Faber, 2023
202 p.
ISBN 978-0-571-38493-8
Post hau ingelesez dago.
Baumgartner is Paul Auster‘s 18th novel, published just 6 months before his death in April, 2024. It seems to have a significantly different tone than his other works. Starting in 2018, the book follows the life of Sy Baumgartner, a 71-year-old writer and university professor, widowed and clearly missing his wife, during the next two years.
Memories take Baumgartner back to 1968 when he met Anna, then to her death a decade ago, his own parents, his origins. It’s not a fast-paced novel, rather one that tries to seduce us with its reminiscences and meditations about life. Through an introspective narrative, Auster explores themes of grief, memory and the search for meaning at the end of life.
Overall, it’s a captivating portrait of a man who has loved, lost and lived his life. It takes us down the memory lane, showing the most common moments of life but without stripping them of their deeper meaning. It offers us the beauty of small moments and an ordinary, yet rich in experiences, life.
One has to add that Baumgartner has been met with mixed reviews. Some praise the emotional depth and narrative simplicity of the work, so different from the author’s usual style, others feel that the story loses momentum in certain sections, especially when it focuses on the protagonist’s reminiscences that do not always add to the story.
On April 7th, at 7 PM, Donostia Kultura is hosting a Donostia Book Club meeting about the novel at the Biblioteca Central – Sala de actividades (San Jerónimo). We are going to talk in depth about Baumgartner. If you too would like to analyse it, here are some questions suggested by the British Reading Agency:
What are your first impressions of Sy Baumgartner and how do these evolve over the course of the novel?
How does the character of Anna emerge through Sy Baumgartner’s recollections?
What was your experience of the different types of text that make up the novel, from poetry excerpts to diarysections and flashbacks?
In what ways did Sy Baumgartner’s narration align to your own experiences of love and/or grief and in what ways did they differ?
Did the introduction of Beatrix Coen changed the way ypu viewed Sy Baumgartner or Anna?
How did you interpret the ending of the novel?