You think it will never happen to you, that it cannot happen to you, that you are the only person in the world to whom none of these things will ever happen, and then, one by one, they all begin to happen to you, in the same way they happen to everyone else.
Your bare feet on the cold floor as you climb out of bed and walk to the window. You are six years old. Outside, snow is falling, and the branches of the trees in the backyard are turning white.
Speak now before it is too late, and then hope to go on speaking until there is nothing more to be said. Time is running out, after all. Perhaps it is just as well to put aside your stories for now and try to examine what it has felt like to live inside this body from the first day you can remember being alive until this one. A catalogue of sensory data. What one might call a phenomenology of breathing.
–from 'Winter Journal'; Paul Auster (2012)
4 comments:
Brian,
How is the Auster journal? I've heard mixed things but I really, really like his fiction and the few memoir pieces that I've come across.
Eh, probably for Auster fans only or people that want insight into the life of a writer.
Have you read Sunset Park? Its his most recent work of fiction and if you like his other books, don't leave that one out!
Thanks, Brian. I haven't read Sunset Park; the most recent one I've read is Man in the Dark. I think I'd like Winter Journal, based on the snippets you've given.
I just finished overseeing Conversations with Paul Auster, a collection of interviews edited by James Hutchisson. You might find it illuminating; I certainly enjoyed helping bring it to fruition.
I'll be sure to take a look at Conversations, as I've read all of Auster's books and consider myself a 'fan'.
Re Winter Journal, when I commented, I was only about two thirds of the way through, but the best is towards the end. Its the middle section that was a little flat for me.
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