[HN Gopher] Paul Auster has died
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Paul Auster has died
Author : koevet
Score : 76 points
Date : 2024-05-01 05:31 UTC (17 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.nytimes.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.nytimes.com)
| mdh wrote:
| Sad news. '4 3 2 1' is one of my favourite novels with its
| variations on a theme of a single person's life. The same
| character's showing up in each thread but in totally different
| contexts worked particularly well.
| igrekel wrote:
| I'm actually in the middle of reading it.. I'm still struggling
| to follow it all, know in which variation I am at a point and
| see where it is going. But it is sure entertaining
| eszed wrote:
| The movie _Smoke_ , which he wrote, is one of my favorites. I've
| enjoyed several of his novels, but none of those are among my
| personal canon, for what that's worth.
| finikytou wrote:
| He was for a moment quite popular and his books were definitely
| above the average overhyped populer american writer.
|
| Mr Vertigo was a nice little book that punched above its weight
| and would def recommend reading it
| browningstreet wrote:
| In college, I read all of the New York Trilogy at a coffee shop
| in one sitting, and it left me bent for the rest of the day. Good
| times. RIP.
| drewcoo wrote:
| A wonderful example of postmodernism! And not in that
| disparaging sense that I can never quite understand.
| alephnerd wrote:
| Loved his NY Trilogy. Sad to hear of his passing.
| neonate wrote:
| http://web.archive.org/web/20240501171727/https://www.nytime...
| dang wrote:
| Related (but we merged the thread hither):
|
| _Paul Auster: How I Became a Writer (2014) [video]_ -
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40221327
| earlyriser wrote:
| I'm guessing Paul Auster fans will comment here. 20 years ago I
| read a book that I cannot remember the name and I vaguely
| remember it was from Auster, but I'm not sure and I have been
| looking for ages. It was a compilation of short stories with the
| Noah's Ark somehow in each of them, but the stories were very
| different besides that part. Does this ring a bell?
| benjamoon wrote:
| GPT:
|
| The book you're thinking of is likely "In the Country of Last
| Things" by Paul Auster. While not a collection of short
| stories, this novel often gets mentioned in relation to
| discussions about Auster's work involving themes of dystopia
| and allegorical narratives. The reference to Noah's Ark might
| be metaphorical, reflecting the themes of catastrophe and
| survival that are common in Auster's work. If you specifically
| remember a collection of short stories involving Noah's Ark, it
| could be another author or a less known work of Auster, as his
| major works don't typically revolve around this theme directly
| in the form of short stories.
|
| I'm not confident this is correct!
| be_kind wrote:
| Possibly History of the World in 10 1/2 Chapters by Julian
| Barnes? One of my favourites. Noah's Ark isn't in all of the
| short stories/essays, but does recur.
| ianmcgowan wrote:
| Sounds a little like Julian Barnes "A History of the World in
| 10 and 1/2 chapters", there are several recurring themes
| (woodworm, boats) but the Ark recurs in several of the stories.
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_History_of_the_World_in_10%C...
| moritzwarhier wrote:
| His books were half of what I read between age 12-25 (edit: more
| like 12-20, and I meant only novels, but it doesn't matter here)
|
| Sad to see him go.
|
| Picking up his books again as an adult only took away the magic
| in some of his weaker works.
|
| Mostly, the magic remained.
|
| The guys learning to play Bach and building a wall, the delirant
| anon in NYC chasing paper trails, the adolescent boy learning to
| levitate... the evil man offering glasses in a post-apocalyptic
| city:
|
| so many memories remain, I don't know much about Paul Auster but
| I can say he was an influence on my life. Because of randomness
| (a relative picking Mr Vertigo as a present for me, probably
| because of book-store recommendations)
|
| Paul Auster's characters always appear as somewhat mythical,
| living through a personal transformation.
|
| Many of his characters have an aura of NYC artist/cultural
| authority stick around then, but it does not bother me at all.
|
| Like many of my favorite authors, he injects much of his own
| personality into the main characters, even with multiple books
| using a novelist/writer as the main character.
| rgrieselhuber wrote:
| Never heard of this writer but:
|
| "In September 2009, he signed a petition in support of Roman
| Polanski, calling for his release after he was arrested in
| Switzerland in relation to his 1977 charge for drugging and
| raping a 13-year-old girl." [1]
|
| [1]: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paul_Auster
| ShamelessC wrote:
| I guess people can't handle that one of their favorite writers
| did something despicable. No need to downvote so much, just
| comes across like you're trying to conceal the truth, which is
| that the guy supported a monster.
| rgrieselhuber wrote:
| I was rather surprised at the number of downvotes pointing
| out that the guy supported an (alleged...) child rapist.
| autoexec wrote:
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paul_Auster
| sharadov wrote:
| His entire genre of writing revolved around chance and
| coincidence and how big of a hand it played in one's life.
|
| I was captivated after reading Leviathan and could not stop till
| I read his entire pantheon.
|
| RIP Paul Auster.
| SandmanDP wrote:
| Just listened to a segment about him on NPR, apparently his
| writing themes were greatly influenced by an experience he had
| as a child where he was standing next to someone who was killed
| by a lightning strike.
| ktzar wrote:
| Which happens in one of his novels
| deviantbit wrote:
| RIP.
|
| I enjoyed City of Glass, but Ghost and The Locked Room I found
| dull. Leviathan was good, it made me curious if he was the
| Unabomber.
| paulpauper wrote:
| was a smoker. damn. gotta give up the habit while you can
| ktzar wrote:
| I can thank him for having taught me his language, the
| intricacies of baseball, for having shown me corners in the state
| of New York unheard of outside the States. For having explained
| what love and passion are and aren't, for having instilled dreams
| and hopes. And most importantly, that life can be lived to its
| fullest at any age.
|
| A life worth living. Rest in peace, he will continue living while
| he's read.
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