MORNING WOOD

James Wood on the novels of Paul Auster.

Although there are things to admire in Auster’s fiction, the prose is never one of them. (Most of the secondhand cadences in my parody—about drinking to drown his sorrows, or the prostitute’s eyes being too hard and having seen too much—are taken verbatim from Auster’s previous work.) “Leviathan” (1992), for instance, is supposedly narrated by an American novelist, a stand-in for Paul Auster named Peter Aaron, who tells us about the doomed life of another writer, Benjamin Sachs. But Peter Aaron can’t be much of a writer. He describes Benjamin Sachs’s first novel like this: “It’s a whirlwind performance, a marathon sprint from the first line to the last, and whatever you might think of the book as a whole, it’s impossible not to respect the author’s energy, the sheer gutsiness of his ambitions.” Lest you are tempted to chalk all this up to an unreliable narrator—“But he’s supposed to write like that”—consider August Brill, the seventy-two-year-old literary critic who narrates Auster’s novel “Man in the Dark” (2008). Like Nathan Zuckerman in “The Ghost Writer,” he lies awake in a New England house, inventing fantastic fictions. (He imagines an alternative universe, in which America is fighting a bitter civil war over the fate of the 2000 election.) When he thinks about actual America, however, his language stiffens into boilerplate. Recalling the Newark riots of 1968, he describes a member of the New Jersey State Police, “a certain Colonel Brand or Brandt, a man of around forty with a razor-sharp crew cut, a square, clenched jaw, and the hard eyes of a marine about to embark on a commando mission.”

Comments

[Niall]

The link to the review is broken...or are you just being an unreliable narrator?

[Niall]

This one might work better:

http://www.newyorker.com/arts/critics/books/2009/11/30/091130crbo_books_wood

[TEV]

Fixed - thanks again, Niall

[Niall]

I really enjoyed this piece. Wood seems to be in the midst of a high critical summer, as his pieces of late have all been very good (I could not have said the same of his earlier work). Progress is good.

I always thought Auster was a fake post-modernist, and not even a "fake", which might have been interesting. His books read like summaries of Adult Swim cartoons, but taken seriously.

His work also illustrates the many, and it seems inevitable, pitfalls involved in trying to be "Nabokovian". Like Joyce before him, poor Nabokov has come to be known primarily as a stylist, and so those who want to write like him think it's largely a matter of achieveing a certain kind of style. But what all these writers fail to realize is that Nabokov's celebrated style isn't a style at all - it's a metaphysic. It is, at bottom, a philosopical stance towards the world. If you don't have that, don't even bother trying to write Nabokovian sentences.

John Banville went through a spell of this earlier in his career (e.g., The Book of Evidence), though he seems to have recovered from it. With Auster it seems to be in recurrent and end-stage mode.

[Neil]

It's interesting that James Woods is bashing Auster after that glowing review of Auster's ex-wife, Lydia Davis, where he insinuates that Auster's nastiness as a husband provided inspiration for her. I wonder if that has anything to do with this writeup.

[Ed]

For those with a taste for Auster-assassination, find a copy of Craig Raine's essay collection, 'In Defence of T.S. Eliot'. Raine begins (from memory) his review of Auster's memoir thus: "'Hand to mouth'? Even the title is a cliche". It gets nastier from that point on.

[Niall]

Neil - If so, Woods becomes a very unsavory person indeed. But, that said, his criticisms of Auster ring true independent of the details - sordid or otherwise - of Auster's domestic arrangements.

[(The Other) Niall]

One of the least welcome Wood tropes is the cack-handed parody of another writer's style. If the writer in question is so easy to copy (even semi-facetiously), then why does he get it so wrong every time?

[Niall]

I don't know. I think his pastische of Auster is pretty spot on. I think the real issue is that sometimes he seems to be channelling a very drunk Gore Vidal, and that makes his criticisms seem more personal than objective.

[(The Other) Niall]

I think parody (hello theme from another thread!) involves a certain light-handedness, and I don't thin even Wood's greatest defenders would argue that he has ever had a light touch.

But then poor old Gore never had a light touch either. Maybe flippancy is in the eye of the NYRB subscription holder.

[Niall]

Gore was himself a celebrated critic back in the day (70s and 80s), and a prolific essayist. I would not be at all surprised to discover that Wood has read all of them. Wood's tone, particularly the feline quality he sometimes assumes, is very, very Gore-ian. Gore once wrote a collective review of all the novels in the best seller list - if I republished it and put Wood's name on it, everyone would believe he had written it.

[(The Other) Niall]

"if I republished it and put Wood's name on it, everyone would believe he had written it"

You'd have to excise the namedropping, which is a good 30% of the original piece.

[Niall]

It's the name-dropping that adds to the authenticity.

[(The Other) Niall]

I just can't imagine Wood starting a sentence with, "The last time I saw Dorothy Parker alive ...". I mean, replace her name with Ian Hamilton, and New York with Shoeburyness, and you might be onto something - but it's a bigger editorial job than I think you first envisaged.

[Niall]

Give him time, give him time. Not enough of his writers have died yet.

[Neil]

This thread is reminiscent of an Auster tale. With Nialls, other Nialls and Neils all around. I bet we're all the same person somehow.

[Niall]

If you think a mere, plebeian Neil can insinutate himself into the exclusive Nialls club, you are sadly mistaken my friend.

[Niall]

Actually, the more I think of the Gore Vidal/James Wood comparison, the more I realize what a powerful critic Vidal really was. He singlehandedly resurrected Dawn Powell's reputation and got all her books back in print with one article in the NYRB. I don't think Wood has that kind of power...yet. It will be interesting to see whether he ever develops it.

[SG]

Um, sorry, but considering that no one on God's green earth remembers who Dawn Powell is, I think Wood has already surpassed that. And I don't even like the guy.

[Niall]

I know who Dawn Powell is, and so do lots of other people, because of Gore's essay. That essay also got all her major works back into print. And I doubt very much Dawn Powell is the only writer you've never heard of.

[bruckner]

Also introduced Calvino to most English-speaking readers.

[Niall]

Yep. Indeed he did. But then, I doubt SG has ever heard of Calvino.

[(The Other) Niall]

"I doubt SG has ever heard of Calvino"

Or if he has, he may have heard of him through routes other than Vidal. And Vidal is only (slightly) likely to have been your introduction to Calvino if you're American. Alas for some, the English-speaking world is rather larger than that.

[Niall]

Oh, nice piece of snobbery there. But it's not really supported by the facts. Gore's seminal essay on Calvino was very timely - it appeared only one year after Calvino's major novels were published in the early 70s. Gore's was also the first general overview of those novels to be published, and his essay was widely read in the UK as well (the NYRB is itself widely read among the British literati). So it's not clear that you can restrict the influence of this essay solely to the US.

Calvino also had very great and deep associations with the US, particularly New York. He spent a lot of time here, and lectured here often. Don't know that he had any significant ties to the UK or other English speaking countries.

Given all of this, I don't think it's true that the US came later to Calvino than other English speaking countries.

[(The Other) Niall]

"I don't think it's true that the US came later to Calvino than other English speaking countries."

Well, I never said that, but now that you mention it all of his books up to Il castello dei destini incrociati (1969) did appear in Britain much earlier than they appeared in America. It was only when Le città invisibili appeared in 1974 that British and American publications harmonised - and the US was left with a lot of catching up to do.

"nice piece of snobbery there"

Oh, you know, decrepit European colonialism and all that. I'm only playing the role you'd have me play.

[SG]

Hmm, you know, maybe Wood, as the father of a young daughter, just wanted to smack a writer like Auster who would sign the Polanski petition. Something any decent human being would want to do. Objectivity be damned.