Great things # 2: Paul Auster's The Book of Illusions

I was in China - somewhere between Beijing and Shanghai on an overnight train - when I was first transported into the world of Paul Auster through his classic short story set, The New York Trilogy. Somehow, the themes of isolation, loss of identity and confused existence struck a chord with being so far from home in a rocky, humid, sweat-filled carriage filled with tongues I did not understand.

Since then I’ve read every Paul Auster book I could get my hands on, finding a constant in his relentless examination of the individual – with a style that is electric, entertaining, yet filled with an unsettling sense of knowing truth. The Book of Illusions is quintessential Auster, yet stands out from the rest for being cinematic; it is, after all, about the search for a mysterious, long disappeared silent film director called Hector Mann.

When a college professor, grieving the tragic loss of his family, determines to write a biography of Mann’s life, he sets out on a trail which will lead him not only through Mann’s movies, but also through his tortured existence, finding the journey becoming ever more beguiling the closer he gets to the truth. As in Conrad’s Heart of Darkness, he is travelling towards something which promises to turn his world upside down.

Above all, this is a book about art, with references not only to classic literature of the past, but also to the forgotten, most original world of silent movies. We are projected into grainy black and white projections of movies which feel as though they are real. A central theme is the fragility of the old art, the loss of manuscripts and celluloid which captured something special but once destroyed may be lost forever.

This book is like travelling on a roller-coaster ride through a lifetime: it’s never simple, never straightforward, yet completely fascinating. Very much like life itself, you might add. It’s fantastic, and I suggest you read it without delay.

First published in Word magazine, April 2005