Runciter reseñó Man in the Dark de Paul Auster
Stories in Solitude
4,0 stars
Having recently spent several weeks in a (relatively) incapacitated state, I can recognize a bit of myself in August Brill, the protagonist and narrator or Paul Auster's Man in the Dark. In that state, your late-night thoughts can zip off in unexpected trajectories, and you might populate your closed room with "company" of your own invention. Stories are what you got. Convalescing at his adult daughter's home, 72-year-old literary critic Brill is suffering with a leg shattered in an automobile accident, and spends his days and (sleepless) nights in bed, either staring upwards at the ceiling, or binge-watching an endless series of arthouse films with his film student granddaughter. He's prey to sadness, self-mockery, concern for his rudderless family, and ironic nostalgia for the 1950s (his decade of youth, first love, marriage and wide-open personal vistas).
Brill's self-dealt narratives touch upon an alternate-history United States, where the September 11th …
Having recently spent several weeks in a (relatively) incapacitated state, I can recognize a bit of myself in August Brill, the protagonist and narrator or Paul Auster's Man in the Dark. In that state, your late-night thoughts can zip off in unexpected trajectories, and you might populate your closed room with "company" of your own invention. Stories are what you got. Convalescing at his adult daughter's home, 72-year-old literary critic Brill is suffering with a leg shattered in an automobile accident, and spends his days and (sleepless) nights in bed, either staring upwards at the ceiling, or binge-watching an endless series of arthouse films with his film student granddaughter. He's prey to sadness, self-mockery, concern for his rudderless family, and ironic nostalgia for the 1950s (his decade of youth, first love, marriage and wide-open personal vistas).
Brill's self-dealt narratives touch upon an alternate-history United States, where the September 11th attacks never occurred but the country fell into a (hot) civil war spurred on by unrest following the 2000 presidential election. The dimension-hopping protagonist of his scenario, Owen Brick, is given an ultimatum by the ruling powers of his world - to assassinate the "dreamer" who brought the civil war into being, and restore balance and peace to their particular universe. But complications abound. In between bouts of self-doubt and personal recrimination, Brill sifts through the receipts of a complicated life: marriage, infidelity, thwarted hopes and the kind of personal realizations that (hopefully) come later in life rather than not at all.
Man in the Dark was a welcome relief (read immediately upon the heels of a particular mass-market potboiler), thoughtful and thought-provoking. Combines a sense of melancholy, well-observed intergenerational family dynamics, and a sense of acceptance of both responsibility and irresponsibility.