I thought it was high time I read something by Paul Auster and The Book Of Illusions is what I had kicking around. David is a dead man, emotionally speaking. His wife and two children were killed in a plane crash and he sinks into depression. He sits in front of the TV isolated and drunk. One night he sees an old silent slapstick comedy starring Hector Mann. He laughs, the first positive emotion he's felt since the crash. He decides to research the life of Hector Mann and write his biography. Mann disappeared mysteriously many, many years ago shortly after making his last movie. The biography is considered to be a definitive work and leads to a contract to translate a work by Chateaubriand, Memoirs Of A Dead Man.
While working on the translation, still isolated and depressed, he receives a letter from Mann's wife telling him that Mann is alive, though unwell, in New Mexico and wants to see him. After that things move very quickly and melodramatically for David, his life is threatened, he falls in love, he discovers the horrible secret that drove Hector into the desert to do penance. The road to happily ever after is full of potholes because David also has to do penance. The book asks the big question, "Is a life unknown a life unlived?"
I've heard a lot about Paul Auster: in France he's a literary superstar. Perhaps this was the wrong book through which to make his acquaintance. It explores personal tragedy in an interesting way but I thought his manipulation of symbols was a bit heavyhanded - more allegorical than I'd like. This book got me thinking, it held my interest but, in the end, left me a bit cold. But then, I guess a book about three "dead" men is meant to do that.
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