What’s It About? Old man wakes up in a room with no memory or who he is and what he’s doing there. Once he starts to read half of a novel about a spy incarcerated in a similar predicament, well… we all do our best to figure the answers out.

Why?Sounds like the kind of awesome stuff that came out of Borges 50 years earlier. Whether that’s a compliment to Borges or a implied critique of Auster depends on who you talk to.

Thoughts:Despite the seemingly negative attention the book has received, I really enjoyed it. A quick, yet complex read. It puts the act of writing and the nature of the author as the central question of the book, all embedded in the questionable identity of the old man.

One thing I couldn’t quite figure out was why the old man has been put into the room in the first place? I mean, I know we’re not supposed to “figure it out” per se, but it was the one aspect of the story I couldn’t quite fit into the author-narrator theory. I’ll definitely up skimming the book sooner or later.