literature
“Baumgartner”: New book by US best-selling author Paul Auster
“For me, writing is not an act of free will, it is a question of survival”: Paul Auster (archive photo). photo
© Aleksi Tuomola/Lehtikuva/dpa
Paul Auster became world famous with works such as “The New York Trilogy” and is one of the most popular and successful US writers. The 76-year-old’s new novel has a nostalgic undertone.
His latest novel has now been published: “Baumgartner”. At only around 200 pages, the work is significantly slimmer than some of its predecessors – and has a much more nostalgic undertone. It’s about the aging philosophy professor Sy Baumgartner, whose wife drowned a few years ago. Baumgartner remembers the time they spent together and also his childhood and at the same time has to find his way in a world without his beloved wife.
“Lovable Aimlessness”
Auster’s language is simple and full of compassion – and in some aspects the story is reminiscent of his own, that of a man also over 70 years old from Newark in the US state of New Jersey.
The first reviews were impressed. The novel is “funny and melancholic,” wrote the Los Angeles Times. Auster packed in less of his usual “postmodern fireworks” and that was good for the book. “Baumgartner” begins with a “turbo kick start,” praised the British “Guardian,” but in the end his “journey has no destination,” even if it is “amiable aimlessness.”
Auster: “Writing is a question of survival”
According to the US publisher, this is the 18th book by the award-winning author, who writes all of his works without a computer. “I write by hand and then type it out on a typewriter, I always use it and it is indestructible,” Auster once told the German Press Agency. The results include novels, non-fiction books, poetry, essays and film scripts – and they have made Auster, who was born in 1947 as the son of Jewish immigrants, one of the most popular and successful US writers of his generation.
He made his breakthrough in the mid-80s with the “New York Trilogy”, after which he finally worked his way up to become a celebrated best-selling author with novels such as “Moon over Manhattan”, “Mr. Vertigo” and “The Book of Illusions”. His books have been translated into dozens of languages, and he is even more popular in Europe than in his own country. He is still “obsessed” with writing, says Auster. “For me, writing is not an act of free will, it is a matter of survival.”