Paul Auster’s Man in the Dark: The Reality of Unfinished Stories
Paul Auster’s Narrative Style: Avoiding Spoilers
I could detail the events that follow, what happens to the old man himself in the story Paul Auster tells us, and what happens to Owen Brick, but the narrative focuses primarily on August Brill. There are parallel stories that do not end well, reflecting circumstances of American life that are not identical. But I will say nothing of such vicissitudes. I do not want to spoil the reading of this book by committing the sin of indiscretion. Nor will I act like a bad commentator who reveals what should remain silent—a very common defect. Today, for example, movie trailers usually rely entirely on the film we have not yet seen, without shame, without restraint. It is a way, I suppose, to catch the viewer who already knows what they are going to see. Too often, we recognize more than we know. Auster’s novel addresses many issues that unfold without a closed plan and without the need for a happy resolution to problems or disasters.
The Disappointing Reality of the Ending
How does Brick’s story end? What about Brill? The conclusion the author provides for the soldier is neither epic nor moral; it is something absurd and rather disappointing, which is probably as real as life itself. The literary critic imagines the story ends with a revelation, but without the epiphany that repairs what has been destroyed. It is said that this novel by Paul Auster is disappointing because the author has created significant challenges for the narrative structure, as if writing well and carelessly, without thinking of a structure that gives shape and depth to the plot, counted twice: the life of Brill and Brick. The novel certainly irritates, as Paul Auster seems to leave the story of Brick unfinished, and Brill… Brill is left with that slight sadness that survivors feel when they wait for little more—that modest happiness of those who are content with the small gifts that life has not yet removed.
Life as a Sum of Unfinished Vicissitudes
I think all this criticism is misplaced, but I also believe that life is very similar to a sum of unfinished vicissitudes, where things go well here or there, but we are never certain that we acted properly. In a serial drama, the villains receive their due, the good receive their reward, and the amoral… the amoral will be punished in the future. In Auster’s novel, the author-narrator (who exactly is the author-narrator?) does not leave things neatly finished and acts—as I said—somewhat disastrously, like a God who abandons his creatures. There is no metanarrative reflection on the art of storytelling, its limits, and its possibilities, nor on what the author is allowed to do, nor is there fantasizing about the rebellion of the characters. But above all, there are notes and reflections on what it means to live proudly and painfully.
Western Expectations of Resolution and Progress
These annoyances expressed by critics are, of course, characteristic of a specific social environment and a well-established fact: as I said before, they are typical of an advanced West and a cultural space where progress has enabled us to fantasize about wealth, welfare, and continuous improvement.
Surviving the Rush of Life and Facing Loss
What can we do when life hurts? Growth is strictly that: a time to survive the rush of life. For a while. Death itself is not a fact we experience directly. I mean, no one has returned to tell us what is on the other side, what one experiences when one dies. We assist with astonishment to the disappearance of others. The masses, for example, find the sheer magnitude of death statistics unthinkable; they are inconceivable to the individual. But loss also occurs among those who are nearby, even very close: we attend an event that is still more indecipherable, an event that we