I like this caricature of Paul Auster. I will use it whenever I want to give you some "food for thought" linked to things we debated over in class.
We discussed about some interesting points in "Travels in the Scriptorium". Some of you liked the novel, others hated it, especially for the passages about "bodily functions" and "sexual pleasure". We still need to "dig in" and compare ideas and reactions. Our starting point was to highlight the following trends present in this novel: modernism, post-modernism, dystopia, metafiction, intertextuality. All these terms should be clear by now, but if they aren’t, please let me know. I then mentioned the reader’s theory (reader-response criticism) and Roland Barthes’s essay "Death of the Author" , just to point out the paramount role played by the reader in constructing meaning. We saw that in "Travels in the Scriptorium" Auster involves the reader in the process of investigation and asks the reader to continue the story, finish it, modify it, as the character himself Mr. Blank is asked to.
Yesterday I was reading a book on creative writing and I found this interesting quotation by Hemingway, writing of the practice of fiction. I would like to share it with you since I think it really fits the journey we have undertaken with this blog.
You have the sheet of blank paper, the pencil, and the obligation to invent truer than things can be true … to take what is not palpable and make it completely palpable and … have it seem normal … so that it can become a part of the experience of the person who reads it. 
Writing and reading are collaborative acts in the making and performance of space-time. Readers participate; they become, partly, writers. They will take part, consciously and unconsciously, in a literary creation, and live their life in tht moment and at that speed – while they are reading. If matters are left unexplained, untold, then inquiring readers will lean towards that world. Readers fill in the gaps for themselves, writing themselves into that small universe. The reader is active, as a hearer and a witness.
So fill in the gaps, guys, and do not be irritated by the things Paul Auster does not tell us!
When reading "Travels in the Scriptorium" I could find some links with another dystopic novel that I would like to mention and refer to as soon as we get to deal with Orwell, Huxley and Bradbury. The novel I am referring to is "High-rise" by J.G. Ballard and it is a sort of modern fable, a commentary on the hideous possibilities of advanced technology and the rat-like nature of trapped human beings. Just as it happens with Auster, Ballard contrives to unsettle and tease the reader and in the novel unease is created and thus perceived by the reader. Should you have any time and should you be particularly hooked by dystopic fiction, then have a go with Ballard. I can lend it to you if you wish. Ballard defines Earth as the "only alien planet". He is a very controversial writer, if you wish to get to know something about him, click on the link below (BBC Profile: J.G. Ballard talks to critic Tom Sutcliffe about his life and work).
Leave your empowering considerations! I am eager to read some of your responses to this first "food for thought" session. As you can see, there are no guiding questions this time. You can express your thoughts freely!!! I am sure the things I wrote will trigger some "fizzy" reaction. 
Teacher, you never seem to stop working! Even food for thought now. Well, I must confess it is really challenging. First of all, congratulations for the way you have improved the blog. I will respond to this new posting, but now it’s too late. Time to go to bed.
EUGENIA!!!
I am the one who was “scandalized” and “shocked” by Auster’s novel “Travels in the Scriptorium”.
I just would like to explain my normal reaction to this book.
I find that Paul Auster has a really strange way of writing, with a multitude of shades: it changes with the shifting from a literary genre to another.
In one book, for example “Mr Vertigo”, he can be very subdued even when he has to describe very hard moments; in another he can be very rough and unfeeling. The last book we read is an exemplification of what I just wrote.
I really did not like “Travels in the Scriptorium”, and I do not agree with your view of the novel.
In several parts I read it as an offence to the female figure. [Sometimes I think I am a very proud feminist =) ]. The part where Mr Blank whimpers because he wants to touch Sophie’s breast otherwise he will not swallow the pills, it was very maddening for me.
I cannot see it as if this man was a kid, as if everything was new for him.
I see it as it really is: Mr Blank is an old man, and the touching of Sophie’s breast is only a fancy of a smart man, who knows, that being in his condition can help him getting some attentions that can procure him physical pleasure.
I find also that these scenes could be described in many other ways. The author’s choice felt into the most direct and effective one that did not match with my expectation and sensitivity.
There are some passages where he wrote about “bodily functions”. I found it very disrespectful; there are human being that have those kind of difficulties, and, in my opinion, this is not the way in which an acculturate man, like Auster, should pay respect.
I am a good reader, I am very jealous of my books, and by reading I can explore millions of worlds that are described in my books.
With Paul Auster’s novel I was not able to do this, to travel (despite this word is part of the book’s title) with imagination, and I am really sorry about that. It is really disappointing for a reader to find a book poor of involving power.
That is all.
This in my personal response to Paul Auster’s novel “Travels in the Scriptorium”.
I’ve never read anything by Ballard, but after having watched this long interview and heard some extracts of his main books, I frankly admit that I will never read one of them. His books deal with very extreme situations, like car crashes, well-educated people that turn up in savages…I generally avoid this kind of books. I always read before bedtime and for me reading means to escape from my everyday routine, it means being immerged in another world/situation better than this, it means dreaming, open my mind and my soul…and then, after having closed the book I want to fall asleep with a smile on my face (Wait!! this doesn’t mean that I read always love stories or things like that!). For me reading is (another way of) living. I don’t want to read books that make me anguished, reading should be something delightful, not a nightmare! This are the reasons why I personally don’t read that kind of strange science fiction books that deal,in my opinion, with too strange and supernatural events that border on the absurd (like the one of Ballard).
I recognize however the greateness of the author that writes that kind of books.
P.S.concerning ‘Travels in the scriptorium’: I totally agree with what Eugenia said, and I support her opinion. It seems as if P.Auster’s charachters are sex-obsessed!! Gosh!!
Chiara Pinardi
Guarino Ilaria
I have to be honest…at the beginning i didn t like “Travel in the scriptorium”…to many names,to many mysteries to be solved.I know that is a limit but personally,as a reader,I prefer a different kind of book.Despite this,after the discussion in class about our opinion I discovered several different aspects that I had not grasped or i had not go into that in order to understand better the “story”.Perhaps this term is not the one who suit the best because in reality this is not a true story but a story in a story with a conclusion to be invented.Mr Blank is the transposition of the reader on paper.Mr Blank coincides exactly with the reader as it is called to interpret and conclude a story already begun.The reader response criticism is applied both in Mr Blank and in the reader.Travel in the scriptorium is not a classic detective story.Auster gives us hint that provoced in us reaction that we have to compare with the one that has the main charachter when he receve them.When we see with Mr Blank photos and faces that are unknown to us associated to other unknown names we feel terribly stanned.
In all this chaos and this mystery we are the witness of the death of the author.As Barthes says”The scriptor exists to produce but not to explain the work and “is born simultaneously with the text, is in no way equipped with a being preceding or exceeding the writing, [and] is not the subject with the book as predicate.” Every work is “eternally written here and now,” with each re-reading, because the “origin” of meaning lies exclusively in “language itself” and its impressions on the reader.”
The thing that fascinated me the most of this book was the subtle analysys on communication(I m refering to the pages where Mr Blank realizes that all the labels calling items are somehow reversed).
Regarding the video I find that Ballard is very close to Auster and his thought.Like in Paul Auster novels also in Ballard there are obsessive references to war.They both lead,although in a different way,an(let s say) “investigation”into the society.
immediatly after reading the quotation “the earth is the only alien planet” i think about what we discussed in class about metaphysic. i think about the different everyday habits of people all over the world ( food, marriage, religion just to give some elementary example), as well as events like boys who run in class shooting all what are in front of him, just to arrive at the ( strong) conclusion that we’re all strangers to the others, simply because we cant’ possibly know the thoughts and the feelings of the others. and that the definition of metaphysic: trying to understand and describe the nature of truth, life reality [and human being…why not? =) ]
as we also said in class travels in the scriptorium is a very centred post modernist work, created by a moisture and a pastiche of genres. the predominant one in this case is the detective story. i really appreciate this point because i feel very involved in unbending the mystery of mr blank life, even if the his congectures and actions was so slow that i would have kick him, if it hadn’t covered behind a solid piece of paper =P . i personally feel very involved by auster’s way of posing questions, leaving doubts and so on…but i like the detective stories because in the end there’s a solution! so i feel mocked and betrayed at the very end and when i abruptely shut the book i can’t keep a sufficient calm to thinking about the peculiarity of this novel. i would have had the capability of inventing the story and the next events even if in the end there had been the solution…i fill the gaps because of my curiosity ( that sometimes it could be very annoying), but i can’t help to be irritated. if it is a peculiarity of this way of writing, to create a sort of no-way ending, perhaps i don’t like the post modernist XD
giacomin elena
….I’m VERY ANGRY NOW….the pc doesn’t work well and my personal(wonderful=))))new notebook can’t use my home internet modem(because it comes from a prehistorical world!!!!!!)however I hope to change it during this week, and by the end of next week I wish I could watch the video and have some interesting reaction to share with you)…
now I can only work on ‘travels’…
despite eugenia, I am not a good reader, unluckily I read very little…however I did’nt like this work from auster for two very reason…n°1:I found really vulgar the way he talked about ‘phisical need'(both sexual and ‘bodily function’)…I don’t mean it needs a kind of censorship or things like that…but I think the author could has been more tactful…there are differnt ways to deal with these kind of themes and if he writes for a vast, mixed public, he could has paid more attenction to the kind of linguistic register he used…(maybe I’m a bit too severe but in this period I’m angry whith the world and my pessinism reach the highest peaks in the story)…the second rason is the non-end of the story…
however, the more I read this author the more I’m interested to know if he has a sort of project in his mind,a kind of web, in which every element(that is mentioned or protagonist in other works ecc…)of his books, finds a precise role in that mental web;in a work that riassumes all the themes ,the reasoning he made about life sense;I wish that in the end of his career,he wrote a book in which every history he didn’t conclude by now,will find a satisfacting conclution.In this way the readers(both fans or not) can check their supposed conclutions.
I don’t know if I was exaustive in my conceptuous thought….I hope it…however, maybe I can express myself better using voice that with words…
…..erica….
Arnoldi Martina
when I think about “Travels in the scriptorium”,I have in mind the adjective stange.reading this book was like resolve a puzzle.I read and I wanted to go on because I thought “I’m sure,I’m close to the answer.now Paul Auster will give me some information”.unfortunately I got to the end without a solution.Auster guided me through his novel,he helped me understanding some little things and at the end he left me or ha gave me the oportunity to go on with his novel,he gave me the ground but I am the one who should go on.maybe he already knows in what way we will decide to go on.in my opinion he gave us mental liberty so that we can interpret it in a personal way.”travel in the scriptorium” is a book that brings you to the resignation,or you love it or you hate it.I think it’s a book that can’t have a summary because it doesn’t follow an ordinary scheme.it is an investigation through a man’s mind.this man,Mr Blank,like us would love to descover the why,the what,the when and the how of his situation.Mr Blank lost his identity.I’m thinking about “il fu Mattia Pascal”,he lost his identity.the two story are complitely different but I think that it’s not a mistake if I say that in some way Mattia Pascal and Mr Blank are in the same situation.I hope I can explain you better my thought in class,maybe it is a little bit confused=)
I liked this book, even if during the reading I wonder more than once if it was only a writing exercise for Auster. He gives us a short, eerie, artful and inscrutable story, a disturbing nightmare that we are asked to share with the protagonist, Mr. Blank. Auster is often referred to as a master of the metaphysical detective story, and this novel is the clearer sample: his great writing technique is complemented here by the modesty of the set: all he needs is a room, a bed, a chair, a door and a window. So it is not the characters or the plot that is difficult to keep tabs on but our own emotions, as this is a chilling story of isolation, about living in uncertainty (one of Auster’s perennial themes), immortality and art (the double sided life of his characters, who are nothing without the author – because the writer chose to say this and not that, he is their god of randomness – but, at the same time and differently from him, they are immortal). The reader will really be in Blank’s boat with him and it is Auster’s metaphysical technique, the power of fiction, that moves you even if you don’t fully understand the story. I am sure that Auster wits that a simple literary trick (a story within a story, a character with a strange name) can become something intricate and intriguing at the same time. The result is a puzzled and mysterious book that must be readed both the fine print and between the lines, even if there is no simple or even certain answer.
Alessandro Piccin
I’ve never paid attention before to this side of the role of a reader, I’ve always taken it for sure that it is the author who creates everything, this story of the gaps is new for me (i read only the books we are compelled to as students, my experience as a “free” reader is embarrassingly limited). Well, I did not like Travels for many reasons, but at this point I understand why: I did not feel like filling the gaps, I mean, I didn’t find it involving, but irritating. Perhaps it is because I wasn’t worried about Mr Blank destiny, the worst it is, the happiest I am! And since I’m not a patient nor an extremely careful reader, this book was really difficult, disappointing, superficial (“Man in the dark” seems to be more interesting, according to the few pages of Man in the dark I’ve read so far)
But as you said in class, it provoked our reactions, violent and not very flattering, but at least reactions.
I’m not sure it is enough, anyway.
fede zille
Dear Eugenia,
Thanks for your opinion. I am happy that you do not agree with me. The scenes that you found disrespectful to a woman’s sensitivity I did not find as such. I do not deem myself less feminist than you are, but I think that Auster is not being desrespectul or implite to women in this novel. Mr. Blank is a living dead: feeling pleasure is a way of feeling alive, and this pleasure is (in this novel) given by a man’s interaction with a woman (be it through touching her breast or being touched by her). Obviously, I do not want to convince you, since this is not my role or aim as a teacher. I am happy to read your reaction, this implies that you were pricked and prodded to do that. So, the novel was already successful in that, it sparked a reaction! This novel is even peculiarly affected by the detective story genre. I would say it is contaminated by it, but it subverts it. Mr. Blank (just like a detective) is trying to work out a mystery (who he is, who the people who may him a visit are, etc.), but in the end he does not resolve any case. We are shocked by the understanding that he is just one of the figments of the writer’s imagination. He does not exist. This leaves us perplexed because we felt the need to get to a solution.
Chiara, thanks for sharing with us your approach to reading. It goes without saying that Ballard is not the kind of writer that lulls you into sleep! As to sex in Paul Auster’s novels, I would not say that Paul Auster’s characters are obsessed with sex. Sex is part of life, so the writer, by writing about life, touches on this aspect. As I pointed out in class, sex, o better, sensuality, may play a paramount role when it is seen as a driving force, as a source of vitality. You saw plenty of that in “The Inner Life of Martin Frost”. But in what other works by Auster do you see these sex-obsessed characters? Not in “The Country of Last Things”, not in “Timbuktu”, not in “Man in the Dark”, etc. In “The Country of Last THings” the sexual relationship between wife and husband is seen as a way of bonding, as a way to boy beyond the sense of loneliness and desperation that surrounds them.
Ilaria,
Thanks for your quotations from Barthes, very useful for your classmates too. Thanks for your link between Auster and Barthes. I am also happy to read that class discussion disclosed aspects of the novel that you had not thought of yourself. This is the main objective of this blog and of the class debates we have together.
Dear Elena,
You see, AUster plays with the detective story and he plays with the expectations we have of it. He starts from this genre, to then “capsize” it and create a totally new detective story, that is an Austerian detective story, where no answers are given. The reader is left with lots of doubts.
Erica, what you wrote is clear. Happy to read you are intrigued by this writer. Auster does not want to appeal to a “wide readership”. As a writer I think he wants to sell his books, but I do not think his books can be read by everybody. He is not an easy writer so, I think, his way of dealing with sexuality and bolily functions is meant to put off the reader, to confront him/her with things s/he would not expect to find. As to your wish of having Auster write a novel in which he solves all the unresolved books of his, well, you could always ask him this question!
Martina, it is right to say that the novel is about identity, but not about a given identity. It is about the construction of identity. The auther seems to play around with the question of identity (at least I think so, but as I pointed out in class, I am never sure myself with Paul Auster)
Alessandro, thanks for yoru insightful comments. You reveal great understanding of this novel.
There is no doubt that writing is a form of art, and as a form of art writing implies, or even demands, interaction with the recipient. A painting is painted in such a way that can evoke something in the observer, a sculpture is created to show a mood, an idea, or the power of who it represents; a book, -it could be a masterpiece or a best-seller, there is no difference- is written in a way that makes the reader feel to be into the story; the reader becomes the observer of a story that must be interesting for him from the first page till the end. The sentence of Hemingway is very appropriate: the writer has to invent a parallel world in which people and things move as if they were in a plastic, above which there is the author with a magnifying glass in his hand, guiding the reader, and showing him the most salient, the most significant aspects and things of that microcosm. The skill of the writer is, however “to take what is not palpable and make it completely palpable”, that is, whatever you write, extremely real or extremely imaginative, must seem so real, so authentic, that the reader can be convinced that everything he reads is happened, or it is still happening, really. All this things can be realized in different ways.
Today the world of literature is divided into two main genres: the real literature and the best-sellers. It is wrong, as it is usually thought, that only well-known books that don’t deal with deep themes, or that are easy to read for the general public can satisfy these characteristics. All of us have heard of J. R.R. Tolkien, Patricia Cornwell, Frederick Forsyth or Tom Clancy: they are world famous writers who build in their works, stories, settings, characters with a narrative style that meets these characteristics, even if they address a particular public and have a precise target (they write principally to sale) that condition their choices. The real literature meets these “requirements” in a more peculiar and interesting way. For example, Michael Cunningham (The Hours) creates his characters giving them an extraordinarily real humanity, and showing, even in their particularity and diversity, the everyday and universal problems of life.
Auster narrates stories, that are someway unusual, but, even if they are a little bit “strange” -Auster’s novels are metafictional ones, where concepts of fiction and reality are vague and elusive- they seem incredibly real. The most obvious example is the description -that may seem sometimes morbid, but it is absolutely not like that- all the natural functions of the protagonist. Mr. Blank is not an “artificially” constructed protagonist, it is so real that he can upset the reader for his disarming reality, that is described in details. And even if the reader knows that the whole novel is fictional –it seems that the author is admitting that- fiction is increasingly elusive and everything is observed by the reader that illudes himself that he can even talk to Mr. Blank, an elderly man who has his own health problems, more or less unpleasant, is neither very brave or very smart, it’s just a man, as who is reading. The reader observes Mr. Blank, he sees everything he does and says, even in the privacy of the bathroom: the reader is shocked, but continues to read what happens to this strange man without memory. And although he is disturbed by what he sees, the reader continues to read, reacting to Auster’s provocation. The game between the reader and the author is renewed, and the author wins.
Raggiotto Francesco
i don’t want to bother you too much, but i would like to know if my conceive about ballard’s quotation of the alien planet is quite right or if it goes beyond the task of this post, because i’m not sure if it something possible or if my opinion is just an erroneous link. i’ve fear to make my imagination too fast in future tasks.
thank you
elena giacomin
I saw the video on youtube and I understood very little about Ballard. At the beginning there is the interviewer who says that J.C.Ballard is a writer who wants to peel away (is it correct??!!) the surface of the world, who is fascinated by the connection between real world and imaginary one’s, which don’t exist, but he creates it. For Ballard the most safe country in the world, becomes the most fearful. It is a little bit strange what he thinks but I agree in part with his quotation because nowadays with all these injustices in the world, and this brutality, also the best person in the world, becomes the worst. I see the link, as you Mrs Ziraldo pointed out above, between Paul Auster (“in the country of last things”), Orwell (“1984”) and J.C.Ballard (“High-rise”). This last book was published in 1975 and was a sort of preoccupation for enclaved communities. In this book there is an apartment block whose prosperous and educated teenagers slowly repress into a state of savage. They don’t have any contact with the world around. I think it could be interested reading this novel, I have read the other 2 novels and I like them, because they deal with a particular argument: totalitarism, but honestly I have no time! As I write before, J.C.Ballard is a little bit strange because in this large interview he also says: >. I don’t like this part that’s why I would never read one of his books, which deals with this argument because I read every single day about things like this in the newspaper and I always see news on tv, yes it is the reality but I am too sad and angry for what happens in our world, in my country that I don’t want to feel anxious before I go to sleep, otherwise I couldn’t fall asleep. If I think about this dreadful things, I couldn’t live! I also agree with J.C.Ballard’s last quotation: >. I think that some sports prompt violence too but their influence on us depends also on our intelligence…
Santarossa Barbara
When i think of “Travels in the Scriptorium”, the first question that i would love to know is: ”Who changed the label?”. But immediatly hundreds of different questions come. All the book is a mystery, a train of unsolved issues: Who is Mr Blank??? Where is he??? Why is he there???
Another point that astonished me is “the end” ,but what end….there isn’t an end!!! Somebody can show me the end??? I don’t think so….
I completely agree with Eugenia that in class said that Paul Auster have describe some situations that were not essential and necessary to involve the readers…The fact that Paul Auster is vague about the life of the protagonist is already a form of involvement. For me, in the passages when he deals with “bodily functions” and “sexual pleasure”, he appears a little bit volgar. He used “spicy details” that make the characters of the story appear as a sexual-addicted person. Even the image that i draw in my mind of the women isn’t a good image…Both the two women appears as the object of man’s pleasure. They are submitted by the wish of Mr Blank…
Riccardo ,If i’m not mistaking, in class said that Mr Blank is like a child…I don’t agree with him. My point of view is that he is a pervert because if somebody told me that he wants to touch my breast, my first reaction is to slap him and i wouldn’t find any kind of compromise as the woman did….
In the video about James Ballard’s life and work the phrase that strikes me is when he said that he always creates a connection between the real world and the imaginary one, that exist only in his mind…For me it’s important to create your own world, where you can go when you are sad…it’s important to create a parallel world that goes near the railway of the real life…Two different railway that don’t across one another…the imaginary one can’t be contaminated by anybody!! It is secret world, nobody can see it, only you!!! It possible that the fact that happen in your world are the same that take place in the real world…..
The titles of the books that Ballard presents are a little bit worrying….I remember “The drowned world” that deals with a chatastophe…The solar radiation has caused the melting of the ice-caps and all the cities are submerged by the water and it creates a beautiful lagoons…The video show some wonderful images about this imaginary lagoons…it seems to be a paradise!!!!
But other book are really sad as ”The atrocity exhibition” that deals with every possible strange and painful events….
As Chiara, I think i can’t read books too much distressing because if i read, i read to relax….
DENISE MARTIN
“Travels in the scriptorium”…a very strange story which deals with metaphysical themes…It seems all real but it is only the result of our imagination…
There are lots of questions that come out from the story but they remains all open…unless an answer… A normal novel would have disclose all the enigmas at the end but in this case the author, Paul Auster, decides to leave them open. He does not want to reveal all the misteries…Who is Mr Blank?…Where is he and what has he done to the people who stay around him? Mr Blank himself does not know these things and it seems he does not do anything to try to understand…yes, he tries to watch out the window to discover where is he, but he always forget to ask it to his visitors (and it should have been the first and the most spontaneous thing to do!).
Another detail that somehow prod the reader is that of the door , he always ask himself if he is blocked inside the room or if he could go out everytimes he wants to, but he does not do anything to make this happen…It seems an incessant thought that bombards his mind as the other enigmas but he does not react. He does not go to the door to see if it is open and it is so easy!
He is somehow absent and he faces days as an unexperienced child…as if he does all for the first time…as if all around him was new.
I did not like so much this novel…it does not reflect my tates and maybe it is too twisted and compelling for me…when i read i would like to relax and to “travel” with my mind in a story already written, not to create my own one. Here Paul Auster leave the story open…I like the way how Sophie Harrison, in her review, describes the way how Paul Auster worked in this book, she said he is the teacher who gives the hints and the students (the readers) have to construct the sense…It is true and this quotation perfectly suits the book!
As regards J.G.Ballard i think that he has lots of correspondences with P.Auster. For example the themes…they both deal with strange things…car accidents, floods,extreme situations and apocalyptic visions for Ballard and metaphisical and unreal things for Auster…they “travel” a lot with their imagination!
A last thing…i totally agree with another sentence of Sophie Harrison concerning all the labels on the objects in Mr Blank’s room, she said that the reader remains so puzzled by this novel that he would like to place a label marked WHY? on Paul Auster!!!
Marson Chiara
Dear Francesco,
I compliment myself for the wonderful post you wrote. You did a wonderful job. However, I take the term “good literature” with a pinch of salt. You may find a book like the “Hours” a perfect example of “good literature”, but there are some literary critics that would not agree with you. They may agree with you as to its being a good novel, but they would not define it a masterpiece, or they would not annovarate it among the list of must-read books! I like the novel myself, with this comment of mine, I am just inviting you to reflect on the use of words. It would be great to discuss in class what you all consider “good literature”, what its features are, or better what a novel, poem, play, etc. should have to be considered an example of “good literature”.
Elena,
I’m sorry, but I have not understood your question. Ballard deals with the theme of loneliness/isolation (created by a world dominated by lack of true interaction, drugs, incoherence, lack of understanding, smothering atmosphere – be it because there are too many people living cheek by cheek and thinking about their well being only, etc.) and the need of finding someone who listens to you, who shares certain values and principles, who gives you love, etc. The city becomes symbolic of this smothering loneliness, this absence of constructive interaction. The city becomes a hellish place, where you run the risk of losing yourself. We will be reading some excerpts taken from “High-rise” which will exemplify this concept. I don’t know whether I have answered your query or not. If I haven’t, well, you know where you can find me! 🙂
Barbara,
You did not manage to attach the quotations, never mind, but I would have liked to read what puts you off about Ballard. As to you not feeling like reading certain authors now, I do understand. You are all under pressure and you are somehow “disappointed” by what you watch on tv or read in newspapers. Yet, as a teacher, I try to find links between what we deal with in class and your everyday’s life/existence. This is the reason why I confront you with certain authors. On top of that, Ballard is a dystopic writer himself, and in “High-rise” the setting is London, whereas in Paul Auster’s novels, it’s New York. Two capitals of two powerful and leading countries.
Denise,
thanks for your comment. I agree with you that reading is meant to relax us, but I would add that there are different kinds of reading we should do in our lives to become responsible citizens and thinking human beings. We read to relax, but we also read to be informed about certain issues, to be challenged in our views, to get to know what other people may think about an issue or how other people perceive the world around us, etc.
Chiara,
be careful with the use of adjectives such as “normal”, etc. Who establishes what is “normal”? I know what you wanted to say, though. The fact that the reader is always given the same kind of novel (problem is presented, solution is given) creates a canon. This makes readers react negatively when they read something that does not match this canon. This is what Auster does, he goes against the canon to awaken us, because by going against the canon, our expectations are not met, so we feel puzzled and perplexed. Whatever reaction we have (acceptance or dislike), there is a reaction. We are not left indifferent by the writer’s work, we respond to it! If we put the label “why”, then it implies we have been touched by the novel, we have been moved to a sort of reaction!
Thanks you all for your considerations. I loved reading them all.
“Travel in the scriptorium” is a modernist book. I mean: in this book we don’t find answers at human existence. The modernist movement doubt our language capacity. The essence of a thing is not given by a name. It’s also a modernist book because it doesn’t belong to a specific genre, but we find an union of genres and arts.
An example of what I said is in the labels: Mr. Blank knows all the things in the stanza from their names; one day they are changed. Auster wants to declare that a thing is that thing independently from his name. Moreover, as I have put out, there are many doubt, many questions that remains all open. This book gives no answers, it leaves our imagination free.
– Who is Mr. Blank? Why is he in that room? Why is he obliged to take the pills? Why that pills have different colours? Why he doesn’t go to the door? Who is the people photographed in the pile of sheets? What has he committed in his past? Why is he obliged to finish the story? –
Another thing to point out is the behaviour of Mr. Blank. His behaviour is the same as a children, that little by little learns to know his body: Mr Blank suffers of amnesia; we don’t know why but because of that, his behaviour looks like very funny. He gives a name at his penis [Big Shot]; he learns that he must go to the bathroom: he learns the basis functions of our body.
The ability of Paul Auster was to make us identify with the protagonist, Blank. We are sucked in the feeling of him. We are confused, muddled as if we are in that room, as if we have to finish the story, or as if we are undecided of going to the door or not. It looks like if we have to solve the mystery.
Also if it isn’t my genre of reading, I liked it because I lived with the protagonist, I felt his feelings. The no solution in a book is unusual because in the book I get used to read there is always a proposed key-reading. However, that particular gives to the work a subjective reading and it makes the book more “attractive”, puzzled and mysterious in the same time.
Monica Santi
When I first read the title “Travels in the Scriptorium”, it really made me curious about the meaning and about the story. The title is very stroking and, along with the cover, I think could tempt a potential reader to buy it. The cover is quite cold and empty but it implies mystery and surreal things ( I didn’t understand why in the other cover there is an horse in the middle of the room!!!). Then I began reading it and it was quite amusing the way the author presented the various pieces of the story that (I thought) by the end of the story should take a proper place in it. But I discovered soon that the whole process wasn’t going toward a right conclusion, so at the end of the story I felt really disappointed. Then I began thinking about this ending and I tried to make my own conclusion, and I realized I was doing exactly what Mr. Blank did, and maybe this was Paul Auster’s aim. At the very end I can’t say I am totally satisfied with the book but at least it wasn’t an heavy book, which takes you ages to finish it.
Concerning the “sexual pleasure” and “bodily functions” I didn’t feel “scandalized” (as Eugenia said) because I saw this thing as if Mr. Blank was a baby who was discovering again his body, the female body and obviously sex.
The thing I found most interesting was how the story was told: until the end you don’t realize that it is being told from the outside, that the focalization is external, but I had the feeling that it was told from Blank’s point of view.
Riccardo Bagattin.
One day in class you said that Paul Auster is a writer that can be only hated or loved, but the feeling that I have is more similar to indifference. However, it would be wrong say that it is not a good book, because (despite the modernist style I don’t like so much) it is well-written and the story is so absurd that it is quite interesting. But I have a strange impression, that this book born as a literary exercise, and the story came after the ending, that is quite disconnected from the plot.
About the connection between writing and reading, it is not a new idea, as the Hemingway’s document says, and this Auster’s novel is a “extremist” way to affirm that. Probably Auster wanted to underline more as possible this aspect, and the “shocking” final is a good choice, I can’t deny it.
Damiano Verardo
Firstly I have to admit that usually I’m not really keen on the kind of novel that “Travels in the scriptorium” is and I forced myself to read it until the end. This is because there is too much investigation over human feeling, thoughts, actions etc…The only investigative novel I can stand is a thriller!
Anyway, after this confession, I would like to point out something that I enjoyed of this novel.
I really appreciate the importance that the reader has in this novel, if you loose the attention for a second you can’t possibly go forward and you have to use your brain and your creativity to fully understand the meanings the novel have, it’s an hard work but it’s pleasant that an author give us such a credit; I think he gives us the power to choose how we want to read what he wrote (isn’t a Banana Yoshimoto’s where every single thought or feeling is explained, analyzed and rewrote three or four times…Sorry Banana).
I interpreted this book as the story of an author that forces himself and his creativity (represented by Mr Blank) that at the end of his work vanishes.
PS: I read that in Italy a family buy an average of SEVEN books, CDs and DVD in a year long. This is really astonishing! But guys, I have to say that regarding only the books we have to read for school we break the statistics! 😉
Francesca Cazorzi
I think I will never suggest “Travel in the scriptorium” to anyone because I find it very disappointing and too much mysterious . To tell you the truth, at the beginning I kept my prejudices aside and I started reading it quickly because I was really interested in discovering the development of the events. But more I proceeded, more I did not manage to come across with the identity and the “real” role of the different characters. In this way I have to say that Austster has been able to make the reader play an active role in the novel and instil him/her the curiosity, but I also think that he put sexual innuendos and also explicit action referred to Mr. Blank penis to catch the attention of the readers and give him/her the fuel to go ahead, in a sort of sensational development to intrigue the reader and heat his inner perverse side . If in the film “The inner life of Martin Frost” the characters have sex to withdraw vital energy from it, in this novel I picked up only a sense of frustration, dissatisfaction and inability of being a defined men. In fact Mr. Blank is in continuously searching of his identity, his story, whatever thing which could link him to the reality. Everyday he runs on different people, but the irritating thing is that you cannot know the role that this people are playing on; Auster didn’t explain it, they are only people which come in and out from the “white room” of Mr. Blank. As far as the themes and especially the end are concerned, I think Auster wanted to wear (a little bit) the clothes of Pirandello. Actually the author wanted to point out the multiplicity of the reality, the relativism of our World instead of the existence of one only absolute Truth. But if Pirandello was more clear in his story and only in the end he revealed the concept of relativism, Auster put all the story in a huge cloud of dust, all is suspended in the air, you cannot successfully complete. I Know that life is very close to this concept, but a novel structured in this way is really mental distressing.
Carolina Braghin
I liked the story in order to follow the mental process that involves writers.When Auster asks us to write a story ourselves, one of his purpose,is to give us the possibility to become writers ourselves and to make us able to understand the responsibility the author has towards his characters.He is like a prisoner of his own creations and he has always to be pure like a baby in order to reconstruct their psychology and to not take nothing as given.Irrationality is a prerogative of children and characters have the need of that. Also the sexual acts have to be interpret I did not like the book for its length: the narration is stopped in the middle and the reader loses his power to be the creative mind and feels like another character in the hands of Auster.The scenery is very similar to the one of a dystopian world,and that’s interesting because it gives us the suggestion that dystopia is not absurd,but is create directly by us,so it is not absurd that Orwell had written 1984.
Perin Marco
You wrote: “ Readers fill in the gaps for themselves, writing themselves into that small universe”. This is what I was not be able to do reading “Travels in the Scriptorium”. I don’t like this book. Reading it I was not involve. I entered the scene, but not the mind of Mr. Blank; I mean: when I read this kind of book, which purpose is to analise the phsicology of a human being, I aspected to enter in the mind of the character and start thinking as he does, as if I where him or recognise me in some of his actions and thoughts to see how human mind works in some cases. I can do that also with “Travels”, but not in the way I aspected and not while I was reading.
In this case I have not collaborated too much with the writer.
However, it is true that when you read you become part of the world of the book. Personally, when I read a book or I see a film, I become very very involved sometimes, when I recocgnise myself in a character and, because I like enter the phsicology of human being, I don’t know, I start reflect on the mistery of the mind and on how can we be so strange in some things…
Perhaps my mind is too strange and too intricate (like a clew) but I aspected something different by that book.
Giulia Canzi