Invisible – Paul Auster

Invisible is the first book I’ve read from Paul Auster. I’ve heard his name countless times but yet didn’t want to read any of his works. Guess it was because he is hugely popular and everyone seems to enjoy him. If everyone likes an author, do you think that’s good? I have mixed feelings about it. Nevertheless, I loved the book, and I loved the characters.

Invisible and Margot

When you find yourself in a story, and when you immediately identify a character with yourself, then the book becomes even more beautiful, the pages move more quickly. In Invisible that character was Margot for me. I’ve found myself in her sumptuous taciturnity, the way she cooks and the way she thinks and talks about sex. The act of talking is most of the time boring for me. I’m a person who speaks as little as possible and only when I need to. Of course, I’ve had and will have a lot of heated discussions on topics I’m interested in, but that’s it.

Margot’s silence, and her being indifferent to her environment as if her soul was out of her body having a picnic somewhere else, made me think that I was not alone. I’ve read parts from Margot to my husband. It made me somewhat happy to see that he loved what I’m reading. But what made me feel thrilled is that he told me that Margot character was just like me. We were very alike. Isn’t it perfect when you find yourself in a book? And the person who knows you better then you do think the same way is priceless. 

Paul Auster’s characters are quite alive in Invisible. You hate some and admire some. Although the story is not impressive, it continually stimulates your curiosity and makes you read until your eyes are red. Enjoy!

About the book: Invisible

Sinuously constructed in four interlocking parts, Paul Auster’s fifteenth novel opens in New York City in the spring of 1967, when twenty-year-old Adam Walker, an aspiring poet and student at Columbia University, meets the enigmatic Frenchman Rudolf Born and his silent and seductive girlfriend, Margot. Before long, Walker finds himself caught in a perverse triangle that leads to a sudden, shocking act of violence that will alter the course of his life.

Three different narrators tell the story of Invisible, a novel that travels in time from 1967 to 2007 and moves from Morningside Heights, to the Left Bank of Paris, to a remote island in the Caribbean. It is a book of youthful rage, unbridled sexual hunger, and a relentless quest for justice. With uncompromising insight, Auster takes us into the shadowy borderland between truth and memory, between authorship and identity, to produce a work of unforgettable power that confirms his reputation as “one of America’s most spectacularly inventive writers.” 

About the author: Paul Auster

Paul Auster is the bestselling author ofReport from the Interior, Winter Journal, Sunset Park, Invisible, The Book of Illusions, and The New York Trilogy, among many other works. He has been awarded the Prince of Asturias Prize for Literature, the Prix Médicis Étranger, the Independent Spirit Award, and the Premio Napoli. Auster is a member of the American Academy of Arts and Letters, the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, and a Commandeur de l’Ordre des Arts et des Lettres. He lives in Brooklyn, New York.

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