Product Description

Nashe comes into an inheritance and decides to pursue a life of freedom. He meets Pozzi, a gambler, who exerts a terrible fascination over him, and together they take a desperate gamble. By the author of "The New York Trilogy", "Moon Palace" and "The Invention of Solitude".

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #164544 in Books
• Published on: 2000-09-18
• Original language: English
• Binding: Paperback
• 224 pages

Customer Reviews

It's all about the journey
Unlike Leviathan which took me by the scruff of my neck from page one, it took me about 30 pages to get off the blocks with Music of Chance.

But then, as with all of Auster's books, that was it - bang - had to stay up half the night to finish it. I was as captive as protagonist Jim Nashe building his monolithic wall.

Auster's clearly a lot smarter than me because I'm not sure I really 'get' existentialism but his themes are always accessible, and the freedom vs. captivity debate is as subtly shaded as it is in real life.

The central characters, Nashe and Pozzi, are wonderfully well drawn. The characters of Flower and Stone, as well as that of their emissary Murks, are crafted in such a way that they are at once ordinary people and duplicitous, mythic demons.

That's the remarkable (and agonising) thing about Auster, he gives you space to paint your own story alongside his. He creates questions in the mind of his protagonists which then become your questions. You race along desperate to find the answers to those questions. But they never really come.

So you're left there at the end, if you're not that smart like me, saying "cop out ending". But just maybe Auster's saying, well, real life doesn't answer your questions either.

And maybe you don't really want them answered because long after you've put the book down, it still won't go away.

At the character level, Nashe and Pozzi stick to you like glue and it's hard to let them go. At the plot level, you're still reaching your own conclusions about what people's real motives or actions were. At the thematic level you continue asking questions about your own life. You wonder whether this is a tale of the ordinary or the supernatural.

Anyway, even if Auster held up his hands and said, "yep, I was out of ideas, it's a cop out ending", it's still a five star book because it's all about the journey. A journey so engaging and beautifully crafted that, despite the darkness that creeps alongside you, you don't want it to end.

And anyone who can paint a portrait of a vast meadow and make it feel more claustrophobic than the smallest, dankest prison cell has my vote.

I've said it before, the man's a genius.

An intriguing novel about freedom and fate
A thought provoking tale. Asks us whether a man can be truly free, and indeed, whether such freedom necessarily leads to happiness. Nashe comes into an inheritance, setting off on an aimless driving marathon around the USA. He only feels free when driving, but must keep going to avoid his responsibilities and the real world catching up with him. Eventually, with his money running out, a chance encounter with a young gambler leads to Nashe losing his precious liberty in bizarre fashion. I strongly recommend this book, whether read just as a strange story, or as an examination of Man's existential plight.

pure brilliance
There is something about The Music of Chance that makes the reader fall in love with Paul Auster.It could be the clarity of his prose and his real precision with language. It might be that he takes an idea, two men being forced to build a wall because they lost a poker game, and elevates it from the absurd to the brilliant. The novel speaks about chance - brief encounters with people and ideas. It is a beautiful novel.