City of Glass de Paul Auster (1985)

It was a wrong number that started it, the telephone ringing three times in the dead of night, and the voice on the other end asking for someone he was not. Much later, when he was able to think about the things that happened to him, he would conclude that nothing was real except chance. But that was much later. In the beginning, there was simply the event and its consequences. Whether it might have turned out differently, or whether it was all predetermined with the first word that came from the stranger’s mouth, is not the question. The question is the story itself, and whether or not it means something is not for the story to tell.

Paul Auster – a life in quotes

The author of The New York Trilogy, Leviathan and 4 3 2 1 has died at the age of 77. Here are some of the most memorable quotes from interviews he gave throughout his life

Wed 1 May 2024 14.24 CEST

On writing

 

I’ve always written by hand. Mostly with a fountain pen, but sometimes with a pencil – especially for corrections. If I could write directly on a typewriter or a computer, I would do it. But keyboards have always intimidated me. I’ve never been able to think clearly with my fingers in that position. A pen is a much more primitive instrument. You feel that the words are coming out of your body and then you dig the words into the page. Writing has always had that tactile quality for me. It’s a physical experience.

 

Only a person who really felt compelled to do it would shut himself up in a room every day … When I think about the alternatives – how beautiful life can be, how interesting – I think it’s a crazy way to live your life.

 

The excitement, the struggle, is emboldening and vivifying. I just feel more alive writing.

 

You can never achieve what you hope to achieve. You can come close sometimes and others may appreciate your work, but you, the author, will always feel you’ve failed. You know you’ve done your best, but your best isn’t good enough. Maybe that’s why you keep writing. So you can fail a little better the next time.

 

Generally, I don’t want to do things. I feel lazy and unmotivated. It’s only when an idea grabs hold of me and I can’t get rid of it, when I try not to think about it and yet it’s ambushing me all the time … That’s how it begins. A book, at the same time, also has to do with what I call a buzz in the head. It’s a certain kind of music that I start hearing. It’s the music of the language, but it’s also the music of the story. I have to live with that music for a while before I can put any words on the page. I think that’s because I have to get my body as much as my mind accustomed to the music of writing that particular book. It really is a mysterious feeling.

Winter Journal de Paul Auster (2012)

"You think it will never happen to you, that it cannot happen to you, that you are the only person in the world to whom none of these things will ever happen, and then, one by one, they all begin to happen to you, in the same way they happen to everyone else" (pàg. 1)

"...you will never forget these words, which were the last words spoken to one of your friends by his dying father: 'Just remember, Charlie,' he said, 'never pass up an opportunity to piss.'" (pàg. 17)
 
"... and walking down the middle of the carless streets, the men, and endless procession of silent men examining the possibilities on the sidewalks with furtive glances or bold stares, all kinds of women prepared to hire themselves out to all kinds of men, from lonely Arabs to middle-aged johns in suits, the throngs of womanless immigrants and frustrated students and bored husbands, and once you joined those processions, you suddenly felt that you were no longer part of the waking world, that you have slipped into an erotic dream that was at once thrilling and destabilizing, for the thought that you could go to bed with any one of those women merely by offering her a hundred francs (twenty dollars) made you dizzy, physically dizzy, and as you prowled the narrow streets looking for a companion to satisfy the need that had driven you out of your room into this labyrinth of flesh, you found yourself looking at faces rather than bodies, or faces first and bodies second, searching for a pretty face, the face of a human being whose eyes had not gone dead, someone whose spirit had not yet entirely drowned in the anonymity and artificiality of whoredom" (pàg. 52)
 
"Your insides seem to empty out as you take the news. Yo feel dazed and hollow, unable to think, and even if this is the last thing you were expecting to happen now, you are not surprised by what Debbie is telling you, not stunned, not shocked, not even upset. What is wrong with you? you ask yourself. Your mother has just died, and you've turned into a block of wood." (pàg. 119)
 
"...you are reminded of a story someone once told you about James Joyce, Joyce in Paris in the 1920s, standing around at a party eighty-five years ago when a woman walked up to him and asked if she could shake the hand that wrote Ulysses.  Instead of offering her his right hand, Joyce lifted it in the air, studied it for a few moments, and said: “Let me remind you, madam, that this hand has done many other things as well.”  No details given, but what a delicious piece of smut and innuendo, all the more effective because he left everything to the woman’s imagination" (pàg. 165)

Sunset Park de Paul Auster (2010)

Amb aquest llibre, Paul Auster ens recorda les coses que realment són essencials i l'estranyesa i la plenitud d'aquest miracle que suposa el fet d'estar, i sentir-se, vius. Miles Heller, un jove enigmàtic de vint-i-pocs anys, s'ha enamorat d'una jove cubana menor d'edat. Enfonsat pel sentiment de culpa a causa de la mort del seu germanastre, fa set anys que en Miles viu com un fugitiu a Florida i no es comunica ni amb el seu pare -un editor independent que tracta desesperadament de salvar el seu negoci i el seu matrimoni i recuperar el seu fill-, ni amb la seva mare, una reconeguda actriu. Després d'haver viscut sol durant anys a Florida, ara torna a Nova York. Mentre espera que la seva estimada sigui major d'edat, conviu amb un grup de joves en una casa abandonada de Sunset Park, al barri de Brooklyn: en Bing toca el tambor i treballa a l'hospital de les Coses Trencades, on repara objectes del passat; l'Ellen és una artista que viu obsedida per visions eròtiques, i l'Alice, una estudiant que fa una recerca universitària.Aquests són alguns dels personatges que Paul Auster entrellaça màgicament en aquesta emotiva novel·la en què cada element està saturat de significacions sobre les marques de la vida. En un temps de crisi i canvis, Auster ens recorda les coses que realment són essencials i l'estranyesa i la plenitud d'aquest miracle que suposa el fet d'estar, i sentir-se, vius.