Was thrilled to get an ARC from NetGalley from no other than Paul Auster - I didn't even know he had a new book coming out (pub date Nov 2023) and have been a long time fan ever since I read Oracle Nights in one sitting.
Baumgartner is a thinly veiled version of Auster himself, and at a certain point later on in the novella (although with such long sentences and every detail of every moment chronicled there are times that it doesn't feel short) he actually refers to the Auster name in the family origins of Baumgartner.
B is a grieving academic beset with all of the indignities of aging. He meets a rambunctious metre reading whose presence drives him mad, only to be treated so kindly by this guy when he falls down the stairs to the basement.
This spans histories through him reading the unpublished poems and essays of his dead wife and his own imagination/daydreaming that brings him back to his own personal lineage story.
It was very wordy and it made me wonder what had captured me so much in Oracle Nights. I'll have to do a comparison and see how/if Auster's writing style has diminished or my taste has just grown up.
Was very disappointed this ended right before the pandemic as I was curious beyond belief to see how the scholar Beatrice and him would get along holed up together for two years.