M Sarki

Notes while reading this book: I can say that after reading the first twenty-three pages I am hooked. So much going on for me here. I especially enjoyed the sponge-bath happy ending. Beautifully done.

Immediately thinking of Quentin Tarantino's Mr. Black, Mr. Pink, in Austen's character Mr. Blank. The mystery. Also the simple and sparse theater set in the novel reminds me of a stage play being acted out and a response of some sort to Endgame by Samuel Beckett. Again, the mystery is what does it for me.

While reading this novel I am made to feel the old boy Mr. Blank is on his last legs. I certainly do relate to that as I myself was crippled and forced to a wheelchair after my fall from my cabin roof the morning of Easter Sunday in 2010. But though I recovered I will never be the same and something tells me this old man won't be either. Simple pleasures such as the happy ending given by the pretty woman who happened to serve as his caretaker was such a beautiful passage and something many of us men can only hope for when we near our own time of dying. But the novel was puzzling to me in the end when the writer fell silent. I felt robbed and was disappointed with the last few pages. It felt as though Auster had grown tired of the work and found a way to bring it all to a stop. The pace had been exhilarating to me, the rhythm sweet, and I was excited to learn what comes next. I did not want the story to end. But it did, and not so gracefully either. It is possible the tale is just a simple circle and I am not bright enough to know that in my heart of hearts.

Paul Auster had us, along with Mr. Blank, attempting to keep the characters straight. Blank knew he would never remember tomorrow what happened today so he wrote names down in order to remember them and somehow fudge his memory awake enough to recall and make the association. Perhaps it was dementia. Alzheimer's disease is the most common type of dementia, but it didn't seem to be the problem with Blank. He knew what the function of things were and it was proven when they switched all the tags on things in order to test him or confuse him more. It was never very clear what his keepers were up to. He was an old man who had memories of things he liked. When his shoes were off he rediscovered ice skating and imagined his floor into a rink. But he slipped and fell down and wet his pants in the course of the jarring crash to the floor. Blank could also still tell a made-up story and anxiously wanted to finish it but they wouldn't let him and that is perhaps the issue here. It is possible they wouldn't let us finish either. We have so many loose ends here. We want closure, especially in regards to Anna. Mr. Blank wasn't the only one infatuated with this girl.

I am now, just in the last few minutes because of an internet search, painfully aware that all the characters found in Travels in the Scriptorium are from previous books by Paul Auster. I have not read any of them at this writing, only this one. And I am sort of glad I hadn't. But now that I am hot on the trail of Auster I imagine I will be more intimately reacquainted with all these folks in due time. At that point I will reread the Scriptorium and I am sure I will have a totally different experience.

The point that Blank was being kept in a scriptorium suggests he was a writer, which makes sense now knowing what I know today. But every word I wrote at the beginning of this piece was composed with no knowledge of the past works of Auster. The fact is, in real time Auster himself is getting older. He has quit driving a car, and he has suffered many illnesses throughout his life and aware it will only be getting worse as he continues to age. Dementia is the norm for the aged. Memory is also suspect as time goes by. Keeping things straight is obviously for those who care, or can. Having additional experiences such as loving or being loved, conversations, good food, happy endings, ice skating, and even reading would seem what is most important to a person at the end stages of a long and fulfilling life.

I loved the book but know I got most of it wrong. I like the idea of revisiting Travels in the Scriptorium again at a later date. That is, if I get there. Seems I am starting with Auster's latest works and hustling my way in reverse. And this method is probably not the brightest of my better ideas.