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.With his narrative, Aaron saves his friend in a similar way.It is chance that brings the two men together.An author who is due togive a reading alongside Sachs cancels at the last minute, and Aaron is invited 205Exploding Fictionsto take his place.However, a snowstorm forces the cancellation of the event,and when Aaron arrives at Nashe s Tavern, the only people there are thebartender and Sachs.The two writers spend the evening drinking in the bar,talking about their lives and their work.By the end, Aaron has had so muchto drink that he begins to see double: Whenever I looked at Sachs, therewere two of him.Blinking my eyes didn t help, and shaking my head onlymade me dizzy.Sachs had turned into a man with two heads and two mouths(Lev 22).With the recounting of this episode, the effect is twofold: Aaronintroduces the theme of the double, while he is also giving a warning.Notonly during this initial meeting but throughout their friendship, and when hefinally sits down to write the story of his friend, Aaron will be unable to focusclearly.All he can hope to achieve with his story is to give his partial,fragmented perception of a man whose personality is multiple, and whoseactions and ideas are contradictory.There are numerous disclaimers inAaron s narrative, especially when he writes of events related to the timeprior to his own meeting with Sachs.No sooner does he give someinformation about Sachs s family than he adds that I doubt that I m trying tomake a specific point about this.These kinds of partial observations aresubject to any number of errors and misreadings (Lev 29 30).When,following his accident, Sachs withdraws from his friends, Aaron writes: Knowing what I know now, I can see how little I really understood.I wasdrawing conclusions from what amounted to partial evidence, basing myresponses on a cluster of random, observable facts that told only a small pieceof the story (Lev 126).The same holds true for Aaron s narrative now ; theevidence remains partial, and the process of representing his friend forcesAaron to look at himself as well.The final irony of the novel is that Aaron,who is racing against time to give his side of the story before the FBI canidentify his friend s body, actually helps them to solve the case by mentioningthat someone has been impersonating him: that person turns out to havebeen Sachs himself.In conclusion, despite the ostensible realism of the text, Leviathan asksthe same questions that Auster s previous novels had raised.The lines thatought to separate the text from the world are constantly blurred: Sachs sappreciation of books leads him to the decision to give up writing and involvehimself actively in the world.His story survives because another authorwrites it down from his own limited perspective, thus putting Sachs back intoa book.That book, Aaron s narrative, helps the FBI to identify Sachs, thusputting the writer back into the extratextual world.And just before Sachsdies, another writer who had been imprisoned steps into the real world:Vaclav Havel becomes president of Czechoslovakia (Lev 237).The activities 206Aliki Varvogliof writing and reading, far from producing a clear distinction between the real and the textual, emphasise their interconnectedness.As Valery Hugotteobserves, if Auster s novels are at heart literary because of their erudition andtheir implicit allusions to certain literary traditions, they do not cease equallyto affirm their relation to life.42 If Blue were to get out of the room that isthe book, he would find himself in another book, the world which is knownthrough its representations.NOTES30.McHale, Postmodernist Fiction, pp.57 58.31.Wajsbrot, Paul Auster, l Invention de l Ecriture , p.82.32.Ralph Waldo Emerson, Politics (1844), in The Collected Works of RalphWaldo Emerson, ed.Joseph Slater and Douglas Emory Wilson (Cambridge, MA, andLondon: Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, 1983), III, p.122.33.Henry David Thoreau, Resistance to Civil Government (1849), in TheReform Papers, ed.Wendell Glick (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1973),p.76.34.Don DeLillo, Mao II (London: Vintage, 1991), p.41.35.Commentary, 31 (March 1961), pp.223 33.Reprinted in The Novel Today:Contemporary Writers on Modern Fiction, ed.Malcolm Bradbury (London: FontanaPress, 1977), p.29.Auster expresses a similar idea by using a quotation from JulesVerne as the epigraph to Moon Palace: Nothing can astound an American.36.De Cortanze, La Solitude du labyrinthe, p.98.37.In The Novel Today, ed.Bradbury, p.42.38.The cover of Moon Palace depicts the Statue of Liberty seen from manydifferent angles.39 [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]
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.With his narrative, Aaron saves his friend in a similar way.It is chance that brings the two men together.An author who is due togive a reading alongside Sachs cancels at the last minute, and Aaron is invited 205Exploding Fictionsto take his place.However, a snowstorm forces the cancellation of the event,and when Aaron arrives at Nashe s Tavern, the only people there are thebartender and Sachs.The two writers spend the evening drinking in the bar,talking about their lives and their work.By the end, Aaron has had so muchto drink that he begins to see double: Whenever I looked at Sachs, therewere two of him.Blinking my eyes didn t help, and shaking my head onlymade me dizzy.Sachs had turned into a man with two heads and two mouths(Lev 22).With the recounting of this episode, the effect is twofold: Aaronintroduces the theme of the double, while he is also giving a warning.Notonly during this initial meeting but throughout their friendship, and when hefinally sits down to write the story of his friend, Aaron will be unable to focusclearly.All he can hope to achieve with his story is to give his partial,fragmented perception of a man whose personality is multiple, and whoseactions and ideas are contradictory.There are numerous disclaimers inAaron s narrative, especially when he writes of events related to the timeprior to his own meeting with Sachs.No sooner does he give someinformation about Sachs s family than he adds that I doubt that I m trying tomake a specific point about this.These kinds of partial observations aresubject to any number of errors and misreadings (Lev 29 30).When,following his accident, Sachs withdraws from his friends, Aaron writes: Knowing what I know now, I can see how little I really understood.I wasdrawing conclusions from what amounted to partial evidence, basing myresponses on a cluster of random, observable facts that told only a small pieceof the story (Lev 126).The same holds true for Aaron s narrative now ; theevidence remains partial, and the process of representing his friend forcesAaron to look at himself as well.The final irony of the novel is that Aaron,who is racing against time to give his side of the story before the FBI canidentify his friend s body, actually helps them to solve the case by mentioningthat someone has been impersonating him: that person turns out to havebeen Sachs himself.In conclusion, despite the ostensible realism of the text, Leviathan asksthe same questions that Auster s previous novels had raised.The lines thatought to separate the text from the world are constantly blurred: Sachs sappreciation of books leads him to the decision to give up writing and involvehimself actively in the world.His story survives because another authorwrites it down from his own limited perspective, thus putting Sachs back intoa book.That book, Aaron s narrative, helps the FBI to identify Sachs, thusputting the writer back into the extratextual world.And just before Sachsdies, another writer who had been imprisoned steps into the real world:Vaclav Havel becomes president of Czechoslovakia (Lev 237).The activities 206Aliki Varvogliof writing and reading, far from producing a clear distinction between the real and the textual, emphasise their interconnectedness.As Valery Hugotteobserves, if Auster s novels are at heart literary because of their erudition andtheir implicit allusions to certain literary traditions, they do not cease equallyto affirm their relation to life.42 If Blue were to get out of the room that isthe book, he would find himself in another book, the world which is knownthrough its representations.NOTES30.McHale, Postmodernist Fiction, pp.57 58.31.Wajsbrot, Paul Auster, l Invention de l Ecriture , p.82.32.Ralph Waldo Emerson, Politics (1844), in The Collected Works of RalphWaldo Emerson, ed.Joseph Slater and Douglas Emory Wilson (Cambridge, MA, andLondon: Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, 1983), III, p.122.33.Henry David Thoreau, Resistance to Civil Government (1849), in TheReform Papers, ed.Wendell Glick (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1973),p.76.34.Don DeLillo, Mao II (London: Vintage, 1991), p.41.35.Commentary, 31 (March 1961), pp.223 33.Reprinted in The Novel Today:Contemporary Writers on Modern Fiction, ed.Malcolm Bradbury (London: FontanaPress, 1977), p.29.Auster expresses a similar idea by using a quotation from JulesVerne as the epigraph to Moon Palace: Nothing can astound an American.36.De Cortanze, La Solitude du labyrinthe, p.98.37.In The Novel Today, ed.Bradbury, p.42.38.The cover of Moon Palace depicts the Statue of Liberty seen from manydifferent angles.39 [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]