{"id":69243,"date":"2017-02-14T12:07:16","date_gmt":"2017-02-14T01:07:16","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.booktopia.com.au\/?p=69243"},"modified":"2021-02-10T14:44:28","modified_gmt":"2021-02-10T03:44:28","slug":"review-4-3-2-1-paul-auster","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.booktopia.com.au\/blog\/2017\/02\/14\/review-4-3-2-1-paul-auster\/","title":{"rendered":"REVIEW: 4 3 2 1, the new novel by Paul Auster"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"4<\/a>Paul Auster’s latest novel, 4 3 2 1<\/em>, is an absolute thumper that will cause anyone foolish enough to carry it around in a shoulder bag a permanent crick in the neck.<\/p>\n

The novel follows the life of Archibald Ferguson – in fact, it follows four parallel lives of the same Archibald Ferguson – exploring the roads taken, not taken, taken by someone else, and dare I say it, roads that never existed in the first place but that still bare considering.<\/p>\n

As with the Saunders, 4 3 2 1<\/em> is a novel that requires the reader to contort and stretch their reading minds in new ways, keeping track of four different iterations of the one man, while also pausing to bask in the undeniable musicality of Auster’s prose. Complex and deliberately difficult at times, Auster plays with his readers and challenges them to keep up while he riffs on the page.<\/p>\n

You’ll want to keep a pen and paper by your side when you read this one – charting the various family trees and noting the various fulcrums and hinges at work in this novel is as enjoyable as the narrative itself.<\/p>\n

–Review by Ilse Scheepers<\/strong><\/p>\n