Why Write? By Paul Auster
Autobiographical essays Why Write Cuentos cortos para momentos cortos Fiction Memoir While Why Write is available in the Collected Prose collection I m delighted to own one of the 2000 copies of this slim 58 page paperback The title essay in 5 sections offers several vignettes from the life of Paul Auster that could easily fit into any of his fiction And that s the point It also gives his explanation of why he s a writer Kind of. It Reminds Me Of Something That Once Happened To My Mother is a loving tribute to the poet Charles Reznikoff while A Prayer For Salman Rushdie from 1993 when the fatwa was still in force and An Appeal To The Governor Of Pennsylvania which is a poignant appeal to then Governor Ridge s deepest humanity to save Mumia Abu Jamal s life Both show Auster s activist side as a member and Vice President of PEN Fiction Memoir I chanced upon this in the library catalogue of my department at uni thought nice something by Paul to read on the train Collected non fiction pieces from NY papers magazines Some of it looked familiar and must have passed through my hands earlier in some other form but since there are admittedly only 2500 copies of it around I m going to make a list of what you re missing Answer to a Question from New York Magazine 1995 The question being presumably What first comes to your mind when New York is mentioned to you This is only a paragraph but quite funny An episode from Auster s childhood Why Write 1995 Five episodes back forth from Auster s life The answer being presumably that otherwise these episodes would go untold And you wouldn t want to miss them. It reminds me of something that once happened to my mother 1983 A recollection of Auster s meeting with Charles Reznikoff in 1974 As is always the case with Paul the episode is filled with coincidences his wedding day an article he had written about Reznikoff his first book of poetry Quite touching Twenty Five Sentences Containing the Words Charles Bernstein 1990 This is the funniest introductory whatever I ve ever read or heard for that matter Auster manages to be obnoxiusly funny complimentary and profound all at once Wood Box Sculpture by Jon Kessler I have no idea why it ended up here or what has Paul to do with it I can guess though See margin notes for a massive spoiler A Prayer for Salman Rushdie 1993 Or I Could Be In His Place with a Fatwa On My Head. Heartfelt and moving Appeal to the Governor of Pennsylvania 1995 To save Mumia Abu Jamal s life Paul is socially involved than one would think This shouldn t even be termed a book it s that brief But all the pieces are very good my vote is given in proportion to the length And none of you is going to ever read it anyway Fiction Memoir Stumbled on this at the library shelved with the how to write a bestseller and how to save your soul through writing books It s very short and very scattershot an odds and sods compilation like the ones musicians put out of B sides outtakes soundtrack contributions But all readable and worth reading And sometimes overtly sometimes elliptically every piece offers an answer to the question posed by the title Fiction Memoir Well this was disappointing A short collection of essays speeches and other snippets from Auster which most of all seems like a collection collected just to make some money of the Auster name I did not find anything profound or original It is fine the snippets may have been good and appropriate for the situations and contexts they were created for but as a stand alone collection they are uninteresting and the prose is uninspiring Fiction Memoir There is an essay at the end of Joy Williams book Ill Nature that I believe is called Why I Write Some of these short essays in Paul Auster s Why Write remind me of that Joy Williams piece Both are well worth the read. While there is a place for books like Strunk and White in the writer s arsenal it s important to remember that the writer isn t born in these grammatical wastelands The writer is a vessel waiting to be bled of its story The writer is floating in the ether and drawn forth by a calling a crying a dance Essays by passionate writers such as Williams and Auster remind us that whether it be to fulfill civic duty appease hungry ghosts or crawl your way through what cannot otherwise be defined the writing process is both a cross to bear and a blessing to behold. What s in your pocket Fiction Memoir I can t remember a thing about this book only that I read it and it didn t suck Fiction Memoir Primera vez que leo a este autor y me llevo una grata sorpresa porque disfrut mucho de cada uno de estos relatos sobre casualidades fue muy divertido de leer y al ser tan cortos puedo decir que no se quedaban cortos con lo que quer an decir Un libro perfecto para iniciar con este autor Fiction Memoir A delightful and completely unexpected series of scenes Whether or not these are truly autobiographical the structure and brevity of this volume are a delight I have not read anything else by Auster though and on the caution of a good friend about the content of his other works may for the time being leave my acquaintance with him at this Fiction Memoir Du moment qu on a un crayon dans sa poche il y a de fortes chances pour qu un jour ou l autre on soit tent de s en servir Cette citation m a beaucoup marqu et r sume bien le contenu du livre Fiction Memoir
| Why Write? By Paul Auster |
| 1886224145 |
| 9781886224148 |
| English |
| 58 |
| Paperback |
.. Auster explains how he became a writer by telling a story that ends with: if there s a pencil in your pocket there s a good chance that one day you ll feel tempted to start using it