Travels in the Scriptorium: A Novel [Paperback]

Paul Auster (Author)

Book Description

Release date: December 26, 2007

An old man awakens, disoriented, in an unfamiliar chamber. With no memory of who he is or how he has arrived there, he pores over the relics on the desk, examining the circumstances of his confinement and searching his own hazy mind for clues.

Determining that he is locked in, the man--identified only as Mr. Blank--begins reading a manuscript he finds on the desk, the story of another prisoner, set in an unfamiliar, alternate world. As the day passes, various characters call on Mr. Blank in his cell, and each brings frustrating hints of his forgotten identity and his past.

Both chilling and poignant, Travels in the Scriptorium is vintage Paul Auster: mysterious texts, fluid identities, a hidden past, and, somewhere, an obscure tormentor. And yet, as we discover during one day in the life of Mr. Blank, his world is not so different from our own.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

On the centennial year of Samuel Beckett's birth, Auster's new novel nods to the old master. We open with a man sitting in a room. The man doesn't remember his name, and a camera hidden in the ceiling takes a picture of him once a second. The man—whom the third-person narrator calls Mr. Blank—spends the single day spanned by the book being looked after, questioned and reading a fragmentary narrative written by a man named Sigmund Graf from a country called the Confederation who has been given the mission of tracking down a renegade soldier named Ernesto Land. During the course of the day, a former policeman, a doctor, two attendants and Mr. Blank's lawyer visit the room, and Mr. Blank learns he is accused of horrible crimes. (His lawyer claims he is accused of everything "from conspiracy to commit fraud to negligent homicide. From defamation of character to first-degree murder.") But this may or may not be true—the narrative veers toward ambiguity. While Auster's lean, poker-faced prose creates a satisfyingly claustrophobic allegory, the tidy, self-referential ending lends a writing-exercise patina to the work. (Feb.)
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

From Bookmarks Magazine

Paul Auster dazzled the literary world two decades ago with the self-reflexive, playful New York Trilogy. A dozen novels later, he continues to draw on the familiar situations and themes that marked him as one of the most accomplished experimentalists. Critics often compare Auster's multilayered tales of colliding realities and lost identities to those of Samuel Beckett, Franz Kafka, Jorge Luis Borges, and John Barth, though Travels in the Scriptorium finds a mixed critical reception. Current Auster fans will enjoy the intricate allusions and wordplay. Those coming to the author for the first time may find the book obscure—or worse, unengaging. For them, Moon Palace, In the Country of Last Things, or the New York Trilogy would be better novels for discovering the classic Auster.
Copyright © 2004 Phillips & Nelson Media, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

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Product Details

• Paperback: 160 pages
• Publisher: Picador; 1st edition (December 26, 2007)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0312426291
• ISBN-13: 978-0312426293
• Product Dimensions: 8.3 x 5.5 x 0.4 inches
• Shipping Weight: 2.4 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 3.4 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (51 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,121,933 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Paul Auster is the bestselling author of Travels in the Scriptorium, The Brooklyn Follies, and Oracle Night. I Thought My Father Was God, the NPR National Story Project anthology, which he edited, was also a national bestseller. His work has been translated into thirty languages. He lives in Brooklyn, New York.

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

21 of 23 people found the following review helpful

4.0 out of 5 stars A Clever, Twilight Zone Journey into the Creative Inner Self February 15, 2007

By Steve Koss VINE™ VOICE

Format:Hardcover

An elderly man awakens in a locked room furnished with little more than a bed, a desk and chair, and a small bathroom. He cannot remember who he is or why he is seemingly imprisoned in that room, but he notices four piles of manuscripts and a stack of photographs arranged neatly on the desk. Not long after he wakes, a nurse named Anna brings him breakfast, then washes and dresses him all in white, telling the old man (now given the name, for want of anything else, of Mr. Blank) that the whites were a special request of a Peter Stillman. A little later, another visitor named James P. Flood arrives and questions Mr. Blank desperately regarding the latter's past reference to "Flood's dream" from a book by Fanshawe titled Neverland. Throughout the day, Mr. Blank wonders about his circumstances - whether the door to his room is locked, whether his shade-drawn window can be opened - but he finds himself easily distracted by everything from sexual longing to discovering that his chair has wheels. He is visited again in the afternoon, first by his doctor, Samuel Farr, who wants to check on the progress of Mr. Blank's "treatment," by another nurse named Sophie, and finally by Daniel Quinn, who says he is Blank's lawyer.

As the day progresses, the old man slowly pierces a shroud of guilty feelings by learning that he is somehow responsible for the lives of many others whom he has dispatched on various missions. Strange but vaguely familiar names crop up - Farr, Fanshawe, Fogg. The old man begins devoting attention to the manuscript on the desk. He discovers that it is a report, written by a man named Sigmund Graf, about events in a country called the Confederation and a border outpost named Ultima at the edge of the Alien Territories. Uncertain at first if the manuscript is about himself or one of his charges, he slowly discovers that it is a work of fiction written by one John Trause. Angered when he reaches the end of the manuscript with the story line unresolved, he is encouraged by his "doctor" Samuel Farr to hypothesize an ending. The old man starts outlining a resolution and, even after Farr leaves, continues contemplating alternative plot lines until he comes up with one that satisfies him. The old man intuits that just as he awoke that morning with no recall of his past or who he is, sleep will render him to the same helpless condition the next morning (an interesting parallel to the movie MEMENTO). As if to confirm that fear, TRAVELS IN THE SCRIPTORIUM ends with Mr. Blank seemingly caught in an endless, Mobius-like loop.

SPOILER ALERT! It is virtually impossible to discuss TRAVELS IN THE SCRIPTORIUM in a serious manner without revealing key elements of its plot and meaning. In 1921, Luigi Pirandello staged a play entitled "Six Characters in Search of an Author;" 85 years later, Will Farrell starred in a similarly themed movie called "Stranger than Fiction." What both works have in common, they also share with Paul Auster's TRAVELS IN THE SCRIPTORIUM - a discourse on the creative process and the relationship of literary characters to their authors (including notions of immortality and the realization that a writer's characters will outlive their creator).

In this short novel, Mr. Blank can be seen as the writer's creative mind, or perhaps his muse. Of course, the name is a referent to every writer's symbolic raw material and greatest dread, the blank sheet of white paper. The old man's trivial distractions are those of a writer, the locked room is the writer's mind, those past missions are the plot lines through which he has paced characters from his earlier works, and the uncompleted manuscript is his work in process. Even Mr. Blank's advanced age and attendant exhaustion and infirmity are barely disguised references to the notion of creative exhaustion, and the old man's "treatment" is a literary double entendre, since one meaning of treatment is the way of handling a subject. Mr. Blank's visitors are the shadows of the author's earlier works, intruding upon his efforts to forge something new. Thus, among others, Peter Stillman, Daniel Quinn, and Sophie Fanshawe are characters from Auster's own NEW YORK TRILOGY, Benjamin Sachs is from LEVIATHAN, Fogg is from MOON PALACE, Zimmer is from THE BOOK OF ILLUSIONS, and Anna Blume and Samuel Farr from IN THE COUNTRY OF LAST THINGS. Finally, there is John Trause (a barely disguised acronym for Auster and a character who appeared in ORACLE NIGHT), author of the partially completed manuscript whose story line Mr. Blank tries to complete at Samuel Farr's request.

Comparisons with Kafka or Beckett will come easily for this book, as well as allusions to the movie "Being John Malkovich" or Rod Serling's Twilight Zone television series (especially the episode "Five Characters in Search of an Exit"). Better, however, to regard TRAVELS IN THE SCRIPTORIUM as a curious and diverting sidebar within the context of Auster's previous works, from THE CITY OF GLASS and MOON PALACE to THE MUSIC OF CHANCE and THE BROOKLYN FOLLIES. Fans of Mr. Auster will likely not find their appreciation of his talents diminished by this excursion into the darker recesses of his writerly mind.

10 of 10 people found the following review helpful

3.0 out of 5 stars Oh no, Mr. Blank! April 24, 2008

By Linda Pagliuco TOP 1000 REVIEWERVINE™ VOICE

Format:Paperback

The first third of Travels in the Scriptorium is strange, ala Margaret Atwood. Why is this man caged up in this little room, and why is he being drugged? Who is he? During the course of the one day encompassed by this novel, visitor after visitor drops in and imparts a small nugget of information, which, as they accumulate, begin to fill in this picture. By the end of the second third, light begins to dawn on the reader, and the last third, to the finish, though still strange, is much more satisfying. Auster is not the first author to adopt the central premise of Travels, but he makes use of it in an original way.
Despite the caveats of other reviewers, I did not find my lack of familiarity with Auster's previous works any impediment. In fact, it probably added to the element of surprise.

20 of 26 people found the following review helpful

2.0 out of 5 stars Unfortunately Auster is running out of ideas. March 9, 2007

By WG

Format:Hardcover

Before reviewing the latest Paul Auster novel, I'd like to point out a few things: I am a huge Auster fan. First, I saw Smoke, the movie, and even though I hate cigarretes, I found it simply beautiful. After that, I read The New York Trilogy and The music of chance. It's hard to describe these novels. While reading them, I felt like they were burning my hands, but I couldn't stop reading them. Late at night, when I could barely see, I kept telling to myself, one more chapter, another chapter, just a few more pages. Then I realized that the end was close, so finished them in less then two days. The music of chance was so hypnotic, that even if I had to walk some where, I would read while I was walking. That's the spell that these two novels pulled on me.

Now, I few years later, I went full circle. I read every single novel Auster wrote, so you can consider me a PaulAusterologist. Although I read a lot, Auster is the only author, prolific author (more than 7 novels) of which I read his whole work (novels) What did I found in this journey? He is very reiterative, very very. Most of his characters are some how in the writing business, if not writers. As he is. They went to Columbia. As he did. They speak french. As he does. They are avid readers. As he is. Of course that this happens with many writers, but this is maybe too much. Also, you always find the idea that little events, little decisions we make, can reshape our life in a blink. Last but not least, his characters are always commited to major tasks. Things that only they understand, but some how will be very important. Things that for unknown reasons, they must do. This is Paul Auster's world. And he is running out of ideas.

What about Travels in the scriptorium? Well, basically Auster is being visited by his characters. They are angry, yet they care for him. The question is, after he did so many things to them, sent them to so many dangerous places, made them do so many twisted things, what do they feel about him, what would they do to him if they have a chance? That's a question many writers ask themselves, but turning it in to a novel? I don't know... looks lazy to me, specially after producing so many similar pieces lately.

Finally, Auster is human as we are. That means that he is obsessed and haunted by certain questions just as we are. These questions will be after us our whole life, yes, but if you are a writer, you must try to write something new and not the same novel over and over.

A few years ago, I saw a García Márquez interview. He said that after One hundred years of solitude, that kind of writing, the themes, the structure, the universe and the type of characters, were so deep in him, that he could have written the same book, slightly changed, over and over for many years. But he didn't. Instead, he stopped writing. He took a break. He took many years. And then, only then, when he finally got rid of the One hundred years of solitude universe, he produced a different book, completely fresh. I think that Auster should do the same.