Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #124246 in Books
• Published on: 2003-07-15
• Original language: English
• Binding: Paperback
• 336 pages

From Amazon.com
Vermont professor David Zimmer is a broken man. The protagonist of Paul Auster's 10th novel, The Book of Illusions, hits a period in which life seemed to be working aggressively against him. After his wife and sons are killed in an airplane crash, Zimmer becomes an alcoholic recluse, fond of emptying his bottle of sleeping pills into his palm, contemplating his next move. But one night, while watching a television documentary, Zimmer's attention is caught by the silent-film comedian Hector Mann, who had disappeared without a trace in 1929 and who was considered long-dead. Soon, Zimmer begins work on a book about Mann's newly discovered films (copies of which had been sent, anonymously, to film archives around the world). The spirit of Hector Mann keeps David Zimmer alive for a year. When a letter arrives from someone claiming to be Hector Mann's wife, announcing that Mann had read Zimmer's book and would like to meet him, it is as if fate has tossed Zimmer from one hand to the other: from grief and loss to desire and confusion.

Although film images are technically "illusions," this deft and layered novel is not so much about conscious illusion or trickery as about the traces we leave behind us: words, images, memories. Children are one obvious trace, but in this book, they are not allowed to carry their parents forward. They die early: Hector Mann losing his 3-year-old son to a bee sting just as David Zimmer has lost his two sons in the crash. The second half of The Book of Illusions is given over to a love affair, and to Zimmer's attempt to save something of Hector Mann, and of the others he has loved. In the end, what really survives of us on earth--what flickering immortality we are permitted--is left to the reader to surmise. --Regina Marler

From Publishers Weekly
David Zimmer, an English professor in Vermont, is trying to rebuild his life-after his family perishes in an airplane crash-by researching the work of Hector Mann, a minor figure from the era of silent movies, in this enigmatic, elliptical 10th novel, one of Auster's best. As in much of the writer's fiction, the narrative revolves around coincidence, fate and odd resonances. Mann's world, like Zimmer's, collapses in a single instant, and Mann, like Zimmer, embarks on self-imposed exile as a way to deal with his grief and do penance. Mann disappeared at the height of his career in 1929, but when Zimmer's book about him is published in the 1980s, it elicits a mysterious invitation: would Zimmer like to meet Mann, who is alive and has been working in secret as actor/director Hector Spelling? The skeptical scholar is lured from Vermont by Alma Grund, who grew up around Mann and is writing his biography. As Grund and Zimmer fall in love, she fills in the decades-long gap in Mann's life-a strange American odyssey that culminated on a ranch in New Mexico where he made movies he refused to screen for anyone. As in previous novels, Auster here makes the unbelievable completely credible, and his overall themes are very much of a piece with those of earlier works: the "mutinous unpredictability of matter" and the way storytellers shape and organize unpredictability. A darker and more somber mood shadows this book; Mann and Zimmer both are tragic figures-even melodramatic-and their stories are compelling. Auster is a novelist of ideas who hasn't forgotten that his first duty is to tell a good story.
Copyright 2002 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From Library Journal
The theme of Auster's tenth novel is best summed up in the epigraph: "As Chateaubriand once stated, `[Man] has many lives, placed end to end, and that is the cause of his misery.' " This "book of illusions" shows how those many inner lives intertwine and diverge, setting off an array of possibilities. At the outset, David Zimmer, a Vermont professor of comparative literature, grieves over his wife and two sons, who perished in an airplane crash. His life changes when he stumbles upon a clip from a silent film by comedian Hector Mann, who mysteriously vanished 60 years ago. Zimmer immerses himself in researching Mann's work and soon publishes an authoritative study. His life changes again when he unexpectedly receives a letter from Mann's wife inviting him to visit her ill but still-living husband. Thus begins another quest, this time to unravel the mystery behind Mann's disappearance at the height of his success. Much of Auster's work has already probed the unpredictability of faith, and his fans are also familiar with heroes trapped in the "labyrinth of memories" and the story-within-the-story writing technique. But Auster never repeats himself, instead attacking familiar territory from a new angle to craft tales of profound dimension. Essential. Mirela Roncevic, "Library Journal"
Copyright 2002 Cahners Business Information, Inc.

Customer Reviews

Another fine outing by Auster
The story focuses on David Zimmer. An author who has walled himself away from the world after the death of his wife and two boys. To get over his grief, he decides to write a book about a little known silent screen actor who disappeared from the face of the earth after his last silent movie. What follows is a story of how David comes back to life (eventually) after being asked to go and meet with the elusive actor.

The book is pure Auster. It has the regular story, and then Auster concocts several other stories within the story. And as always he dangles just enough of the story within the story to keep you interested and wanting more.

So what didn't I like about this novel? The main character David Zimmer. That's what I didn't like. He comes across as mean and I never grew to like him, no matter how long I stayed with the novel. Having said that though, if you're a Paul Auster fan, then you'll want to read this book. If it is your first time in coming to an Auster novel, I'd recommend The New York Trilogy first.

You'll have to fight to finish it.
This had to be one of the most plodding overwritten books I've ever been unfortunate enough to read. Huge and I mean HUGE passages go off on tangents and it basically leaves you wanting to tear your eyes out. Then, after suffering through all the blah, blah, blah and toughing out massive meaningless passages the book ends completely abruptly as if the author had no idea how to end his story. In fact, the ending was nothing short of a major disappointment with absolutely no reward whatsoever. Aside from a tiny bit of brilliant imagery here and there this book is pure tedium and a must miss.

Dancing about architecture - a decent read with a few holes
There were some really gripping bits of this novel. The characters are consitently, coherently drawn, it does a good job slipping back and forth between time and place, and it manages to create suspense and drama from a fairly understated story line. I particularly like the physicality of the descriptions. I really got a sense for what nealry all the characters looked and sounded like. And they all stayed in character - there weren't departures from character to scoot the plot along.

However, it fell short it two fairly glaring areas for me.

1) The romance elements are barely plausible. They struck me as middle-school melodramatic. People sort of pop from indifference into world-shattering love, and stay in puppy-dog devotion until circumstances tear them apart.

2) The attempt to discribe brilliant cinema fell so far short as to be almost comic in its attempt. Writing about visual art is really hard to do, and I respect the ambition of giving it a go here. Any description, even a good one, leaves you with a pretty thin shadow of the real thing, so no fault of Auster's that this is short of compelling. But this particular part of the book goes past the forgivable and into the groan-out-loud bad. Hard to say more without a spoiler here, but let me just say that I'm very glad that Auster is writer and not a film maker.

This was at the low end of a 4 star read for me. Lose the pretention, make the characters as real in their relations to each other as they are in their thoughts and actions, and leave brilliant films to the imagination, and it would have been a really notable read. As it is, its a solidly crafted, middle of the road, enjoyable but forgettable book.