The Book of Illusions
Books | Fiction / General
3.7
(52)
Paul Auster
A man's obsession with a silent-film star sends him on a journey into a shadow world of lies, illusions, and unexpected love Six months after losing his wife and two young sons in an airplane crash, Vermont professor David Zimmer spends his waking hours mired in a blur of alcoholic grief and self-pity. Then, watching television one night, he stumbles upon a clip from a lost silent film by comedian Hector Mann. Zimmer's interest is piqued, and he soon finds himself embarking on a journey around the world to research a book on this mysterious figure, who vanished from sight in 1929 and has been presumed dead for sixty years. When the book is published the following year, a letter turns up in Zimmer's mailbox bearing a return address from a small town in New Mexico-supposedly written by Hector's wife. "Hector has read your book and would like to meet you. Are you interested in paying us a visit?" Is the letter a hoax, or is Hector Mann still alive? Torn between doubt and belief, Zimmer hesitates, until one night a strange woman appears on his doorstep and makes the decision for him, changing his life forever. This stunning novel plunges the reader into a universe in which the comic and the tragic, the real and the imagined, the violent and the tender dissolve into one another. With The Book of Illusions, one of America's most powerful and original writers has written his richest, most emotionally charged work yet.
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More Details:
Author
Paul Auster
Pages
278
Publisher
Macmillan
Published Date
2003
ISBN
0312990960 9780312990961
Ratings
Google: 4
Community ReviewsSee all
"This was a slow read. There was a lot of useless information and there wasn’t really ever a climax. I would not recommend this to anyone honestly. "
R B
Reese Battles
"Ugh this book was ridiculous and laughable.<br/><br/>The main character is a pretentious narcissistic self-absorbed writer/professor. He experiences a tragedy and then supposedly falls into a grief so severe that during it he manages to publish a book of film criticism (ugh!) and get another sweet deal to publish a translation of some pretentious French writer (ugh!) (Chateaubriand). The entire time he moans and whines about how much he is SUFFERING. A man suffering for his art - this one. He supposedly misses his family, as they are the source of his grief, but they are rarely mentioned and we learn nothing about them. He has enough money to flit around in luxury from NY to DC to some isolated cabin in Vermont and do nothing but wallow and write and brag about how deep he is.<br/><br/>He watches some silent film from the 20s and laughs at some dude with a mustache, and decides to make finding out about this actor his new life's purpose. You know what's worse than reading a book of film criticism? Reading a book of fictional film criticism! He discovers a laughably unbelievable plot about his newfound actor friend, involving sordid love affairs, and accidental murders, and multiple guns, a bank robbery, prostitutes, and blah blah blah. The actor is just as pathetic, nihilistic, whiny self-absorbed jerk as the writer. Somehow throughout all of his suffering, the actor somehow manages to charm people and live a life of completely nihilistic luxury, making films in hiding in the desert with a staff full of people. <br/><br/>Women are not portrayed favorably in this book at all. They are all emotional idiots who are half crazy and give up their whole lives to be with and hop into bed immediately in awe at these narcissistic men. <br/><br/>Give me a break. Multiple times I rolled my eyes and laughed at this book. It put me to sleep multiple times. I almost quit it. It was so ridiculous that I kept going. <br/><br/>"
R T
Rebekah Travis
"THIS BOOK IS A MASTERPIECE!!!! MUST READ!!!"
Gabby Cabeza
"Beautifully written, Aster is truly a master of the English language. His novels are certainly a reflection of life in the sense that they alternate between boring and depressing with brief glimpses of hope and happiness in between. For this, I salute him and maybe I have been perverted by sensationalist horrors and thrillers but i just can't help but find his novels to be boring."
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