Paul Auster's 4 3 2 1

'4 3 2 1' by Paul Auster, which was nominated for the Man Booker Prize last year, is a collection of four different versions of the life of Archibald Isaac Ferguson, who was born in Newark, New Jersey in 1947. Archie Ferguson, the only child of Rose and Stanley Ferguson, is descended from Russian-Jewish immigrants, and during his early childhood, random events change the path of his life, splitting it into four different paths - in one version, his parents divorce, in another, they stay together, in another Stanley dies, and so on.

Because of the parallel structure, each of the seven parts is rewound three times before moving on to the next stage of Archie's life, which extends his early childhood to his coming-of-age in the late 1960s. You may be aware that '4 3 2 1' is quite lengthy - 866 pages in total, which took me just under two weeks to read. I've never read anything by Auster before, and his latest novel is partly autobiographical and appears to be a departure from his typically shorter work. However, I was drawn in by the multi-layered concept of exploring alternative lives of the same characters - a "what if" premise I've enjoyed in other novels such as Laura Barnett's The Versions of Us.

XEM THÊM : 

Xì dách là gì? Cách đánh bài xì dách online hiệu quả

Whereas three strands in Barnett's novel were manageable, keeping track of four Archies seemed more difficult at first, especially given the cast of characters. However, the four strands are not all the same length, which made it a little easier to follow than I expected. Despite the varying outcomes and events, the four versions of Archie Ferguson and his friends and family combined into one, though I felt varying degrees of empathy for certain characters depending on what was happening to them. This may appear to be a problem, but it quickly became clear that seeing the big picture is more rewarding for the reader than keeping track of who is who. What Auster achieves here is character layering rather than character development, raising interesting questions about how our experiences shape us.

The historical detail is astounding, providing a truly panoramic view of 1950s and 1960s 'Mad Men' era America in the midst of so much social and political change. It must be said that the sections covering the 1968 student protests and some of the in-depth analysis of baseball games, music, and literature drag a little, while others feel like lengthy lists of newsworthy events that happened at the time and could easily have been cut. Overall, the engaging setting and execution of the ambitious plotting are excellent.

The ending provides an intriguing explanation for why the book is structured in the manner that it is. It's unlikely that I'll revisit '4 3 2 1' anytime soon, but if I do, I'll read it in a different light with this revelation in mind. Doorstopper novels can be intimidating, but I'm glad I took the time to read this one, and the fact that I'm thinking about rereading it shows Auster's skill here. Thank you to Faber and Faber for sending me a review copy through NetGalley.










READ ARTICLES:




 
ENCOURAGE YOUR CHILDREN TO ENJOY READING AT HOME AND WHILE TRAVELING

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Shirley Barrett's The Bus on Thursday

Image
‘The Bus on Thursday’ by Shirley Barrett will appeal to those with a certain sense of humour, most likely a dark one. It opens with Eleanor Mellett discovering that she has been diagnosed with an aggressive form of breast cancer at the age of 31. After being dumped by her boyfriend, she gets a new job teaching at a tiny school in Talbingo in a particularly remote area of rural Australia .  Miss Barker, the previous teacher, has gone missing under mysterious circumstances, and the outlier residents are puzzled by her sudden disappearance. Eleanor tells her story in a talkative tone over a series of short blog posts, being far more candid about the realities of cancer diagnosis and treatment, as well as the impact it has had on her mental health, than many of the most "honest" cancer blogs. After recovering from a serious illness, she struggles to find her place in the world, and it's unsurprising that arriving as an outsider in an isolated community doesn't help. She b
Read more

Sebastian Barry's Days Without End

Image
Sebastian Barry's 'Days Without End' tells the story of Thomas McNulty, a young Irishman who emigrated to Canada and later the United States in the mid-nineteenth century after his family died in the Great Famine. When they are teenagers, he befriends and falls in love with John Cole, and they work at a parlor where they dress as women and dance for miners. They later enlist in the US army and fight in two wars before adopting an abandoned Indian Sioux girl named Winona. Sebastian Barry is a new author to me, and I didn't realize until after I finished 'Days Without End' that his previous novels, two of which have been nominated for the Man Booker Prize, also feature other McNulty family members from different generations. Despite the fact that the books are interconnected rather than a series, 'Days Without End' reads well as a separate novel. It is a lyrical western, as opposed to the more typically harsh works of the genre. The landscape is beautifull
Read more

Margaret Atwood's Oryx and Crake

Image
I thought it was high time I read more of Margaret Atwood's work after reading and enjoying 'The Handmaid's Tale,' 'The Blind Assassin,' and 'Cat's Eye' before starting this blog. 'Oryx and Crake' is the first novel in Margaret Atwood's critically acclaimed MaddAddam trilogy, and it tells the story of Snowman, also known as Jimmy, who is thought to be the only human survivor in a post-apocalyptic world, along with genetically modified creatures known as Crakers. As Snowman returns to the site of the destruction that nearly wiped out the human population, we learn about how the world came to be nearly destroyed and what happened to his friend Crake and the mysterious Oryx through flashbacks. 'Oryx and Crake,' according to Atwood, is a work of fiction rather than science fiction: "Like The Handmaid's Tale, Oryx and Crake... contains no intergalactic space travel, teleportation, or Martians." It, like The Handmaid's
Read more