Last Saturday I crossed the Thames and went to Stratford for my Life in
the UK test (which I passed, by the way – meaning that there is now nothing stopping
me from becoming a British citizen, hopefully). I had to walk through the
Shopping Centre on my way and found this wonderful place (https://www.facebook.com/BooksforFreeStratford/)
where they give away up to three free books for every visitor – no strings attached and
no catches! In terms of maintaining my faith in mankind, this place ranks right
up there with Parkrun. Visit it, pick up books, donate books, and prevent them
from essentially going to landfill…
Moving on to the actual book, I have now read most of Auster’s works
and, as far as absurdist novels go, this is one of my favourites (I liked it a
lot more, for instance, than the stories of the New York Trilogy). It’s deeply disturbing and the reader knows from
the start that everything is spiralling out of control but doesn’t know how it will
all end (Will the wall close in on Nashe like it used to do on Roger Waters and
David Gilmour after the first half of The
Wall? Will Stone and Flower create a tiny little replica of Nashe and run
his life for him through the “City of the World”? Will he get killed as he
tries to escape?). Yet, there is always a sense of hope: maybe Nashe’s sister,
his daughter, Pozzi, or maybe even Tiffany, the prostitute from Atlantic City,
can help the guy survive in one way or another.
The one thing that annoyed me, though, is that I am sure I didn’t manage
to pick up on tons of the novel’s insightful remarks and metaphors – the links
to the myth of Sisyphus are clear, but there are surely millions more…
