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Travels in the Scriptorium
A Novel
by Paul Auster
Auster spins the metaphysical fable of Mr. Blank, an old man who awakens in an unfamiliar chamber with no memory of who he is or how he has arrived there. As he pores over the relics on the desk, examining the circumstances of his confinement and searching his own hazy mind for clues, he realizes someone is watching.
Henry Holt and Co., 160 pages
01/23/2007
$22.00
ISBN: 0805081453
Fiction
General Literature & Fiction
All reviews are classified as one of five grades: Outstanding (4 points), Favorable (3), Mixed (2), Unfavorable (1) and Terrible (0). To calculate the Metascore, we divide total points achieved by the total points possible (i.e., 4 x the number of reviews), with the resulting percentage (multiplied by 100) being the Metascore. Learn more...
Washington Post Howard Norman
Travels in the Scriptorium is part dystopian myth and part literary seance; allusions intersect with allusions, identities are fluid, the past is folded almost chokingly tight into the present, shadows of the truth have shadows. All of this refracting inventiveness is why Auster is often referred to as a master of the metaphysical detective story.
Booklist Donna Seaman
Auster coyly celebrates the power of the imagination and marvels over the labyrinthine nature of the mind in an archly playful and shrewdly philosophical tribute to the transcendence of stories. [1 Nov 2006, p.4]
The Independent Nicholas Royle
A compelling narrative.
Entertainment Weekly Gregory Kirschling
Auster's bleak gamesmanship again reaps its usual spooky, minimalist rewards.
Los Angeles Times Tim Rutten
Travels in the Scriptorium…ruminates on issues of identity, purpose, responsibility and knowledge in a setting that harks back in a deliciously retro, knowing sort of way to French existentialist conventions.
Daily Telegraph Lewis Jones
If you dislike writers who disappear up their own wazoos, you should eschew Auster, but if you find them amusing, his stuff is state-of-the-art, and Travels in the Scriptorium is a particularly elegant example.
Boston Globe Eric Grunwald
Auster is a master at exploring ideas without ever stating them or slowing down the action.
Houston Chronicle Steven Alford
Scriptorium lacks the sense of completeness of some of Auster's earlier work.
Publishers Weekly
While Auster's lean, poker-faced prose creates a satisfyingly claustrophobic allegory, the tidy, self-referential ending lends a writing-exercise patina to the work. [16 Oct 2006, p.27]
The New York Times Book Review Sophie Harrison
When [Auster’s] novels work, it’s because he successfully persuades us of the writer’s oldest trick: that his characters have somehow broken free of their creator. They may be make-believe, products of a playful ideology, but they feel real and their feelings matter. In [Travels in the Scriptorium], this never happens, which makes it hard to care.
TLS: The Times Literary Supplement Deborah Friedell
Although it is at its tightest here, Auster’s language has grown no more imaginative.
Kirkus Reviews
Rarely has a novelist pulled the strings of his puppetry more transparently, as ardent fans may find this meta-fictional fable profound, while others may dismiss it as a literary parlor trick. [1 Oct 2006, p.975]
Daily Telegraph Edward Smith
The problem is not so much that the puzzles and questions in Travels in the Scriptorium aren't resolved. It is they aren't interesting puzzles to begin with. And the quotidian style manages to be both sparse and yet over-written.
Sydney Morning Herald Jack Marx
With Travels in the Scriptorium Auster has constructed a maze that none but his fans will want to find themselves caught in.
Salon Allen Barra
When Auster gets cooking, he's like a magician who can amaze us by sawing a woman in half; when he's not, as in Travels in the Scriptorium, it's as if he's sawing away without a woman in the box.
Christian Science Monitor Yvonne Zipp
For me, it most closely resembled Eric Carle's Greedy Python, swallowing its own tail until there is nothing left.
The Guardian Alfred Hickling
Travels in the Scriptorium feels lean and almost deliberately flavourless.
 The average user rating for this book is 7.6 (out of 10) based on 9 User Votes
Note: User votes are NOT included in the Metascore calculation.
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