The Book of Illusions
Encyclopedia
The Book of Illusions is a novel
Novel
A novel is a book of long narrative in literary prose. The genre has historical roots both in the fields of the medieval and early modern romance and in the tradition of the novella. The latter supplied the present generic term in the late 18th century....

 by American writer Paul Auster
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 2002.

Plot introduction

Set in the late 1980s, the story is written from the perspective of David Zimmer, a university professor who, after losing his wife and children in a plane crash
Aviation accidents and incidents
An aviation accident is defined in the Convention on International Civil Aviation Annex 13 as an occurrence associated with the operation of an aircraft which takes place between the time any person boards the aircraft with the intention of flight and all such persons have disembarked, in which a...

, falls into a routine of depression and isolation
Solitude
Solitude is a state of seclusion or isolation, i.e., lack of contact with people. It may stem from bad relationships, deliberate choice, infectious disease, mental disorders, neurological disorders or circumstances of employment or situation .Short-term solitude is often valued as a time when one...

. After seeing one of the silent comedies
Silent comedy
Silent comedy refers to a style of acting, related to but distinct from mime, invented to bring comedy into the medium of film in the silent film era before a sound track on film was technologically practicable...

 of Hector Mann, an actor missing
Missing person
A missing person is a person who has disappeared for usually unknown reasons.Missing persons' photographs may be posted on bulletin boards, milk cartons, postcards, and websites, along with a phone number to be contacted if a sighting has been made....

 since the 1920s, he decides to occupy himself by watching all of Mann's films and writing a book about them. The publishing of the book, however, triggers another series of events that draw Zimmer even deeper into the actor's past.

The middle of the story is largely dedicated to telling the life story of Hector Mann, involving his self-imposed exile from his past life and career, which serves as a form of penance for his role in the death of a woman who loved him. In his last days, his wife sends a letter to Zimmer, requesting him to come to their New Mexico
New Mexico
New Mexico is a state located in the southwest and western regions of the United States. New Mexico is also usually considered one of the Mountain States. With a population density of 16 per square mile, New Mexico is the sixth-most sparsely inhabited U.S...

 home to bear witness to Mann's final legacy of films. The events that ensue form the overarching story of Zimmer's rehabilitation from his reclusive
Recluse
A recluse is a person who lives in voluntary seclusion from the public and society, often close to nature. The word is from the Latin recludere, which means "shut up" or "sequester." There are many potential reasons for becoming a recluse: a personal philosophy that rejects consumer society; a...

 state, and his coming to terms with the manner in which his family was killed.

Links to other works

The book makes many direct references to the autobiography of François-René de Chateaubriand
François-René de Chateaubriand
François-René, vicomte de Chateaubriand was a French writer, politician, diplomat and historian. He is considered the founder of Romanticism in French literature.-Early life and exile:...

, Mémoires d'outre-tombe
Mémoires d'Outre-Tombe
Mémoires d'Outre-Tombe - literally "Memoirs from Beyond the Grave" - is an autobiography in 42 volumes by François-René de Chateaubriand, published posthumously in 1848...

; one of Zimmer's ongoing projects is producing a new translation of the book.

David Zimmer appears in Auster's earlier novel Moon Palace
Moon Palace
Moon Palace is a novel written by Paul Auster that was first published in 1989.The novel is set in Manhattan and the U.S. Midwest, and centres on the life of the narrator Marco Stanley Fogg and the two previous generations of his family.- Plot summary:...

.

The Book of Illusions revisits a number of plot elements seen in Auster's first major work, The New York Trilogy
The New York Trilogy
The New York Trilogy is a series of novels by Paul Auster. Originally published sequentially as City of Glass , Ghosts and The Locked Room , it has since been collected into a single volume.- Plot introduction :...

. These include:
  • The protagonist driving himself into isolation
  • Extended focus on a character's (fictional) body of work
  • Writer
    Writer
    A writer is a person who produces literature, such as novels, short stories, plays, screenplays, poetry, or other literary art. Skilled writers are able to use language to portray ideas and images....

    s as characters
  • A character disappearing, only to resurface years later, having spent some of the intervening years wandering and doing odd jobs
  • Parallels drawn between a work of Nathaniel Hawthorne
    Nathaniel Hawthorne
    Nathaniel Hawthorne was an American novelist and short story writer.Nathaniel Hawthorne was born in 1804 in the city of Salem, Massachusetts to Nathaniel Hathorne and the former Elizabeth Clarke Manning. His ancestors include John Hathorne, a judge during the Salem Witch Trials...

     and the plot itself
  • Notebooks (also in Oracle Night
    Oracle Night
    Oracle Night is a 2003 novel by American author Paul Auster.The novel is about a writer named Sidney Orr , who, after making a miraculous recovery from near fatal illness, buys a new notebook and starts writing a story about a man who completely changed his life when he realised how much his...

    )
  • A meta-referential
    Meta-reference
    Metareference, a metafiction technique, is a situation in a work of fiction whereby characters display an awareness that they are in such a work, such as a film, television show or book. Sometimes it may even just be a form of editing or film-making technique that comments on the...

     ending that places the protagonist as the author of the book itself


In addition, the book also bears the stylistic distinction of not using quotation mark
Quotation mark
Quotation marks or inverted commas are punctuation marks at the beginning and end of a quotation, direct speech, literal title or name. Quotation marks can also be used to indicate a different meaning of a word or phrase than the one typically associated with it and are often used to express irony...

s; Auster has previously used this in Ghosts, the second book of The New York Trilogy
The New York Trilogy
The New York Trilogy is a series of novels by Paul Auster. Originally published sequentially as City of Glass , Ghosts and The Locked Room , it has since been collected into a single volume.- Plot introduction :...

and "Travels in the Scriptorium
Travels in the Scriptorium
Travels in the Scriptorium is a novel by Paul Auster first published in 2007.Elements from most past Auster novels all converge in this book: every character other than the protagonist, Mr...

". He also does this in his later book, Invisible

The Silent World of Hector Mann

The Silent World of Hector Mann
The Silent World of Hector Mann
The Silent World of Hector Mann is a 2010 album by Duke Special, featuring songs inspired by the character of Hector Mann from Paul Auster's 2002 novel The Book of Illusions, each song inspired by one of the silent movies the character appeared in, written by Special or a songwriter of his...

 is an album by Duke Special
Duke Special
Duke Special, real name Peter Wilson, is a songwriter and performer based in Belfast, Northern Ireland. A piano-based songwriter with a romantic style and a warm, distinctly accented voice, he has a distinctive look, with his long dreadlocks, eyeliner and outfits he describes as "hobo chic"...

inspired by the character Hector Mann with each song themselves based on a film each written by a different songwriter
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