Winter Journal comes to an end. Satisfying or unsatisfying? It's a journal so naturally comes across as a bit self-indulgent. Backward looking - "A door has closed. Another door has opened. You have entered the winter of your life."
Was the content planned, therefore not a journal? One is left with that feeling, which takes the gloss off some great writing.
The lack of a sense of place - something he sees in his wife's family - the anecdote of asking kides if they wanted to change anything about Christmas and them saying no - why would you ask?
Unsettled beginnings - maybe they make for good writers... hard to say.
Is a journal meant to make sense - get the feeling that this one was meant to, but failed.
However, great writing. A conundrum
Showing posts with label Paul Auster. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Paul Auster. Show all posts
Tuesday, 12 January 2016
January 10 2016
Winter Journal balances on the cusp of being enjoyable or over-the-top. The lush description balanced by the focus on self: to some extent expected, but no mention of his kids? Either he's too self-centred, or the artifice of the work shows through too much.
Still the description of the 20 places he's lived in - a sense place even when moving about. But, a work about a life without a centre - the sense of a man writing to try and find sense - a Godless man can be a sad sight. Auster has nothing to rest on - perhaps the end of the book with find him something.
Auster's life as a writer - made the most of limited material - bit of a Dessaix type? Another I must read.
Leviathan hit me in the guts when I read it 20-odd years ago - I wonder how it would affect me now.
Still the description of the 20 places he's lived in - a sense place even when moving about. But, a work about a life without a centre - the sense of a man writing to try and find sense - a Godless man can be a sad sight. Auster has nothing to rest on - perhaps the end of the book with find him something.
Auster's life as a writer - made the most of limited material - bit of a Dessaix type? Another I must read.
Leviathan hit me in the guts when I read it 20-odd years ago - I wonder how it would affect me now.
January 9 2016
How much do you achieve in a day? Is a day of hard labour in the yard as much of an achievement as a revelation received from reading a page of a book?
Winter Journal - the catalogue of houses lived in by Auster, a memory for them all almost. Is the book an attempt by him to make sense of his life? Haven't read all his other stuff, but isn't all his oevre that? Why is that so fascinating for others - unless all the readers are trying to make sense of their lives too? Of course he was poor and famously unread for a long time, so perhaps it isn't interesting. I'm not wanting to like it, but enjoying it a lot. Nice to read something that doesn't require intense concentration.
Watched the last section of Mystery Road (film). I like Sen's transplantation of the Western ethic onto rural Australia. The sense of hidden menace that pervades the people, and the magnificent indifference of the landscape. Shame the ending is by turns over the top and a bit too enigmatic.
Winter Journal - the catalogue of houses lived in by Auster, a memory for them all almost. Is the book an attempt by him to make sense of his life? Haven't read all his other stuff, but isn't all his oevre that? Why is that so fascinating for others - unless all the readers are trying to make sense of their lives too? Of course he was poor and famously unread for a long time, so perhaps it isn't interesting. I'm not wanting to like it, but enjoying it a lot. Nice to read something that doesn't require intense concentration.
Watched the last section of Mystery Road (film). I like Sen's transplantation of the Western ethic onto rural Australia. The sense of hidden menace that pervades the people, and the magnificent indifference of the landscape. Shame the ending is by turns over the top and a bit too enigmatic.
January 8 2016
Plato - seeing the beauty in everything - the highest stage of love - equivalent to Jesus Christ, beauty in creation, propogate all things.
Auster in Winter Journal - looking back at the past, the bad things never as radiant as the good. Focus on sex - certainly the main thing driving men in their youth (and middle age), but to focus on it too much in literature? As Plato writes, it is a shallow form of love - like writing about a shower or eating. And yet lots of great literature to do with food. The Kindly Ones at this level - sensory, surface reactions to events.
Auster in Winter Journal - looking back at the past, the bad things never as radiant as the good. Focus on sex - certainly the main thing driving men in their youth (and middle age), but to focus on it too much in literature? As Plato writes, it is a shallow form of love - like writing about a shower or eating. And yet lots of great literature to do with food. The Kindly Ones at this level - sensory, surface reactions to events.
January 6 2016
Plato - the different kinds of love - deepr kind lasts longer - Love the youngest of the Gods as love is deeper when younger - is this true? Love changes over time - mellows and deepens like a fine wine - Auster's Winter Journal states same thing in the first section, 30 years with his wife and the love has changed, but not diminished.
I always see Auster as a pretentious writier until I read him again and am swept away ty the felicitous nature of his prose. A contrast to the Penguin Classics Symposium.
I always see Auster as a pretentious writier until I read him again and am swept away ty the felicitous nature of his prose. A contrast to the Penguin Classics Symposium.
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