I know that most of you have not finished reading "Man in the Dark" yet. So, don’t panick. This is just a post to invite you to start working on the novel, so that we can start discussing about it in class.
The following video (pretty long, don’t get shocked!) shows you Paul Auster reading different excerpts from his latest novel. At the end there are some questions he answers. I would love you to listen to the questions and take notes of the answers. If you have not started reading the novel, it would be nice for you to flick through the pages of the book guided by Paul Auster’s voice. If you have already finished the book, then you can skip the reading of the excerpts and get directly to the interview.
Brill’s protagonist is Owen Brick, a young man who wakes up in a hole in the ground to find himself transported between Americas: "Brill hears machine guns, exploding grenades, and under it all, no doubt miles away, a dull chorus of howling human voices.
Auster employs familiar post-modern techniques to mirror the crazy logic of nightmares. Brick is told by another character in the story that he can stop the war if he finds Brill and kills him: the civil war is only happening because a disgruntled old man is thinking it up.
Brill distracts himself with only partial success. His thoughts keep drifting back to his dead wife and suffering daughter and granddaughter. By day he watches films, one after another, with Katya, who was a film studies student before her bereavement. 
Lying awake, Brill replays their conversations about Tokyo Story and other classics. These interludes are light relief for the reader: Auster on film is diverting and interesting. But then the nightmare returns. "Think dark, then, and go down into it, see it through to the end."
Towards dawn, Katya arrives in her grandfather’s room and they lie next to one another talking frankly about his life.
He wonders if the intimate details are too much to share. She tells him no, "It’s my fault. I’ve turned this into Truth Night at Castle Despair, and now that we’ve started, we might as well go all the way."
What they don’t talk about, can’t talk about, is the internet video of Katya’s husband’s gory execution in
Pierluca.
So, there are some things that I would like to ask Paul Auster. First of all in the book there is a strong connection between real and unreal; the two worlds that seem separate at the beginning, are revealed so many next one to other. So, the first thing that I would to know is which kind of link Paul Auster thinks are between real and unreal.
Secondary in the novel there is a clear criticism about Bush’s government and about the war in Iraq. Paul Auster had imaged that “Iraq had never existed” but in America there is a civil war. But why the author thinks that the only way that the Americans can walk is a way with a war? Are American population so violent and unstable?
The third aspect that I would make clear is the theme of the solitude. Both in “Man in The Dark” and “Travels in the Scriptorium” there is a man alone with him-self. Have this two character some things of Paul Auster? Is Man in the Dark a sort of autobiographical novel?
About the two covers, I think that the American cover is more real than the European. The former shows the political meaning of the novel, the latter is more imaginative: for the beauty I would choose the European cover, for the sense the American one
i think that the more appropriate cover for this book is the firstone because it rapresents perfectly the vision that the autor would give to the reader of the condition of loneliness that Owen Brick has at the very beginning of the story. although the second-one brings the reader to a sort of an other immaginary world i think that the first one center the point of the story and so is better.
My three questions are:
-have you ever feel fear of some ripercassion for what you have written??
-you write this book but you were influenced more by your political opinions or by your opposition to the all system??
-what do you aspect to create in the mind of the reader??
luca
At the beginning of the novel it seems that Auster wanted to take revenge on someone by making the main character a 72 years old literary critic with multiple mifortunes: his sister may have committed suicide, his wife has recently died, his daughter and granddaughter are deeply unhappy and he suffers from insomnia and walks with a crutch because his leg has been mangled in an accident. It seems that Auster likes to inflict disasters on his characters!
Why be so cruel and heartless in the creation of August Brill?
Also if I enjoy it, at the end the novel tastes as a new “Travels in the Scriptorium”, rewritten in a semi realistic vein.
How would you respond if I said that “Man in the Dark” is merely a remaking of “Travels in the Scriptorium” arranged to the actuality and with some politic intentions?
The novel is the narration of a sleepless night, in which August Brill invents a character named Owen Brick, a happily married 29 years old man who wakes up in a parallel contemporary world where the United States is fighting a civil war. Brick is told by another character in the story that he can stop the war if he finds Brill and kills him: the war is only happening because a spooky and bored old man is thinking it up. But it is actually Auster, not Brill, the one bringing the horrors of war into fictional existence.
Using this technique of the “story within the story” (metafiction) don’t you feel a “Man in the dark” too?
The cover that I prefer is the first one because it reminds me the image of a lonely and powerless dead man, which embodies better the eerie sense of nervousness, dreaminess and vagueness of the novel.
Alessandro Piccin
Three questions for Paul Auster:
About the cover: I prefer the European cover only because the American one is too linked with Owen Brick and not with the protagonist-author of the book (August Brill). This is the only reason.
MrLory1990
Before talking about Man In The Dark, which i really appreciate, in spite of the previous reading of “Travels in The Scriptorium”, i would like to express my disappointment about the date of Paul Auster’s visit. I think it’s simply absurd that we will not have the possibility to meet him after all the efforts we’ve made for him. It seems rather impossible that nobody knows his date of coming before the definitive plan of our school trip. I don’t know who is responsible for the delay in the communication of the meeting, but it’s blatant there should have been a better organization! Personally, I feel very very frustrated because i think we had to be informed before, as a form of respect towards us. I liked so much “Man In The Dark” that i really wanted to listen and talk to Paul Auster about its issues, at least to see the person who, indirectly, has made us work so hard!
Anyway…What caught me most in the novel has been the touching narration of August Brill’s life, with its ups and downs, as everyone’s. The language he used to describe his youthful and innocent feelings is so simple, effective and striking that it doesn’t really seems the one spoken by an old man with a writing career behind. And that’s the reason why it reveals to be so actual and easy to understand and own by the reader, also by a young and foreign one, like we are.
Some scenes are as true and vivid as they were shot in a film so, in my opinion, it’s almost impossible the author didn’t live them personally and then readact them to the story. I mean, his life certainly hasn’t been so painful as Brill’s, in fact “Man In The Dark” is a novel, not an autobiography! (so, this is my first implicit question, but as it’s too personal, i think Auster would have never answered me, if i had asked it to him).
Then August goes on with his life-story,narrating all his past and present troubles to his grandaughter Katya,, throughout the long dark night.
Many sad events have destroyed his initially untroubled and cheerful life, some of which were only his fault, others have happened just because of randomness (the famous Auster’s randomness).
He deals with a lot of themes which belong to our contemporary world: couple crysis , followed by divorces or even cruel deaths, injustices and cheatings of all types, even among families.
And Katya listen to all his stream of thoughts, state descriptions and painful revelations, asking more whenever August takes a break. Katya is so desperate for her former boyfriend’s bloody death that she can do anything but passively listen to him; and, compared to her short but sad life , his grandfathers’s appears to have been so exciting and full of deep changes, that she thinks he cannot and he musn’t complain about the mistakes he has made in many circumstances. I’m sure Katya learnt a lot from that night and i can imagine her, after August death, remembering that night spent in that dark room where she inherited the weight of the memories of an entire life. My second question is, indeed, how much does he think is important for a young boy/girl to learn from and treasure someone else’s mistakes, especially when the person is trying to give him/her advice really loves him/her and wants to help him/her to find a solution of his/her problems?
There is also an excerpt i would like to quote because i found it very deep as it opened my mind about a lot of issues: “I walked around with a feeling that my life had never truly belonged to me, that i had never truly inhabited myself, that i had never been real. And because i wasn’t real, I didn’t understand the effect I had on others, the damage I could cause, the hurt I could inflict on the people who loved me.” Any other word would be pointless to be written
I also liked so much the descriptions of particolar scenes in the films viewed by the characters and the specific role every object played inside them. Although Auster, by means of Katya’s words, says that films are merely “a distraction of watching other things” that help her to carry on, he appears to be a great cinema expert and he increases the value of movies, as a source of thinking stimulation and and improvement of critical sense. So I would also like to ask him which of the latest films has come up so far, he would suggest me watching . Which one has impressed you most and why? Where can i find in it some key scenes such as those you described in the novel?
Owen Brick’s story is very strange and interesting but i think Auster shows his best capabilities in the second part of the novel. The parallel American dimension suddenly vanished in Brill’s mind, in the same way as it came up at the beginning, and Brick’s useless death left me a little bit astonished.
As for the book covers, i like both of them and i can’t say which one represents better the novel themes. Anyway I think covers are important just to sell more the book, but the really important things are those you can read when you open it and forget the book cover itself!
Sorry for the initial vent, but it has to be done
Simone 😀
I must admit that I really liked this book instead of “Travel in the Scriptorium”. I feel I little astonished by the previous comment of Simone. It’s very deep!! so…in front of this I don’t know what saying..:). Well…i said that I really liked this book because I like the idea of this man with a destroyed family and that he has two friends: the dark and his imagination. Thanks to these he travels with his mind…he invents new stories, new person with own life…he is the god of his stories…and I like look this book through this point of view, because very often happened to me to travels in other countries, meeting other people with own experience of life…and I do this to escape from my life…in this way also August Brill wants to escape from his life also to understand the human psychology.
Between two covers I prefer the first one because the attention is on the contrast between figure of the man on the ground that is without colour and the American flag that has his colours…Auster wants to leave the readers to think and reflect about the Bush’s America.
Like Giulia Canzi I would know…
-why are so interested by human psychology?
then..
-In what way and sense do you feel as August Brill
-what is your hope with new America of Obama?
Laura Sist
I want to be sincere with you: I really don’t like this book. I mean the subject of an introspection in human psycology is interesting but it isn’t really my genre of novels.
Do you want to know? I hate the character of August Brill, I think he’s a coward. How can he lies in his bed and hope for someone to kill him? I think that in our lives we must take a decision, wahtever it will be, but we must take it. He simply doesn’t take.
In front of a huge sorrow we must react in some way, we can’t stay there and look at the wall of sorrow and say “ok, so you stay there and I stay here and we pretend not to see each other”. You simply can’t! And the reaction of August Brill is the one to invent a man, Owen Brick, that has to kill him; but at the end is Brick who dies, not Brill. So I questioned myself “but at which game are we playing?“.
Antoher point: Owen Brick. I feel desperate for him. It seems as Brill is a dragon, an horrible snake who wants to eat evrything around him to give and end to his huge hungry. And Owen seems to be the poor prey of this horrible snake. Does Owen is only a character or does he is a real person?
Because…if Owen is a real person it means that maybe we are like that person, maybe there is a Writer who write about us and our problems and our difficulties and our pains, and at the end He simply makes us die when we are nearly the reaching of the target.
that’s terrible! I don’t want to think that although all my efforts to face my problems, to take important decision, at the end, someone make them go into ash.
For what concern the covers of the book i like most the european one for only one reason: I looked at it, you know I love work with images, and looking at it I feel as I am nothing. The nature is the subject of the image, not an human or an human thing. Only nature, and the moon is like a big eye that looks down at the Earth. The Man in the Dark. Who is Man in the dark? Who is that decide the destiny of human beings, of the entire America? Is the moon the Man in the dark? We are nothing, although our efforts if the Man in the Dark wants to make us die, we die then.
I’ll present my version of “Man in the dark” cover.
As for the questions.
1) Do you feel more as Brick or Brill? I mean: Do you feel omnipotent as a god when you’r writing or do you feel always as a nothing?
2) There is a fight between Brick and Brill. Brill wins. Why? In your opinion there is the possibility that a human can win the “god”?
3) For you is writing a sort of expiation?
Giulia Raineri
1) In your opinion, what would be America today if ten years ago Al Gore had won the elections instead of Bush?
2)In your novels is always present the theme of chance, but have you ever taken inspiration from a singular happening of your life?
3)For you, being a writer is more a job or is still a passion?
4)Have you never thought that your books and films would be used in order to force students to write in English?
I prefer the American cover, because it reflects better the state of static agitation of August Brill, in fact the image is calm but it drives the mind to suspect some dark fears hiding in the night.
I enjoyed Man In The Dark more than Travels In The Scriptorium, and a particular reason is that the second has an intertextualiy I have not understood perfectly, while the first refers to movies I have seen or at least I have read about.
Damiano Verardo
The very day you gave us the books, I began to read “Man in the dark” and I got involved immediately. Then I stopped
reading it because we had to read “Travels in the scriptorium”
for first, but I was very curious about its developement.
I liked the story of Owen Brick and when he died I was astonished: I was wondering about the content of the last 60 pages, and I imagined a return of Brick in some way. But his return didn’t came and the author went on describing the life of Brill.
I surely prefered reading the story of Brick, endowed with a bit of action, but I appreciated even Brill’s one for different reasons. Firstly because it gave me many cues of reflection: many little stories with a content. For example the story of Titus: he decides to go to Iraq to have a
different experience. He feel unuseful, unable to do anything,
and he wants to change his life. Even before reading the book
I was scared of that condition: to became adult, look back to my life, and discover that nothing has happened, that I have lived as everyone else. I probably won’t do an extreme job as him, because I’m trying not to be in that condition one day, but I understand Titus’s decision.
I liked even the story of Alec Foyle, the one about the Jewish
family saved by an SS. Apart from the story itself, which I don’t know whether it’s true, I liked the image of someone telling a story of his old relatives, a story that nobody
asked and hasn’t great ripercussions on the present. It
reminded me of my grandmother, when she tells me stories of
her life, or stories of someone else, that I don’t know. They are stories without a meaning, maybe without a conclusion, but it’s nice to listen to them, just to remember the past, and the people who lived it.
Even the last part of the book was a “true” story and there we
have stories, in the story, in the story, a characterizing element in Auster’s novels.
“As the weird world rolls on”. I like this quotation. It seems like the Heraclitus’s one “panta rei”: everything change and time never stops. Brick lives and then Brick dies, Titus dies and the life of Katya and Brill continues, because that’s what has to happen. We can just remember of the past, and we have to face the future.
I prefer the second cover: it gives the idea of the quietness of the night and of the solitude of Brill. It suggests better the idea of the dark, of the unknown.
3 questions for Paul Auster:
– Has the story that Brill tells to Katya something true, or it’s completely invented?
– Before the elections in November, who did you think was
going to win?
– Are you thinking about a new book? What kind?
Pietro Perin
i really enjoyed this book, but i should read twice to understand all the passages and all the symbols Auster used! the plot was really rich and sofisticated, and I appreciate the fantastic way to connect the two stories.
This reading was a real surprise, since much more enjoyable of “Travels in the scriptorium, and captivating in its affairs. the three questions are:
1) which aspects of your life have influenced the make out of this book (es. family, work…)?
2) you are a smart person, so what kind of character should you be in an hypothetical auto-referential book?
3) As a writer, what do you think about the civil war in Sudan? could you find any solution?
thank you, Matteo Cervesato!
Reading Man in the dark it was a surprise for me: I really appreciate the reading even if there are some points that I didn’t like. As Pietro writes I was surprised when Brick died unexpectedly and I was curious to know what were about the last 60 pages. I thought that Brill would change the end, that it would be a coup de theatre, but I was wrong. I read about the story of Brill from his adolescence to his adulthood; his doubts, his mistakes. Some parts were interesting, other not so much, but it was a pleasant reading.
I found interesting that August Brill is similar to Mr Blank, the character of Travels in the Scriptorium. So I would like to ask to Paul Auster if there is a reason of this similarity.
Another theme in common with Travels in the Scriptorium is the solitude of each character. It seems that this is an important theme for Paul Auster. Why?
I liked the critic that Auster did to the Bush’s Government and to the war in Iraq. I think that in Italy it wouldn’t be possible to do the same thing. So at least in the USA there is freedom of press. But you never have some doubts about possible repercussions of this book because of his politic position?
I definitely prefer the European cover that leaves space to the imagination that is, in my opinion, the best thing of books. It represents something not very definite, so I prefer it.
Federica Battistin
“Travels in the scriptorium” doesn’t catch me very much, but “Man in the dark” is a very interesting book. “Man in the Dark“ creates an alternate universe in which the twin towers never toppled, the war in Iraq never began, and instead the United States wages against itself, divided in civil war. More than a compelling what-if, Auster’s book confronts the most important questions of our times in a way that is gut-wrenchingly real. Also the language and the themes are very attractive and exciting. I must admit that Paul Auster has a very lively imagination.
Auster chooses an ailing literary critic named August Brill, who lives in the same house as his daughter and granddaughter. It seems as if pain is what binds these family members together: there’s Brill, who’s mourning the loss of his wife to cancer and mending from a car crash that shattered his leg. Brill’s daughter Miriam is recovering from a divorce, and his granddaughter Katya watches film after film to numb herself from the reality of her boyfriend’s horrific murder. Brill creates a war story where America is in a civil war, Auster takes advantage from the story to reveal some critics to Bush’s government and to the Iraq war and the causes of the crisis.
Reading the novel there are some question I would like to ask to Paul Auster:
– What does Paul Auster accuse to his father in his childhood?
– Why does Paul Auster critic Bush with a book only now, has he feel fear of some repercussion for what he has written?
– What is the intent of Paul Auster with “Man in the dark” about the riders?
– What is his ideas about the new president Obama?
Thanks,
Plazzotta Federico
Oldness, love, books, history, family, fear of war, disease, writing … these themes are present in the beautiful novel by Paul Auster.
The title evokes the darkness and conveys the difficulty of continuing to live of Augustin Brill, especially in darkness of the night. The protagonist is victim of a car crash and constricted to the immobility and widower of the beloved Sonia. He has accepted the invitation of his daughter Miriam and granddaughter Katya, whose boyfriend, Titus, was a horrible death in Iraq. The nights of the old man are dramatic: because of the sleeplessness he invents stories, one of which has large space in the novel. In a game of Chinese boxes, Auster makes a story in the other. The writer imagines two parallel Americas: in one of these is a new civil war, with a secessionist states, but while remaining contemporary to the real, it has not experienced the collapse of the Twin Towers, nor the war in Iraq. But despite the desire to escape into a fantasy world, Brill can not avoid his life and his memories. His granddaughter Katya, while its devastating pain, is able to make his grandfather live again his wonderful love story with her grandmother, Sonia who was a French singer full of mysterious charm.
A novel that begins as a tale of death and ends with a surge of optimism family: three generations through love can be reconciled in a world that in the beginning of the novel had been reported hopeless.
Francesco marson
Ops, I forgot the questions 🙂
Regarding the covers, I prefer the second because it represents one of those nights where you put Brill sleepless imagine, even if the first with the imprint of man with the American flag is more significant. The three questions to Paul Auster are:
– What is the role the family takes in this novel? Is the result of your personal experience?
– In the story of Brill, the twin towers have never fallen: do you think their collapse was just a pretext for Iraq war?
– What do you want to communicate by telling the personal misfortunes of Brill?
FRAncescoMARSon
I found the novel “Man in the Dark” very interesting, especially for the importance given to imagination and to the choice of the story within the story. I like the power and the ability of imagination to upset the situation and make it close to fiction. The plot of “man in the dark” is truly very involving, because, with imagination, Brill has the capability to change the reality and get away from it (eg. Twin Towers). I think the first cover, with the shape of a man in the ground is striking and somewhat “disturbing” but I prefer the second because it suggests the idea of darkness (a darkness that is not empty, because in it Brill, or anyone else, can see a parallel and personal reality).
My three questions are:
-Why so much importance to imagination and human beings introspection? is there a period in your life in which imagination was essential to move forward, as for Brill in your novel?
-As said in an interview seen in a previous post, do you think that this novel could have some ripercussion on the readers?
-Why did you choose to deal with war?
Federica Cozzarin
Simone, I think you are as dissapointed as I am. I think your classmates and you worked really well on the project and it is really a pity that your trip was organised in the same period as Paul Auster’s visit of Pordenone. It is nobody’s fault. You had to organise your school trip way in advance and even if it was known that Paul Auster would be the guest of Dedica, it was not sure when he would make it to Pordenone, since he is a busy writer. When I was informed about the precise date, I told you straightaway. Unfortunately your trip is linked to another class, so nothing could be done about it. Perhaps it is difficult for you to understand that organising such event is not easy. It involves institutions and schools. Unlike last year, Paul Auster could come in April, the time of the year when lots of final year classes have their schooltrip. Since Dedica is not part of the class project (as it happens with 5H) the teachers did not take it into consideration when they organised the schooltrip. I was so sorry and I can imagine how sorry you felt. This makes me happy, somehow, because it means you liked working on him and you appreciated the work I did with you. Let’s look at the positive side of things.
As to the quotation you mention, well, thanks. I love it myself. I think it is so true and at the same time so difficult to “stick to”. I am sure we all hurt people in one way or another, even if we don’t mean to. We will see this when we analyse “The Ballad of Reading Goal” by O. Wilde when you come back from your schooltrip!
Giulia, you know that as a teacher I have always promoted a sincere interaction both inside and outside the classroom. I really appreciate when my students tell the truth. This is what school should promote, shouldn’t it: free expression of speech and thought. The very fact that you are expressing your ideas so openly is proof of a great achievement.
Pietro thanks for Heraclitus’s quotation. I did not remember it. You refreshed my memory.
I am so very proud of you folks and I am sure Mr. Auster would really appreciate your obsevations if he read them. We know he does not like using the computer, but we never know. Perhaps he is reading us this very moment, who knows.
first of all i find positive and negative points in all the 2 covers. the american one highlites mostly the character of owen brick, the nonsense of the war, and the criticism to the american political line; the european one emphasizes instead the real character of august brill, and his state of insomnia, the darkness that it’s always present. i personally don’t like the american cover because ( it is somehow a stupid answer ^__^”’) gray is the predominant colour of the image and i cannot image it in the novel, and ( ok it is more intelligent ) because the mark in the groud seems something that only a far heavy corpse can produce, and owen brick is only a ghost, or…well, it is a bit illogic even if it is a real human body. perhaps i don’t understand properly the real meaning of the cover, the flag and the mark but i think it is an exageration of the critique against american war. on the other hand, i think the european cover rapresents a romantic night, not a night populated by nightmares and insomnia.
i really appreciate paul auster’s reading of some extracts of his book, expecially the opening part. once he began to talk i immediatly figured out the atmosphere and as long as he read i overlapped the character of august brill with the author, something that only few people can evoke.
now i would like to ask to paul auster:
– which cover do you find more suitable to the themes present in your novel?
– do you think that humanity will begin to escape from this darkness, after the election of a democratic president like Obama?
– isn’t it a little bit cruel create a character with a so anguishing and cataclismic life or do you think that only a person like august brill ( with his situation) can imagine a figure like brick?
elena giacomin
In my opinion it is always exciting listening to an author that reads his novel, as well as it is exciting taking part to a concert of your best singer. When they read/sing their novel/song they imbue them with their energy and their passion, they are more confident with their work than the simple reader or listener, they know the best way to interpreate it and make us feel more involved in the novel/song. It is also nice to see how they are proud of their work and watching Mr Auster while he was reading “Man in the Dark”, catches my attention more than anything else. I’ve found really interesting watching his face and listening to his voice (while he was reading), instead of searching the excerpts in the book and reading them, I was focusing my attention on the relation between the writer and his work; his expression passes on a feeling of sorrow because of the story (a cry of pain), as if he wanted to personify August Brill. Brill is the main character of the novel, the man in the dark, in the dark of his sorrow, in the dark of his life.
I’m very uncertain by choosing the best cover. Both of them suit the story of the book, but I think there is something missing in both covers. The european one expresses very well the condition of darkness, with this dark landscape, whereas the american cover focuses on the man’s figure. I think that if it is possible to join the two covers, the new one will suit best the book. =) I’m also curious to know what does Mr Auster think about the two covers!!
I’ve appreciated the answer of Mr Auster concerning how to make a film and Auster’s relation between writing a book and shooting a film. Undoubtly, shooting a film is more exacting than writing a novel, but he does not give up and he goes on with this purpose of creating a film because it gives lots of chance to grow up and create friendships (according with what Auster said in the video).
Carla Cipolla
I think that the American cover is more involving and interesting than the European version.
In the European cover is underlined a dark landscape and a starry sky with a full moon above all. It does not catch me the attention as the American cover does.
In the other cover a figure of a man is designed on the floor as this man was buried. This figure has an american flag on his left hand.
Every day August Brill tells himself a story about a parallel world where America is the protagonist. He writes to distract himself from his personal problems:he has lost his wife;Katya,his granddaughter has lost his husband in war and Miriam,his daughter has dovorced.
In the ending part of the book is described how Titus(Katya’s husband) died.The jailers are so cruel and torture him.They release to the relatives a video of Titus execution in Iraq.
This part is quite terrific but reveals the greatness of Paul Auster.
GIULIA MARZIO
Listening Me Auster reading his books make you feel different sensation compared with the ones you can experience reading the same words by yourself! The author, that just wrote those words, can give them the right intonation and intensity and make you understand what he really wanted to express when he wrote those words!
I think that the European cover is just wonderful! Its colours and even the colour of the title suit best the idea of darkness! It reproduces a landscape but all is dark and obscured! Even the moon appears far and opaque! All these elements give the idea of a Man in the Dark., of a man who can’t find any benchmark, any road for a new life and to the light! The first time I saw that cover I immediately wanted to start reading this book! I think this cover is very attractive and alluring! On the other hand I have a bad opinion of the American cover ! That shadow of a man pressed on the earth make me feel anguished, I don’t know exactly why but, that cover doesn’t make me want to read that book!! That’ s why is better not to be influence by the cover of a book ! Sometimes you risk to miss a wonderful book only because of its not inviting appearance!!!
—Nadal Martina—
As I told you for “Travels in the scriptorium”, Auster’s way of writing did not fascinate me, but I’m completely sincere when I say that I liked most “Man in the Dark”. I appreciated the idea of introducing an other world, different from ours. I understand the emotional state of the protagonist: it’s quite normal to imagine a new view of the world, a new situation when somebody lives in a situation like Brill’s.
However Auster’s decision of changing something that happened after 11th September 2001 (included), give me the idea that Auster never accepted those facts up to remove them in one of his novels. I am not saying that he has to say that the attack to Twin Towers was right obviously, I am just saying that he seems to tell his story trying to change the past. In many interview, journalists asked him if he was rejecting his country’s story: he ever answered “No”, but he repeated many times that he had never accepted the victory of Bush. I am not a moralist but let bygones be bygones, so it has no sense to continue this attack. But this is just my modest opinion.
Let’s talk about covers…I like the second cover because, in my opinion, it gives the idea of the darkness of the night opposed to the light of the moon (also the name Brill let us think about something “brilliant”: so a brilliant man in the dark). But I also like the Italy’s cover in spite of the very little image.
Elena Poles
“Man in the dark” is one of the best novels ever written by Paul Auster.The main character,a 72-year old man,August Brill,tries not to think about his great pain (he has recently lost his wife) by telling him self a story about a parallel world,where America is afflicted by a terrible civil war begun after Bush presidential election in 2000.
The novel becomes a sort of critique to the Iraq war and to all the useless wars that cause lots of deaths,especially among young men,enlisted to fight for their motherlands.
It reflects also the author’s disapproval to the government of Bush by setting the war in his nation,destroyed by his citizen not by the bombs of the middle-east terrotists.
Moreover this book is a real cry of pain.it is embued drenched with a great sorrow,caused by the imaginated war and by personal situation,the main characters of the novel suffer because of the loss of a beloved person.I think that the most important point of this book is not Bush or politics but the sorrow that is inborn in our existence as human beings and that we can’t avoid.
The book cover I liked the most is the italian one,which rewpresents a night-landscape,it symbolizes the daytime when Brill imagines the story and the dark moments that the characters and the entire world are going through.
Montrasio Valentina
I like the american cover more than the italian one. It is more attractive; in this picture you are given more details that make you think of a possible plot, so the book becomes more catching and a possible buyer is more encouraged to read it. If I had to buy one of these two books, I would choose the one with the american cover. The image communicates loneliness, brittleness; the American flag is reduced to a little hanky and lies there, among the dried leaves. Whereas the italian cover highlightes more the name of the writer and the title; there are not so many elements on which you can base a possible story: the night sky is a little bit too trivial, it says nothing special to me.
Paul Auster’s reading was strange to me; it is unusual to read the book and then listen to the author reading it himself! Anyway, I found it very interesting and curious, and I watched the video with pleasure.
During our interview with Paul Auster I felt like I had a 360° knowledge of his poetic and private life, so I found it very very useful!
Jana Stefani
Elena, none of your considerations are either superficial or stupid! You are too smart a student to write silly things. I found your observations interestingto and to the point.
Carla, the idea of changing the book cover is nice, why didn’t you do that for the Dedica Project? You seem to have clear ideas about what the best cover should be. We listened to Paul Auster’s words here in Pordenone and we understood how much he cherishes frienship. Even Wim Wenders’s homage video is evidence/proof of the relevance and power of frienship in Auster’s life.
Giulia, I agree with you when you underline the power of Auster’s language when he writes about Titus’s death/execution. Even Anna Bonaiuto’s wonderful performance of these pages reveals the mesmerizing and yet terrifying experience readers are asked to undergo when they read or listen to this passage. Unfortunately Auster was not present at Bonaiuto’s reading of his novel. If he had, I am sure he would have appreciated her performance, her brilliant life interpretation of part of his novel.
Martina, a cover is important, but it is not the author choosing it. So I think a good reader knows s/he should look at the blurb too, not just the image on the dust jacket/book cover. Like you, I love listening to the author reading from his book. It changes the impact of language on you.
Elena, unfortunately you could not attend the conferences or interviews organized by Dedica, because you were away on a school trip. If you had listened to Paul Auster’s replies to the myriad of questions he was asked, you would understand why he dedided not to mention the 9/11 tragedy. I invite you to read Valentina’s answer. It may help you understand Mr. Auster’s point.
Jana, I think that most of you prefereed the English cover to the American one. You disclose interesting things about the image on the American dust jacket