Moon Palace ~ Paul Auster

 Moon Palace

by Paul Auster

//When I was fifteen, I began signing all my papers M. S. Fogg, pretentiously echoing the gods of modern literature, but at the same time delighting in the fact that the initials stood for manuscript. Uncle Victor heartily approved of this about-face. "Every man is the author of his own life," he said. "The book you are writing is not yet finished. Therefore, it's a manuscript. What could be more appropriate than that?"//

Marco Stanley Fogg, the love-child of a woman who died young, looked after by an uncle who is an itinerant musician, is scripting the story of his own life. Having a name comprising three explorers - one ancient (Marco Polo), one from relatively recent history (Stanley), and one fictional (Phileas Fogg from 'Around the World in Eighty Days') - it is no wonder that his story contains fantastical and improbable elements, and strange and wonderful journeys. Orphaned young, left alone without any means of sustenance during college, M S is running his life into the ground with a vengeance ("This was nihilism raised to the level of an aesthetic proposition. I would turn my life into a work of art, sacrificing myself to such exquisite paradoxes that every breath I took would teach me how to savor my own doom.") when he is saved by his friend Zimmer and Kitty Wu, a Japanese-American dancer who he falls in love with. She is also an orphan, albeit better placed financially and socially - and they naturally are attracted to one another.

Here is where the story takes a quantum jump to a different level. Fogg lands a job with an eccentric old man, Thomas Effing, who is blind. His only job is to read to him, from a variety of titles stocked in his home library. However, soon the old man starts sensing his death and decides to unburden himself to his young assistant - and we move into the realm of the Arabian Nights, never to return to level ground again. Improbability is piled upon improbability, and coincidence meets outrageous coincidence, as Fogg's life comes full circle. Lives become linked to one another in unbelievable ways to form a strange tapestry of tragedy.

Don't look for purpose in this novel. There isn't any. If at all, one can call it a tale of failed human relationships. But the events are so farfetched and the tragedies self-inflicted that there is no pathos: a sense of the ridiculous is always lurking in the background. Instead of looking for meaning, one must immerse oneself in the story and the beautiful, lyrical language that Auster uses.

It is a tale to lose oneself in.