Travels in the Scriptorium

Auster’s 2005 novel, The Brooklyn Follies, featured none of the author’s trademark puzzles and high-concept quandaries. The departure was either surprising or disappointing, depending on how charitable a reader feels toward one of America’s greats.

Travels, then, is being labeled a return to vintage Auster: another short, tight psychological mystery where the protagonist is hopeful of solving a hopeless enigma. The book opens with an old man, Mr. Blank, sitting in a near-empty room. Mr. Blank is unsure why he’s in this room, and finds that various everyday objects, like a table and bed, have been labeled for him, suggesting his mind is not as sharp as he thinks. Over the course of the novel he’s cared for by nurses, a doctor, a lawyer and an investigator. On the only table in the room lay photographs of familiar faces, and a manuscript that tells of an officer held in captivity by his own military after he discovered government secrets.

Like much of Auster’s work, the story-within-the-story is a compelling fragment of the mystery, but as it’s revealed that Mr. Blank is being held responsible for unspeakable crimes, Blank’s narrative overwhelms. Mr. Blank is convinced that his salvation lies in untying the knot he’s in, not realizing that the intractability of said knot is driving him mad, and leading him further and further away from said salvation.

For much of the novel, we were pleased to be swept up again in another of Auster’s idiosyncratic stumblers. The writing is as tight as ever, and like many of Auster’s favorite characters, Mr. Blank faces the bleak consequences of his own actions, even if he’s not sure what those actions were. We’ve always admired Auster’s work most when the mystery remains unsolved, but in Travels Auster appears to point toward himself as a clue. We’ll say no more to avoid acting as spoiler, but of all the characters Auster’s brilliant imagination has created over the years, he is certainly not the most fascinating.—Jonathan Messinger