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Oracle Night

By Paul Auster

(120)

| Paperback | 9780571216994

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Book Description

Several months into his recovery from a near-fatal illness, thirty-four-year-old novelist Sidney Orr enters a stationery shop in the Cobble Hill section of Brooklyn and buys a blue notebook. It is September 18, 1982, and for the next nine days Orr will live under the spell of this blank book, trContinue

Several months into his recovery from a near-fatal illness, thirty-four-year-old novelist Sidney Orr enters a stationery shop in the Cobble Hill section of Brooklyn and buys a blue notebook. It is September 18, 1982, and for the next nine days Orr will live under the spell of this blank book, trapped inside a world of eerie premonitions and bewildering events that threaten to destroy his marriage and undermine his faith in reality.

Why does his wife suddenly break down in tears in the backseat of a taxi just hours after Sidney begins writing in the notebook? Why does M.R. Chang, the owner of the stationery shop, precipitously shut down his business the next day? What are the connections between a 1938 Warsaw telephone directory and a lost novel in which the hero can predict the future? At what point does animosity explode into violence? To what degree is forgiveness the ultimate expression of love?

Paul Auster's mesmerizing eleventh novel reads like an old-fashioned ghost story. But there are no ghosts in this book -- only flesh-and-blood human beings, wandering through the haunted realms of everyday life. At once a meditation on the nature of time and a journey through the labyrinth of one man's imagination, Oracle Night is a narrative tour de force that confirms Auster's reputation as one of the boldest, most original writers at work in America today.

Critics

  • 'Oracle Night' by Paul Auster

    Did I like this book? I am still in two minds. It throws normal novel writing conventions out the window. There are stories within stories within stories - and many of them don't come to any satisfactory conclusion. There's no real plot to speak of, ... (read full critics)

    readingmatters published on Mon, 27 Sep 2010

  • Things that go bump in the light

    Oracle Night by Paul Auster 243pp, Faber, £15.99 Collected Prose by Paul Auster 450pp, Faber, £25 Milton, in Comus, speaks of the "power that erring men call Chance", and it's a power that Paul Auster has explored, with unerring fascination, since he ... (read full critics)

    guardian.co.uk published on Sat, 25 Sep 2010

6 Reviews

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  • *** This comment contains spoilers! ***

    第一次完整讀完Paul Auster的小說，正如許多暢銷作家常聽到名字覺得熟悉，說不定書名和情節還可說得上口，其實書沒有看過半本。之前印象中看過Paul Auster的，也就只是他的紐約三部曲吧!

    Oracle Night的封底推薦寫著”If you have never read Auster before… this is the place to start.” (Herald). 衝著這句話，我打算由這本書來開始好好閱讀Paul Auster。

    Oracle Night這樣的書名給人一種神秘感，有種de javu的感覺。小說的起始點很奇怪，一個剛由鬼門關繞一圈回來的作家出門做日常復 ... (continue)

    第一次完整讀完Paul Auster的小說，正如許多暢銷作家常聽到名字覺得熟悉，說不定書名和情節還可說得上口，其實書沒有看過半本。之前印象中看過Paul Auster的，也就只是他的紐約三部曲吧!

    Oracle Night的封底推薦寫著”If you have never read Auster before… this is the place to start.” (Herald). 衝著這句話，我打算由這本書來開始好好閱讀Paul Auster。

    Oracle Night這樣的書名給人一種神秘感，有種de javu的感覺。小說的起始點很奇怪，一個剛由鬼門關繞一圈回來的作家出門做日常復健-走路散步，沒想到在家附近走著，卻忍不住被一家憑空冒出來的文具店所吸引。走進店裡看到了來自葡萄牙的筆記本(不過這次去葡萄牙沒看到任何在賣筆記本)，無法自拔的買回家，像是受牽引一般的回到他出事之後，再也沒走進的書房，拿起了筆，振筆疾書的寫下了個關於人生重新開始的故事。

    覺得Oracle Night有趣的地方在於，作者把書中的故事做了好幾層的延伸，由第一層受傷恢復中的作家，到作家在來自葡萄牙的筆記本寫下的故事中的編輯男主角，再延伸到編輯男主角所收到的一份草稿內的角色們。Paul Auster真正的動機其實我並不清楚，這可能得去問問文學評論家。這本書在我讀來其實就是個愛慘了老婆的男人所自述的愛情故事吧。

    我想讀了任何有趣故事的讀者都忍不住會質疑，書中所發生的是不是作者的真實事情(不是說卜洛克寫雅賊就代表他偷東西，而是在書中發生的一些小事件像是真的曾經發生在作者身上過。)特別這本書的主角是個作家，這更會引發大家的臆測。本來想要查查有沒有人說這本書其實是Paul Auster的小傳記，是他以自身事件引發出來的小說，但事後想想，既然做為小說，那就當作小說讀讀就好了，也別再探就背後是否有真實事件了。

    老實說，我覺得這本書的開頭很吸引人，但可惜的是第二層內引述第三層的故事只是簡單敘述而已，而第二層故事正發展的有趣，男主角就被第一層的作家寫進死胡同裡出不來了! 不過作家的故事依然精采，雖然我在故事開始沒多久就猜出他深愛的老婆的過去交往對象是誰，但是這也沒減損繼續閱讀的樂趣。雖然有意識到作者有意讓三角關係告一個段落，但看到作者的處置方式，雖不意外，但總也有淡淡的失落，也或許這才是作者對第一層故事裡作家所安排的新的開始!

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    酗咖啡的娜 said on Dec 11, 2011 | Add your feedback

  • Good People do Bad Things

    I love this book. The ambiance is just right. With the only other example of the Brooklyn Follies coming to mind at the moment, I have to say that this is one of the few Auster novels that almost agrees with me in its entirety and frustrated me the least. Forget about the Book of Illusion, as macabr ... (continue)

    I love this book. The ambiance is just right. With the only other example of the Brooklyn Follies coming to mind at the moment, I have to say that this is one of the few Auster novels that almost agrees with me in its entirety and frustrated me the least. Forget about the Book of Illusion, as macabre as I thought my reading taste was, I found the book of (dis)illusion unbearable, and I wonder why some hail it as Auster's master piece. It might be accomplished alright, just not to my liking.

    I wouldn't say the Oracle Night was a lighthearted reading though. Auster's openings were always a return (or a journey towards) from death, and this one was no exception. What with such a bleak manifesto by the protagonist Sidney Orr at the beginning, one inevitably recalls the likes of Brooklyn Follies, Man in the Dark, In the Country of Last things and the book of Illusion.

    I read from the reviews by others that some are put off by the 'footnote' style of narration and the (as usual) story-without-a-closure in one of the subplots of the book. To my surprise I didnt have a problem with either of that. For the former, I guess that's how my mind always worked and, in the case of the latter, when _ was driven to the claustrophobic dead end as he was in, I found it acceptable to leave it just at that.

    When all is said and done, I guess I would even say the Oracle Night is a (relatively) sweet book with such a character of Grace, who in my opinion is one of the more lovable female characters Auster had ever created. (Another was Kitty from Moon Palace, but whose role in the book turned out to accentuate the poignancy of that story)

    http://www.charlierose.com/view/interview/1545

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    Paul Yeung said on Jul 28, 2010 | Add your feedback

  • Ending dissapoints - worth reading

    This is well worth reading. It plays on the edge of the ordinary / mystical, absurdist, existentialist (difficult to find right word for his writing). Auster's work doesn't is captivating in that you are not distanced from the emotional needs of the characters, due to impossible events that occur t ... (continue)

    This is well worth reading. It plays on the edge of the ordinary / mystical, absurdist, existentialist (difficult to find right word for his writing). Auster's work doesn't is captivating in that you are not distanced from the emotional needs of the characters, due to impossible events that occur to them and around them. This is why the ending disappoints so much. You crash down and all of the sudden feel this would never happen, doubt the characters and how events play out. However it is not the kind of book that relies on the ending wrapping everything up. I would recommend eating it.

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    Susan Clements-Vivian said on May 2, 2010 | Add your feedback

  • Loved reading this book, his style and atmosphere are all there.
    The end left me a little unsatisfied, but that may have been done on purpose, difficult to tell.

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    One More Book said on Feb 11, 2010 | Add your feedback

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