Invisible (2009 novel)
Encyclopedia
Invisible is a novel by Paul Auster
published in 2009 by Henry Holt and Company. The book is divided into four parts, telling a continuous story but each section told in a different voice and by several different authors.
, chronicles the entanglement of Columbia University
student Adam Walker with French political science professor Rudolf Born, who meet in New York City in the spring of 1967 and who form an alliance to publish a literary magazine. Their friendship splinters as a result of a tense love triangle with Born's girlfriend Margot and as a result of a late night mugging that ends in violence.
The second section, "Summer" describes the events in Adam's life later that summer in New York sharing an apartment with his older sister, Gwyn. This section of the story is told in second person
. Adam's story of the summer of 1967 is also framed by his having sent his manuscript, written in 2007, to a new character, James, who we are told is a famous author. In the framing story, James tells us how he receives the manuscript from a dying Adam and they arrange to meet.
In the third section, "Fall" we learn that Adam, in 2007, has died before he and James could meet, and has completed only notes of the third and final section of his memoir of 1967. James fleshes out the notes Adam has left in a third person account. "Fall" tells the story of Adam's trip to Paris
, where he encounters Born and Margot, as well as other friends of Born's, a woman named Hélène and her daughter Cécile. Adam inserts himself into the lives of these women and contrives a scheme to atone for guilt he carries stemming from his actions following the mugging in New York. At the close of this section James contacts Gwyn, and it is revealed that James has changed every name and setting in the book in order to protect the identity of the author, "Adam."
The final section takes place in 2007. James has been told by Gwyn that the major events of the second section of the book are entirely made-up, and James wonders whether any of the purported memoir is true. In searching for corroboration, James tracks down Cécile, now a distinguished literary scholar. She concludes the story by describing in her diary how she, in 2007, has a final strange contact with Rudolf Born, at his remote island home in the Caribbean
.
Paul Auster
Paul Benjamin Auster is an American author known for works blending absurdism, existentialism, crime fiction and the search for identity and personal meaning in works such as The New York Trilogy , Moon Palace , The Music of Chance , The Book of Illusions and The Brooklyn Follies...
published in 2009 by Henry Holt and Company. The book is divided into four parts, telling a continuous story but each section told in a different voice and by several different authors.
Plot summary
The first section, titled "Spring" and told in first personFirst-person narrative
First-person point of view is a narrative mode where a story is narrated by one character at a time, speaking for and about themselves. First-person narrative may be singular, plural or multiple as well as being an authoritative, reliable or deceptive "voice" and represents point of view in the...
, chronicles the entanglement of Columbia University
Columbia University
Columbia University in the City of New York is a private, Ivy League university in Manhattan, New York City. Columbia is the oldest institution of higher learning in the state of New York, the fifth oldest in the United States, and one of the country's nine Colonial Colleges founded before the...
student Adam Walker with French political science professor Rudolf Born, who meet in New York City in the spring of 1967 and who form an alliance to publish a literary magazine. Their friendship splinters as a result of a tense love triangle with Born's girlfriend Margot and as a result of a late night mugging that ends in violence.
The second section, "Summer" describes the events in Adam's life later that summer in New York sharing an apartment with his older sister, Gwyn. This section of the story is told in second person
Second-person narrative
The second-person narrative is a narrative mode in which the protagonist or another main character is referred to by employment of second-person personal pronouns and other kinds of addressing forms, for example the English second-person pronoun "you"....
. Adam's story of the summer of 1967 is also framed by his having sent his manuscript, written in 2007, to a new character, James, who we are told is a famous author. In the framing story, James tells us how he receives the manuscript from a dying Adam and they arrange to meet.
In the third section, "Fall" we learn that Adam, in 2007, has died before he and James could meet, and has completed only notes of the third and final section of his memoir of 1967. James fleshes out the notes Adam has left in a third person account. "Fall" tells the story of Adam's trip to Paris
Paris
Paris is the capital and largest city in France, situated on the river Seine, in northern France, at the heart of the Île-de-France region...
, where he encounters Born and Margot, as well as other friends of Born's, a woman named Hélène and her daughter Cécile. Adam inserts himself into the lives of these women and contrives a scheme to atone for guilt he carries stemming from his actions following the mugging in New York. At the close of this section James contacts Gwyn, and it is revealed that James has changed every name and setting in the book in order to protect the identity of the author, "Adam."
The final section takes place in 2007. James has been told by Gwyn that the major events of the second section of the book are entirely made-up, and James wonders whether any of the purported memoir is true. In searching for corroboration, James tracks down Cécile, now a distinguished literary scholar. She concludes the story by describing in her diary how she, in 2007, has a final strange contact with Rudolf Born, at his remote island home in the Caribbean
Caribbean
The Caribbean is a crescent-shaped group of islands more than 2,000 miles long separating the Gulf of Mexico and the Caribbean Sea, to the west and south, from the Atlantic Ocean, to the east and north...
.
Themes
The book centers on the tension between sex and war in the hearts of 1960s radicals, and the magnetism of intelligence and evil. As with much of Auster's work the novel deals with questions of shifting identity, puzzles and illusion, a persistent sense of dread, and of characters feeling trapped by circumstances over which they have no control.Reviews
- "Invisible: A Review" at The Fiction CircusThe Fiction CircusThe Fiction Circus is a Brooklyn-based online literary magazine that currently publishes short fiction and essays on the arts. The group also holds staged multimedia fiction readings accompanied by electronic music and incorporating visual art and theater as a frame narrative...
- "Invisible by Paul Auster: review" at The TelegraphThe Daily TelegraphThe Daily Telegraph is a daily morning broadsheet newspaper distributed throughout the United Kingdom and internationally. The newspaper was founded by Arthur B...
- "Invisible, by Paul Auster" at The IndependentThe IndependentThe Independent is a British national morning newspaper published in London by Independent Print Limited, owned by Alexander Lebedev since 2010. It is nicknamed the Indy, while the Sunday edition, The Independent on Sunday, is the Sindy. Launched in 1986, it is one of the youngest UK national daily...
- "Invisible by Paul Auster" at The GuardianThe GuardianThe Guardian, formerly known as The Manchester Guardian , is a British national daily newspaper in the Berliner format...
- "Love Crimes" at The New York TimesThe New York TimesThe New York Times is an American daily newspaper founded and continuously published in New York City since 1851. The New York Times has won 106 Pulitzer Prizes, the most of any news organization...
- "Invisible: A Review" at LB Translation