Books: Understanding and living – Process

TEPOZTLÁN, Morelos (apro).- In February 2023, the North American writer Paul Auster declared that he was in poor health. Weeks later his wife, the writer Siri Hustvedt, announced on Instagram that he had specifically been diagnosed with lung cancer and was being treated.

Furthermore, to keep those interested informed, he created a space he called Cancerland, where he regularly published newsletters about his health and announced that Baumgartner, a novel written and revised during that painful period, would be released in November. On April 30, 2024, news broke that Auster had died at her home in Brooklyn, New York.

The writer, film director, screenwriter and playwright was born in Newark, New Jersey, in 1947. He studied English, French and Italian literature at Columbia University. He then lived for several years in France, where he translated writers such as Mallarmé, Simenon and Sartre. Upon his return to the United States he settled in Brooklyn, collaborated in several magazines and newspapers, published a collection of his poems and published his first novel, Squeeze Play, under the pseudonym Paul Benjamin.

In those years he suffered a personal crisis when attending a ballet rehearsal, where he contemplated the beauty of bodies and their synchronicity with music. The magnificence of the event connected him again with his creation and restarted his literary work. On the other hand, when his father died he received an inheritance that gave him financial independence to dedicate himself exclusively to writing.

Thus he published poems, made an anthology of French poetry and compiled several essays. And he released the first novel signed with his name, The Invention of Solitude. Later Auster wrote The New York Trilogy, consisting of City of Glass (1985), Ghosts (1986) and The Locked Room (1986). In it he portrayed the city from various perspectives, and in the narrative strategy the influences from Cervantes to Faulkner, from Poe to Kafka are perceived. The trilogy was well accepted and was translated into more than 20 languages. Then El Palacio de la Luna (1989) appeared, considered the novel that established him internationally.

These works were followed by, among others, The Music of Chance (1990), Timbuktu (1999), Brooklyn Follies (2006), Leviathan (1992), Mr. Vertigo (1994), The Book of Illusions (2003), Viajes por el Scriptorium (2007) and 4 3 2 1 (2017). The last novel published by Paul Auster, Baumgartner, appeared in English in November 2023 and in February it was released in Spanish (Ed. Seix Barral. Col. Biblioteca Formentor; Barcelona, ​​2024. 264 pp.).

In Baumgartner, Auster deals with some moments in the life of Sy, an older author, university professor who writes about Soren Kierkegaard. The story is told by the character himself, and an external narrator complements the story with events that expand the descriptions.

The novel begins with what happened on a certain day in Sy’s daily life, vicissitudes such as a burn on his hand, the fall on the stairs he suffers, the forgetting to make a phone call…

From there, Baumgartner remembers what he experienced, such as the meeting with his late wife Ann, editor, translator and poet. The evocation of her leads him to consult her archives, where he talks about his loves and tells how they met and decided to get married. In addition, Sy reads the fragments written by him, as well as the poems that the two wrote. With these allusions she understands the beautiful shared moments that allowed them to face vicissitudes and enjoy joys.

Sy, despite the pain of Ann’s loss, seeks to establish an emotional relationship with another woman, a friend of hers who is also a poet. On the other hand, an unforeseen event occurs when a literary scholar asks him to consult Ann’s archives and interview him. Her request leads him to undertake simple but significant acts.

Paul Auster in Baumgartner presents understanding as a way to better live. The character loses his wife in an accident and remembers her regularly. The fact helps him value the importance of affection and company. To overcome his isolation, he decides to establish a loving relationship that allows him to appreciate life more intensely by sharing emotions, tastes, and feelings. The change creates in him a favorable attitude that is reflected in his work and creates unexpected situations that he can face because he has the desire to live them. Auster’s relationship revolves around Kierkegaard’s phrase: “Life can only be understood by looking back, but it has to be lived forward.”

Baumgartner is a short and cryptic novel written in Auster’s strong and elusive style, which demands detailed reading from the reader.