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4 out of 4 found this helpful: stepping in the same river twice
Review: The Invention of Solitude
What do you do when you read a book and it makes you want to write, write real badly? You write.
Re-reading The Invention of Solitude, it strikes me so much harder this time around. Just as Heraclitus said that, you cannot step into the same river twice - you cannot read the same book twice. Books have a time, place and memories - accessing them produces a different combination each time, again and again.
The Invention of Solitude is the memoir Paul Auster wrote after his father passed away. Incredible urges of desperation, to keep the presence of his father alive, he writes a thorougly touching account of how he saw his father and his relationship with him. He writes how his dad, a first generation immigrant in the US, survives - how this affects his outlook on life, first and foremost a survivor. For example, the function of money not as pleasure, but as protection. The strong urge to protect himself, his family but also a level of being devoid of aesthetics, because all objects are functional and functional only - and the only function is function itself; never pleasure, never beauty. The horrible relationship with his mum and how they despite their differences, they stay together for the children. How her mum gave up a long time ago, when she relinguished the control over home, private space governed by the woman, all autonomy gone. How Paul Auster himself went on to become a Columbia graduate, his passion for the written word, poetry, travels to Paris by himself, made possible by himself. Is that instant karma? A dad, bent on functionality decided by monetary value, giving birth to a son, bent on infusing life with beauty -is a bigger gap of understanding possible? Beauty rarely measures itself in money, and if it does, very poorly. Money is not the only currency in life; think respect, think vita active - the destruction of invisibility and the creation of a presence, shared memories through the act of living, act-ing. There is instant eternal life out there for poets, writers.
The way his dad is depicted by Auster, reminds me of my own dad and reminds me of myself. I never realized how much me and my dad are alike; distinguishing features always decided by those that sharply mark us as different, not by what we commonly share. You are what makes you different from the other.
A little game for practice, next time you face an Other - someone y...... full review
2005-12-13 17:17 | 1 comment
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