I can say without hesitation that Paul Auster is one of the finest novelists writing today. I had the pleasure of being introduced to his works about ten years ago and have faithfully read every word I could find that came from his pen. He weaves such elaborately beautiful plots, and his characters live in ways that belie their status as mere words; but the true beauty of Paul Auster’s writing is his tone. Opening a book by this man is more like settling into a comfortable chair and having an incredibly charismatic story-teller sitting just inside the range of your hearing.
His books pour over you, and with The Brooklyn Follies, Auster is back on top of his game. At turns laugh-out-loud funny and powerfully poignant, The Brooklyn Follies manages no less a task then tackling the possibilities of love and human relationships. But this is no mere chronicle of romance and family, the subject is approached from such a daring angle that you hardly realize that this is what you’ve encountered until the last pages are turned.
Title: The Brooklyn Follies
Author: Paul Auster
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The Brooklyn Follies involves, among other things; the dream of an idealistic commune, an art forgery scheme, more exquisitely rendered side-plots than you can shake a stick at, and a female impersonator lip-syncing at a funeral in the woods while our narrator wonders if he should laugh or cry.
Auster carries his characters and plots off with such ease and confidence that his books allow you to fall into them without the slightest reservation. He engages in some of the more complicated bits of literary trickery that you’re likely to come across from a best-selling author, but he does it with such grace that you hardly notice the tricks, they seem so absolutely natural.
In that ever shifting list of my favorite books of all time, there is always at least one title penned by Paul Auster, his The New York Trilogy and the novel Leviathan alone should win him inclusion in the canon of literary immortality. With The Brooklyn Follies he has provided another beautiful reason, not just to read his books, but to read books period, and to rejoice in being alive.