Author
Paul Auster
Published
1982
First read
October 2024
Through writing we can choose other fathers to compensate for our own, discover a spiritual link, go beyond ourselves.
This is actually two short books and the second, The Book of Memory, is one that I didn’t finish. Maybe it was the right text at the wrong time, but it just didn’t click and reading involved too much friction.
Portrait of an Invisible Man, however, is a moving reflection on Auster’s relationship with his father. He describes a man who, “finds life tolerable by only staying on the surface of himself” and who, “was somewhere else, between here and there. But never really here. And never really there.”
It’s a short book, less than 80 pages, and if memoirs sit on your shelf then I recommend it. A little quirky, definitely an odd relationship, yet thoughtful to reflect on.
I did read far enough in to The Book of Memory to find one line that rooted itself in my mind.
Memory: the space in which a thing happens for the second time.
Perhaps I’ll go back to that part of the book another time.
