Goal
38/20 booksRead 20 books by Dec 30, 2024. You're 18 books ahead of schedule. 🙌
rare auster L - bizarre hybrid of (1) the typical auster protagonist, the steely yet neurotic drifter, and (2) pained attempts to explain dog psychology. this brand of anthropomorphism has been far improved by cartoons, it's unclear what this novel still offers
another late auster that leaves me cold. the characters are repetitions from before that don't seem to add new dimensions and so now it gets grating when they all speak with that same introspective austerian voice in a hermetically sealed plot. especially as auster tries to write about the gfc here and shows limited understanding of what it meant to anyone who isn't a baby boomer who loves baseball and doesn't use a phone
uneven between halves. you can tell auster is extremely intelligent - neuroticism excels in assailing the concrete but less the abstract
moon palace meets leviathan - rehash of old auster themes (fevered protagonist trying to recover fast disappearing stories, missing artist skipping town/s to new lives, pathways steered by chance not agency) with only one addition (cinephilia, but that doesn't hold up well in a novel)
