Understanding Paul Auster
Author(s)
Bibliographic Information
Understanding Paul Auster
(Understanding contemporary American literature)
University of South Carolina Press, c2010
- : cloth
Available at 21 libraries
  Aomori
  Iwate
  Miyagi
  Akita
  Yamagata
  Fukushima
  Ibaraki
  Tochigi
  Gunma
  Saitama
  Chiba
  Tokyo
  Kanagawa
  Niigata
  Toyama
  Ishikawa
  Fukui
  Yamanashi
  Nagano
  Gifu
  Shizuoka
  Aichi
  Mie
  Shiga
  Kyoto
  Osaka
  Hyogo
  Nara
  Wakayama
  Tottori
  Shimane
  Okayama
  Hiroshima
  Yamaguchi
  Tokushima
  Kagawa
  Ehime
  Kochi
  Fukuoka
  Saga
  Nagasaki
  Kumamoto
  Oita
  Miyazaki
  Kagoshima
  Okinawa
  Korea
  China
  Thailand
  United Kingdom
  Germany
  Switzerland
  France
  Belgium
  Netherlands
  Sweden
  Norway
  United States of America
Note
Includes bibliographical references (p. [207]-225) and index
Description and Table of Contents
Description
This book offers a survey of the work of a Brooklyn-born author best known for mixing absurdism and crime fiction. "Understanding Paul Auster" is a comprehensive companion to the work of a writer who effectively balances a particular combination of Jewish American identity and European sensibility across an impressive breadth of novels, screenplays, essays, and poetry. James Peacock views Auster as chiefly concerned with the individual's problematic relationship with language, a theme present from the enigmatic poetry of Auster's early career to the more inclusive and optimistic imaginings of the films "Smoke" and "Blue in the Face" and the novels "Timbuktu", "The Brooklyn Follies", and "Man in the Dark". In mapping the evolution of Auster's fiction, Peacock finds in Auster a view of language as inherently ethical and communal because, to use language creatively, one must be immersed in the plurality of experience and listen to the voices of others. Peacock suggests that in the aftermath of 9/11, much of Auster's fiction places even greater importance on sympathetic relations with ordinary individuals and advocates through artistic endeavors the merits of connecting with others.
by "Nielsen BookData"