4321 by Paul AusterMy rating: 4 of 5 stars
This book is so many things. It is 4 alternate histories of the same character. Which I always love--what events are life altering? In this case, the answer seems to lie in decisions his father makes--at least this it seems the stories truly diverge, which is interesting to think about--how much of our life is determined by things put into motion before we are even born? It is also a treatise on writing--what you should read and experience, how to discipline yourself, how to edit, even different ways of getting published. It's also the story of the United States in the from the late 50's to the early 70's--political, international, local NY, and literary and film happenings--as well as some perspectives from Paris. It's a lot to cover and it certainly takes a hunk of trees to do it--and personally I think seasoned authors don't get edited as much as they should. There were definitely some tangents that I thought went on a little long. Also, while sex is certainly part of coming of age, I felt like it's blunt, almost pornographic, handling in some instances, made an otherwise brilliant book banal.
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tormented by the curse of ambition. By contrast, his father and Uncle Don were consumed by their ambitions, which paradoxically made their worlds smaller and less comfortable than those who weren't afflicted by the curse, for ambition meant never being satisfied, to be always hungering for something more, constantly pushing forward because no success could ever be beg enough to quell the need for new and even bigger successes.
The word psyche means two things in Greek, his aunt said. Two very different but interesting things. Butterfly and soul. But when you stop and think about it carefully, butterfly and soul aren't so different, after all, are they? A butterfly starts out as a caterpillar, an ugly sort of earthbound, wormy nothing, and then one day the caterpillar builds a cocoon, and after a certain amount of time the cocoon opens and out comes the butterfly, the most beautiful creature in the world. That's what happens to souls as well, Archie. They struggle in the depths of darkness and ignorance, they suffer through trials and misfortunes, and bit by bit they become purified by those sufferings, strengthened by the hard things that happen to them, and one day, if the soul in question is a worthy soul, it will break out of its cocoon and soar through he air like a magnificent butterfly.
curious interregnum, meaning a time that stood between two other times, a time of no time when all the rules about how you were supposed to live had been thrown out the window
there seemed to be several of him, that he wasn't just one person, but a collection of contradictory selves, and each time he was with a different person, he himself was different as well.
paying attention, Ferguson discovered, was the first step in learning how to be alive.
She had lost her daughters love because she had loved her unwisely.
what did it mean to be himself anyway, he wondered, he had several selves inside him, even many selves, a strong self and a weak self, a thoughtful self and an impulsive self, a generous self and a selfish self, so many selves that in the end he was as large as everyone or as small as no one.
now he was doing things he never would have done in the past, behaving as if he were no longer himself.
