Baumgartner by Paul Auster

An Incredible Author’s Last Book

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*****

Here is a little preamble before my review:

Baumgartner was published November 7, 2023 and Paul Auster died of lung cancer on April 30, 2024. In an interview shortly before the book’s publication, he tells us three important things. He says the book is about aging, loss, and grief, that it was written under a lot of duress because he was becoming ill with cancer, and finally, that he felt a deep connection with his character. As you will see in my review, I did too.

*****

And now, here’s the review:

I read the first chapter of Auster’s new book and thought he did a superlative job of describing how distracted/discombobulated I sometimes feel at the age of 72. You go to do one thing, you get distracted by five things along the way. In his case, he burned his hand and also fell down a flight of steps. Fortunately for me, I’m just baffled and confused. For both of us, though, the original task may never get done.

So let’s just say that I identified with this character, Baumgartner, from the get go. That the character was six weeks away from his 72^nd birthday added to the feeling.

Let’s also say – proudly – that I am a long-time Paul Auster fan. I have read almost everything he has written. What I like most about him is the fact that he has written both autobiographical non-fiction and then fiction that overlaps with his life.

I also love that he has signature moves that often appear in his books. For instance, a character named Paul Auster has appeared in his work. There was also one named Trause, which is an anagram of Auster. Once there was a character called Iris, which is his wife’s name, Siri, spelled backwards. Some may tell you that the author inserting himself into the fiction is what metafiction is all about. I prefer to be less highbrow and think of it as Auster doing his thing. And on this specific point, Auster did do it again with this new book. The author gives Baumgartner’s mother the maiden name of Auster.

The truth of the matter is that this book does all sorts of Paul Auster-ish things. Let me enumerate them and then explain how they apply in Baumgartner.

• A consistent topic for Auster is the loss of a loved one
• His main character is often a writer
• He loves to explore chance/fate/coincidence/randomness
• His real life often intrudes on the page
• There is usually a second story within the main story

In this novel, we have Sy Baumgartner who has been a widower for ten years. He’s still not fully recovered from the untimely death of his wife Anna. He is a writer who has just finished his latest work, a book called Mysteries of the Wheel. As is his habit, he takes time off after its completion to let it rest on the back burner while he does other things. Most of what he does is ruminate on the past and take care of mundane things in the present.

That’s pretty much the plot, now let’s make it Auster-ish.

So, we already have the loss of a loved one. And the character, Baumgartner, is a writer. Soon we learn that Anna’s death was a chance occurrence. She died in a swimming accident at the beach. She had insisted on going in the water one more time even though the wind had picked up, the water was churning, and bigger and bigger waves were rolling in.

In a therapy session, Baumgartner explains to the doctor, Marion, that he does not blame himself or feel regret or remorse. Instead, he feels an acceptance brought on by his view of the world, “Life is dangerous, Marion, and anything can happen to us at any moment.”

For those of us who know Auster, we see his real life intruding on the page. He learned that “life is dangerous” and that “anything can happen to us at any moment” when he was a 14-year-old at summer camp. He was among twenty kids who were caught in an electric storm in the woods. The boy immediately in front of him was struck by lightning and died. Auster says he has always been haunted by what happened and the sheer randomness of it.

Meanwhile, Baumgartner tells the therapist that he still feels “wretched, miserable, hammered into a thousand pieces.” And as he processes his emotional state since Anna’s death, he compares himself to someone suffering with phantom limb syndrome. “He thinks of mothers and fathers mourning their dead children, children mourning their dead parents, women mourning their dead husbands, men mourning their dead wives and how closely their suffering resembles the aftereffects of an amputation, for the missing leg or arm was once attached to a living body, and the missing person was once attached to another living person, and if you were the one who lives on, you will discover that the amputated part of you, the phantom part of you, can still be a source of profound, unholy pain. Certain remedies can sometimes alleviate the symptoms, but there is no ultimate cure.”

Again, for those who know Auster, we note the inclusion of “fathers mourning their dead children” as we recall that Auster’s son Daniel died in 2022. A less horrific overlap with real life is found in the fact that the fictional wife, Anna, and the real wife of Paul Auster, Siri Hustvedt, are both writers.

The last of the Auster-isms is that he often tells a second story within the main story. In this case, we learn in some detail about his back-burner book, Mysteries of the Wheel. It has four sections, and “while every chapter begins with a dry, mock-serious essay about the subject at hand, what follows after the introduction are stories, fifteen or twenty short narratives that range from invented fictions to reports of real events to fables, parables, and philosophical puzzles.”

This is such a sublime example of Auster! Even his story within the story is made up of stories within a story.

Oh, and Baumgartner explains that the genesis of the book is “from a corrosive vision of human life as a free-for-all of careening, out-of-control cars speeding down highways of loneliness and potential death.”

There it is! Another sublime example of Auster. Death by driving in a car is just as possible as death by swimming in the ocean is just as possible as death by going to camp at age fourteen.

I love it that Paul Auster is always so Paul Auster!

It’s funny to think that Auster may have had a more specific outline for his imaginary book than he did for the actual book. And while I completely identify with a person who at 70-something is spending lots of time on contemplation and the handling of mundane matters, I know it is not much of a plot. However, in Baumgartner Paul Auster did everything he always does in a novel. Every Auster-ism is there! Therefore, for an Auster fan, it was a delight. In that it is the last book to be published in his lifetime, it is dearer still.

*****

That’s the end of my review, but if by some chance you missed out on knowing this important author, here are some wonderful ways to get to know him.

1. I “met him” through a movie he wrote and directed called Smoke. (The movie stars William Hurt. His character’s name is Paul Benjamin. It is no surprise that Benjamin is Paul Auster’s middle name.)
2. A story within the story in that movie is called “Auggie Wren’s Christmas.” Paul Auster read it as a standalone piece on NPR on December 25, 2004. The recording is still available.
3. His first major break as a writer came with his autobiographical work, The Invention of Solitude. You will learn a lot about his life from this book such as the fact that his father – a vigorously healthy man – dropped dead of a heart attack at the age of 66.
4. He is most well-known for The New York Trilogy. It is a mind-twisting example of Auster being Auster. (It starts with a character named Daniel Quinn, who is a writer of detective fiction and who receives a phone call for a real detective named Paul Auster.)
5. And a fabulous example of him writing stories within a story comes in The Book of Illusions. In the book, David Zimmer is beyond bereft after losing his wife and children in a plane crash. He ultimately comes out of his misery as he researches a silent film star, Hector Mann. Auster amazingly tells the plot of silent movie after silent movie as if such movies truly exist as opposed to the reality that he is making up all the stories as he goes.

The overlapping of so many Auster elements in so many Auster works has always been a true delight. Therefore, I sincerely recommend everything the man has written.

*****

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