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writing den, when he begins to write the story in the
blue notebook as if compelled by an occult power, and
when, in the story within the story, the character makes
a life-changing decision – there is a thrilling, uncanny
sense of freedom. I mean, for the reader. A freedom in
infinite possibility; innumerable futures present themselves.
I have not experienced this so acutely with any
other writer.
It’s there too in the opening lines of The Music Of
Chance: Jim Nashe driving away from his past after
a windfall of cash. After that, the story takes shape
and the sense diminishes. Until then, however, no
particular story is attached to the sense of freedom.
Anything can happen. We are free. The beginning of
the story is our windfall.
So why is do we feel an urge to continue reading
rather than to throw the book aside and live that
freedom? Probably because we prefer the illusion of
freedom, the possibility of freedom rather than the real
thing. We read to enjoy the specific story that replaces
the vertigo of infinite freedom. As with a horror movie,
we aren’t really horrified. Horror is only the playful
withdrawal of a guaranteed safety. And narrative is the
guarantee. With a novel, we know we have a circumscribed
adventure before us.
Yet that narrative also makes our freedom come true
for a moment, even if it is only an illusion. The open
future may contain infinite possibilities but it never
BUY Paul Auster books online from and
seems to happen for real. Consumed by habit, we lose
contact with our freedom. Reading, or watching a film,
reminds us of possibility even as it is removed. And in
that reminder, it comes true. The obscure attraction of
a book or a film might be, then, the pleasure of contact
with possibility and relief in its withdrawal.
But such pleasure has a double edge of course.
Indulgence in stories removes us from life; takes us
to the end of possibility. Auster’s narrative is, as I’ve
said, compelling. It is compelling but in the end doesn’t
satisfy the indulgent reader. Oracle Night could go on
for another thousand pages. Perhaps it does as Auster’s
complete oeuvre. Yet it does stop. Although, actually,
it doesn’t quite. The story within the story is not
concluded. It is shocking and frustrating for the reader.
One wants to know how the author Sidney Orr and the
author Paul Auster resolve a chilling situation. At the
end though Orr explains why it is left hanging and we
realise that it stops precisely for the reason we don’t
want it to stop. It is difficult to accept, yet not because
it is wrong.
This has angered and confused naive readers; those
untroubled by stories. For instance, Aaron Hughes asks
the right questions but asks them only of Oracle Night
rather than literature in general. What does it mean, for
example, to say that Oracle Night “is not a success”
when the nature of success in literary terms is fundamental
to the narrative itself? The answers present
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