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Loading... The Brooklyn Follies (2005)by Paul Auster
   No current Talk conversations about this book.  MXMLLN | Jan 12, 2024 |    ) betty_s | Nov 9, 2023 | I finally finished it after a couple of weeks not reading it, but it's a problematic read. I liked the earlier parts when it's just the dropout PhD student and his uncle. Later on, it wasn't as, let's say 'literary'. I liked for the novel to have been more bookish. There's also a strange temporal disorientation I felt reading it. It felt 70s-ish, that is, the novel is set in the early 2000s, but it did not feel like that. It felt decades older. I guess the details provided weren't that convincing for me. Also, there's too much violence and suffering that was heaped upon this one character that I felt at times I could not go on reading the book. Just one depressing episode after another. I felt it was needlessly cruel. Nevertheless, there are little gems scattered throughout. The story about Wittgenstein was something I did not know before. I thought it was very sad and poignant. The uncle's project was also interesting. It had the right amount of literary whimsy in it that I like. /// Overall, not the best Auster I've read, but it has its moments with interesting characters and literary details. (  ) rufus666 | Aug 14, 2022 |  ) siok | May 31, 2021 | ) FurbyKirby | Jan 5, 2021 |
Nathan Glass ha sobrevivido a un cáncer de pulmón y a un divorcio después de treinta y tres años de matrimonio, y ha vuelto a Brooklyn, el lugar donde nació y pasó su infancia. Quiere vivir allí lo que le queda de su 'ridícula vida'. Hasta que enfermó era un próspero vendedor de seguros; ahora que ya no tiene que ganarse la vida, piensa escribir El libro de las locuras de los hombres. Contará todo lo que pasa a su alrededor, todo lo que le ocurre y lo que se le ocurre, y hasta algunas de las historias –caprichosas, disparatadas, verdaderas locuras– de personas que recuerda. Comienza a frecuentar el bar del barrio, el muy austeriano Cosmic Diner, y está casi enamorado de la camarera, la casada e inalcanzable Marina. Y va también a la librería de segunda mano de Harry Brightman, un homosexual culto y contradictorio, que no es ni remotamente quien dice ser. Belongs to Publisher SeriesEl balancí [Edicions 62] (522) Keltainen kirjasto (389) Keltainen pokkari (19) Is contained inAwardsDistinctions
"Nathan Glass has come to Brooklyn to die. Divorced, estranged from his only daughter, the retired life insurance salesman seeks only solitude and anonymity. Then Nathan finds his long-lost nephew, Tom Wood, working in a local bookstore - a far cry from the brilliant academic career he'd begun when Nathan saw him last. Tom's boss is the charismatic Harry Brightman, whom fate has also brought to the "ancient kingdom of Brooklyn, New York." Through Tom and Harry, Nathan's world gradually broadens to include a new set of acquaintances - not to mention a stray relative or two - and leads him to a reckoning with his past." "Among the many twists in the plot are a scam involving a forgery of the first page of The Scarlet Letter, a disturbing revelation that takes place in a sperm bank, and an impossible, utopian dream of a rural refuge. Meanwhile, the wry and acerbic Nathan has undertaken something he calls The Book of Human Folly, in which he proposes "to set down in the simplest, clearest language possible an account of every blunder, every pratfall, every embarrassment, every idiocy, every foible, and every inane act I had committed during my long and checkered career as a man." But life takes over instead, and Nathan's despair is swept away as he finds himself more and more implicated in the joys and sorrows of others."--BOOK JACKET. No library descriptions found. |
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 Google Books — Loading...GenresMelvil Decimal System (DDC)813.54Literature English (North America) American fiction 20th Century 1945-1999LC ClassificationRatingAverage: (3.75)
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13
Truly a fascinating book. The structure is reminiscent of more autobiographical work, which has never worked for me in the past. However, somehow I was captivated by the direction-less flow of the events. It works in the same way that Leviathan succeeds (the only other Auster book I have read). The ending does a brilliant job of wrapping up all the random details and hints at a powerful twist. (