Vermont professor David Zimmer is a broken man. The protagonist of Paul Auster's 10th novel, The Book of Illusions, hits a period in which life seemed to be working aggressively against him. After his wife and sons are killed in an airplane crash, Zimmer becomes an alcoholic recluse, fond of emptying his bottle of sleeping pills into his palm, contemplating his next move. But one night, while watching a television documentary, Zimmer's attention is caught by the silent-film comedian Hector Mann, who had disappeared without a trace in 1929 and who was considered long-dead. Soon, Zimmer begins work on a book about Mann's newly discovered films (copies of which had been sent, anonymously, to film archives around the world). The spirit of Hector Mann keeps David Zimmer alive for a year. When a letter arrives from someone claiming to be Hector Mann's wife, announcing that Mann had read Zimmer's book and would like to meet him, it is as if fate has tossed Zimmer from one hand to the other: from grief and loss to desire and confusion.
Although film images are technically "illusions," this deft and layered novel is not so much about conscious illusion or trickery as about the traces we leave behind us: words, images, memories. Children are one obvious trace, but in this book, they are not allowed to carry their parents forward. They die early: Hector Mann losing his 3-year-old son to a bee sting just as David Zimmer has lost his two sons in the crash. The second half of The Book of Illusions is given over to a love affair, and to Zimmer's attempt to save something of Hector Mann, and of the others he has loved. In the end, what really survives of us on earth--what flickering immortality we are permitted--is left to the reader to surmise. --Regina Marler
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I was flying back from Arizona last week, the Book of Illusions shivering
belowdecks with the checked-in luggage, me sitting between a man from
Wallingford who should have had to buy two seats, and a young woman in a USC
shirt who took my aisle seat and didn't deserve to be haggled with. I had the
fiction issue of the New Yorker with me and was running into a string of NMBG
coincidences, never mind the flying due north out of Phoenix to avoid a major
storm and returning to New England, knowing that while I was somewhere over the
amber waves of plains, a huge chunk of the company I work for was being handed
their walking papers. There was the almost ubiquitous Gogol reference in a short
story by an Irish writer from the town I worked in several years ago, a
Shteyngart short about a section of Petersburg that I could have thrown rocks at
from my former dorm room across the hall, even a reference to Atticus, he of the
non-Mockingbird variety.
I kept checking to see if I was awake but realized that was a bit of a cliche,
in and of itself. The Wallingford fattie farted just as the steward was
describing the buy-on-board menu, which caused USC and I to exchange
commiserating smirks and raised eyebrows. I later fell asleep after a few
minutes of "Wild Hogs" and woke up with USC's head on my shoulder. Of course, I
didn't budge, especially as also-sleeping Wallingford had his big left mitt
practically over my crotch and I didn't desire friction for anyone. When USC
awoke, she smiled at me and said, "You seem sad." I told her I was, kinda, but
not real sad. She told me that she and her friends liked to play drinking or
word games when something sad happened. I reminded her that I wasn't all that
sad, in spite of the numbness in my right thigh, but she persisted. "Cocktails
or word games," she said. "You make the call."
"Word games," I replied decisively. "And cocktails."
She found that funny and said, "This is a good one. Weird plurals. You go until
the first person gacks."
"What?"
"Weird plurals, like brothers-in-law. You know, as opposed to brother-in-laws.
First person that can't think of one loses."
"Gotcha," I said.
"'K, you first!"
"Uh, courts martial."
"Ooh! Um, hors d'ouevre."
"Oh, lord. You a French major?"
"Oui, oui, monsieur."
"Coats of arm."
"Really?"
"Yeah, totally," I lied.
"Blows job," she said.
Silence.
"Uh, I think that's...."
It looked like she was holding her breath before she burst forth with a big old
"Bwaaaah" and I responded with a blushing snicker. "We haven't even gotten into
the cocktails yet," she said, waving her hand at the steward.
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