Comments on: Paul Auster - Part 2

By: Phillip

Phillip — Tue, 12 Jul 2005 16:38:48 +0000

There’s a scene in William Wharton’s BIRDY, which is quite different from the film, where all the canaries Birdy’s been raising in his backyard fly away one day. That got to me. Which seems completely stupid when I say it like that, but that’s another surreal novel that sucked me in good (much more dream-like than The Book of Illusions). I remember reading it over a weekend in an empty house. I was living in 1940s Philadelphia for the whole weekend. One of theose rare times when you don’t just read the book — you experience it. I was 17 years old.

Too bad I can’t think of a better example.

J.D. Salinger’s short story, “For Esmè — with Love and Squalor,” is one of the most impactful (if that’s a word) stories I’ve ever read. I’ll read it every couple years, and it still knocks me out. After CATCHER IN THE RYE, Salinger doesn’t get any better than that.

By: Jody

Jody — Tue, 12 Jul 2005 16:24:38 +0000

Right, that one. There’s a scene from Of Human Bondage that has stuck in my mind for 20+ years now too: where the protagonists arrives in his tiny Paris apartment and finds all his bookshelves and books littered about and destroyed. I nearly cried. Seriously.

By: Phillip

Phillip — Tue, 12 Jul 2005 16:13:59 +0000

You mean the big scene with, how do I put this, the rope tied around the rafters? Lovely scene.

By the way, I have a new tagline for SWT: “Jody and Phillip talking back and forth to each other about stuff no one else gives a damn about.”

By: Jody

Jody — Tue, 12 Jul 2005 16:09:01 +0000

I remember starting to read Jude The Obscure by Hardy decades ago and someone mentioned a movie based on it, asking if I got to the part where a pivotal event with Jude’s son occurred. I didn’t! The bastard.

That’s it.