Dull, but mercifully short. ( )

Hmm. I failed to rush over to Goodreads and post a review about this book when I finished it over a week ago. That tells you a little something about how much it failed to really stir up any emotions or erudite observations on the nature of life. It was, um...odd and oddly entertaining and I think I kinda 'get' it...but in the end the most I can say is that I am glad I did not spend a whole lot of time on it. Just not my thing, I guess. ( )

Un hombre mayor está encerrado en una habitación. No recuerda quién es. Sobre el escritorio ve una pila de papeles cuya importancia no es capaz de descifrar. Ignora que le vigilan: lo que leemos es el informe de los movimientos de este amnésico al que llaman Mr. Blank y de las visitas que irá recibiendo. Una serie de personajes relacionados con su pasado pretenden ajustar cuentas con él. Otros le muestran su gratitud, como la mujer que le cuida, Anna (a quien está unido pese a haberle hecho algo terrible que no logra recordar). Cada visita proporcionará nuevas pistas sobre la identidad y el pasado de Mr. Blank.
¿Quién es realmente Mr. Blank? ¿Cuál es su relación con esos personajes que lo tienen encerrado? ¿De qué lo acusan? Uno de los manuscritos que hay entre los papeles del escritorio encierra la clave de su situación actual. La novela deviene entonces una mise en abyme donde resuenan ecos de las obras de Paul Auster.

between 1 and 1.5 stars. i haven't read much auster and nothing that i can remember in a long while. what i do remember from before, though, is not really understanding him, and that still holds. i don't get this. it helps to know that, from other reviews, apparently all of the people that feature in this book - well, maybe not mr blank? - are from his other books, and that even the title of this book is from something within another book of his. i don't know if knowing that helps to understand what he's doing or saying here, or if knowing those characters in other books helps to know them here. (because we don't really know anything here, in this book. it's all a mystery and a question of what is happening/who are these people and what are they doing/where are they/why/why/why.)

i don't know if we're supposed to be puzzling out who mr blank is and what he may have done. if we're supposed to suspect that he is the author trause. or if that even matters. maybe what auster is saying is more about what story and writing mean? (i'm not sure what he's saying they mean, but i think that's what he's getting at.) maybe also about who story belongs to? if mr blank isn't also trause, then can they both write the story? can anyone write the story?

i don't know. i don't get auster, i think. but at least this was mildly entertaining, in a perplexing but not frustrating way, and a quick read at that. it did, though, until close to the end, feel quite a bit like this was literary fiction for the sake of itself, and i didn't like that feeling. ( )

> Dans le scriptorium, de Paul AUSTER (Trad, de l'américain par Christine Le Boeuf Actes Sud, Arles/ Leméac, Montréal, 2007, 147 p.)
Se reporter à la critique de Patrick BERGERON
In: (2007). Compte rendu de [Fiction]. Nuit blanche, (108), p. 27… ; (en ligne),
URL : https://id.erudit.org/iderudit/19886ac