Sophie Harrison on Paul Auster’s latest:
When his novels work, it’s because he successfully persuades us of the writer’s oldest trick: that his characters have somehow broken free of their creator.
Travels in the Scriptorium, she suggests, falls short of this. I have to read the short novel myself, but I do get the sense that Auster may be going through the motions somewhat. While I enjoyed both Book of Illusions and Oracle Night, two of his most recent novels, they did read a little like imitations of his earlier work — right down to his decision to set them in the same late ’80s/early ’90s of the previous books.