Product Description

An old man sits in a room, with a single door and window, a bed, a desk and a chair. Each day he awakes with no memory, unsure of whether or not he is locked into the room. Attached to the few objects around him are one-word, hand-written, labels and on the desk is a series of vaguely familiar black-and-white photographs and four piles of paper. Then a middle-aged woman called Anna enters and talks of pills and treatment, but also of love and promises. Who is this Mr Blank, and what is his fate? What does Anna represent from his past - and will he have enough time to ever make sense of the clues that arise? After the huge success of "The Brooklyn Follies", "Travels in the Scriptorium" sees Auster return to more metaphysical territory. A dark puzzle, and a game that implicates both reader and writer alike, it is an ingenious exploration of language, responsibility and the passage of time.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #240207 in Books
• Published on: 2006-10-05
• Original language: English
• Binding: Hardcover
• 120 pages

Review
"'... as much a novel about the semantics of storytelling; Mr Blank remains a perfect study of confusion and memory that says everything about Auster's brilliance.' Metro"

Irish Times
'Draws both reader and writer into the protagonist's desperate search to make sense of his existence ... intriguing.'

Customer Reviews

Metaficition, not better fiction
Paul Auster is capable of exquisite storytelling, but I found this one hard work.

Mr Blank finds himself in a locked room, unable to remember how he got there - or much else. Some of the objects in the room have written labels to indicate what they are called. (For those of you who don't recall their Philosophy of Language 101 we're being told to explore the relationship between the physical world and words - and blow me down, it gets even cleverer - occurring in a fictional universe, a construct of language and the author's imagination!)

The cast of characters that visit Blank in his room are drawn from Auster's previous works. Reviewers elsewhere with far more patience and application than me have listed the novels from whence they've all sprung. But essentially, we've got an exercise in self-referencing that may tickle the obsessive pedants amongst you, but will leave those hoping for a good yarn cold.

This should appeal to Auster readers that would list `The New York Trilogy' as his best work (I wouldn't). For me, various goings-on in a locked room have limited appeal, but the book is as well-crafted and readable as one expects from Auster. It also has the redeeming quality of being short: those who enjoy it may re-read it all the sooner and those who do not have little cause to rue too much misspent reading time.

(Anyone utterly captivated by the central conceit of this novel should try the work of John Barth, especially his doorstep-sized offering `Letters'.)

This one wasn't quite my cup of tea, but I'll still give Auster's next novel a go - I just hope he'll be letting his characters get out more.

Metafiction, not better fiction
Paul Auster is capable of exquisite storytelling, but I found this one hard work.

Mr Blank finds himself in a locked room, unable to remember how he got there - or much else. Some of the objects in the room have written labels to indicate what they are called. (For those of you who don't recall their Philosophy of Language 101 we're being told to explore the relationship between the physical world and language - and blow me down, it gets even cleverer - occurring in a fictional universe, a construct of language and the author's imagination!)

The cast of characters that visit Blank in his room are drawn from Auster's previous works. Reviewers elsewhere with far more patience and appreciation for attention to detail than me have listed the novels from whence they've all sprung. But essentially, we've got an exercise in self-referencing that may give tickle the obsessive pedants amongst you, but will leave anyone hoping for a good yarn cold.

This should appeal to Auster readers that would list `The New York Trilogy' as his best work (I wouldn't). For me, various goings-on in a locked room have limited appeal, but the book is as well-crafted and readable as one expects from Auster. It also has the redeeming quality of being short: those who enjoy it may re-read it all the sooner and those who do not have little cause to rue too much misspent reading time.

(Anyone utterly captivated by the central conceit of this novel should try the work of John Barth, especially his doorstep-sized offering `Letters'.)

This one wasn't quite my cup of tea, but I'll still give Auster's next novel a go - I just hope he'll be letting his characters get out more.

Dreadful
Unlike previous Amazon reviewers, this was my first encounter with Paul Auster. To others in the same situation my advice would be: try something else. This is dreadful. There may well be clever self-referencing to other parts of the Auster canon; I wouldn't know. But as a stand alone story, it just doesn't stand up. Auster doesn't know how to write this sort of thing, which might more usually be found in the Science Fiction section, by writers who understand their craft. The narrative voice is a serious problem, with its incongruous mix of knowledge and ignorance. And at no point did I ever feel involved or have any interest in what would happen next, much less care about the characters.