took to get to this point, while remaining a fascinating tale of its own accord. Drifting into the American frontier, taking in the landscape to present a meandering, dramatic and constantly surreal story that leans on the sense of magical realism without being impossible. In part it feels like a parable mixed in with a folk myth, but it's also dirty and grimy like a downtrodden Western. Effing takes Fogg on a journey leads to further developments in the plot of the book, including the revaluation of who the obituary is for. This leads into another backstory within a story, the details of which I'll refrain from giving aside from to say that eventually all three stories collide to provide a circular truth. I loved the ending, as I said before it made me wonder for a while if that was the best book I'd ever read. It's both tragic and optimistic, with an ethereal sense of destiny surrounding these characters.
I finished reading Moon Palace four days ago, but it's taken me a while to open up a Wordpad file to try and make sense of the novel I'd just read. My first reaction was to decide that this was one of the best works of fiction I'd ever read, and for a short while the best. Fast-forward to now and I'm leaning away from the latter statement but certainly towards the former, but it's all on a very contextual basis, which is what reading is all about, I suppose. All of our opinions on what makes great literature is shaped by our past reading experiences, and there are so many thousands of worthwhile books of all genres out there that we all follow our own paths, for better or for worse. The shaping of this path and the constant growth of individual context is what keeps me addicted to reading, and also draws me to particular authors who revel in exploring grand themes or obsessions over numerous books. My favourite authors all do this; Orwell, Murakami, Pratchett, Bukowski, Vonnegut, and of course the unique Paul Auster. A polarising figure for some, he has dedicated his writing career to exploring his own obsessions within maze-like neo-noir stories.
Published in 1989, Moon Palace is one of Auster's earlier novels (having already made his name with The New York Trilogy) but since I feel well-acquainted with most of his later work it felt like a perfect culmination of everything he'd been trying to show me so far. Had I read it earlier I know it wouldn't have had the same impact- the same reason why I feel the need to re-read more than a couple of Auster books- and for that reason I absolutely understand why Moon Palace probably isn't for everybody, but for me it was absolutely amazing. In many ways it strikes me that of the Auster bibliography it's most similar to the recently reviewed Book of Illusions, where a lead character on the verge of spiritual and physical death is saved by exposure to knowledge of the past of an enigmatic elder, with that story reflecting the narrator's own character arc in the style of magical realism.The narrator, the curious MS Fogg, is a simulacra of Auster himself. A young man living and attending college in Brooklyn, his life is a shambles. When his uncle, his only known living relative, passes away (leaving him nothing but his thousand-strong collection of books) MS consciously decides to abandon his fate to the whims of the universe, essentially living in poverty and nearly starving, eventually living homeless in Central Park before being rescued by his only friends. Trying to recover from hitting an absolute low, MS applies for a job as the personal assistant of an old man named Thomas Effing. Effing, I think, is one of Auster's greatest creations, a devious, manipulative and decrepit shadow, whom constantly tests the wits of his new man servant (not too unlike the plot of Mr. Vertigo). When Fogg gains some measure of trust, Effing lets him in on the real job he's there for; to record Effing's own self-written obituary; leading in to another Paul Auster favourite, the story within a story.
For me, the strange tale of Thomas Effing's life is the real meat of the book, putting into context as it does the road that Fogg took to get to this point, while remaining a fascinating tale of its own accord. Drifting into the American frontier, taking in the landscape to present a meandering, dramatic and constantly surreal story that leans on the sense of magical realism without being impossible. In part it feels like a parable mixed in with a folk myth, but it's also dirty and grimy like a downtrodden Western. Effing takes Fogg on a journey leads to further developments in the plot of the book, including the revaluation of who the obituary is for. This leads into another backstory within a story, the details of which I'll refrain from giving aside from to say that eventually all three stories collide to provide a circular truth. I loved the ending, as I said before it made me wonder for a while if that was the best book I'd ever read. It's both tragic and optimistic, with an ethereal sense of destiny surrounding these characters. I suppose anyone who might regularly check this blog would get a bit sick of these constant Paul Auster reviews, but right now I'm finding it so very easy to choose his books as my next read, thanks to how much I've been taken by his obsessions that permeate each of his novels. The key is that the details of each story are dramatically unique, taking inspiration from cult stylistic genres to explore the notions of identity and reality by in different compelling ways. Bar the story structure and thematic coincidences, Moon Palace is less of a post-modern work than some of Auster's other work and more of a complex drama. It mesmorised me from start to finish thanks to the strong story and flowing prose, connecting with Auster's bibliography in a way that reminded me why I love the exploratory nature of reading and the places it can take you.
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