BAUMGARTNER is really quite lovely. I especially appreciated the quiet everyday moments and how Auster conveys the simplest or most elemental of human emotions in elegant terms. It's those everyday moments that make up a full and complete life. Certainly this is a story about grief as the narrator is mourning his wife, but it's ultimately about so much more. The narrator also explores what makes life worth living and we as readers explore this question along with him.

In "Baumgartner", Auster brings together many of his classic elements - the discussion of old age and mourning, reminiscent of "Man in the Dark", the question of memory and its relationship with art, as in "The Book of Illusions" , literary work, as in "Oracle Night". It is evident that we find a recognizable a Paul Auster. Unfortunately, "Baumgartner" didn't give me the emotional impact that other works by him did. Despite loving narratives that involve mourning and "the third act of life", even more so when there’s an investigative element that takes us to memories and literary extracts, I didn't connect much with the love story of the protagonist and his beloved. I felt, in general, that his memories are too stuck in the commonplace. As much as the concepts provide interesting connections between past and present, nothing I've read has elevated the characters to a higher tier. A layer capable of crossing the pages and generating true empathy, or even some other mixed feeling. I often felt indifferent. The present narrative likewise does not intrigue me. Between semi-fun adventures and long reflections on the signs of old age and anxiety in the face of love, I lost the charm for Baumgartner's routine. I think the discussion about the third act of life is wonderful - the rush to love before it's too late, the recognition of the approaching end. In the other hand, I feel like this was kind of rushed. I would love to feel a real connection with Baumgartner and his present life. There's a lot of unfinished situations in this book, but I think this is part of the structure. Even so, I’d like to feel some kind of closure in the end.

Was thrilled to get an ARC from NetGalley from no other than Paul Auster - I didn't even know he had a new book coming out (pub date Nov 2023) and have been a long time fan ever since I read Oracle Nights in one sitting.
Baumgartner is a thinly veiled version of Auster himself, and at a certain point later on in the novella (although with such long sentences and every detail of every moment chronicled there are times that it doesn't feel short) he actually refers to the Auster name in the family origins of Baumgartner.
B is a grieving academic beset with all of the indignities of aging. He meets a rambunctious metre reading whose presence drives him mad, only to be treated so kindly by this guy when he falls down the stairs to the basement.
This spans histories through him reading the unpublished poems and essays of his dead wife and his own imagination/daydreaming that brings him back to his own personal lineage story.
It was very wordy and it made me wonder what had captured me so much in Oracle Nights. I'll have to do a comparison and see how/if Auster's writing style has diminished or my taste has just grown up.
Was very disappointed this ended right before the pandemic as I was curious beyond belief to see how the scholar Beatrice and him would get along holed up together for two years.

This one confused me a bit. There are things happening in here that are very different than most Auster novels. Something straight forward and yet, at the same time, convoluted. It felt at first like pieces of something larger. Sketches that writers do to understand their characters better. Specifically their backstory.

I really enjoyed how we learn about Anna through a lens of the past. As in, Baumgartner's memory doesn't feel as crisp as it once might have been. And now we're looking at the world through this slightly muddled mind. It's almost as though we can, at the same time, see what Baumgartner is seeing AND watch him as he moves through the world and understand that these two visions do not resemble one another identically.

I'll put this review up now, but fully intend to re-read this, maybe in one sitting, in the near-future to try to understand what it is Auster is delivering.

I would categorize this latest work from prolific author, Paul Auster, a coming of old age story. Maybe the beginning of a new genre!

The book’s beginning is somewhat deceiving. As the story opens, we meet an older man, widowed ten years in a semi crisis state. He’s noticing he’s somewhat forgetful, the housekeeper who he relies on to keep the house in order since his wife’s death has had a personal emergency and doesn’t know when she’ll be back, a rookie meter reader comes to the house and Baumgartner takes him down the poorly lit basement stairs and has a bad fall and struggles with the injury without help.

So starts the story. But the Baumgartner we meet at first is not who we come to love. He is elderly, yes, but only in his early 70s. He is still a prolific writer, working on one project after another while he tries to figure out how to move forward without Anna. She was his everything: soul mate, lover, confidant, best friend, and colleague.

Written almost in stream of consciousness, we move through his life in no particular order. We learn of his marriage to Anna in all its stages, both through her written work and their experiences together; we learn about his past—his family relationships, his upbringing. He also weaves us through his hopes for the future with the new relationships he is forming. A romantic relationship who in his mind is becoming so important he fantasizes about marrying again. When pulled in a new direction, Baumgartner finds renewed energy and optimism that may enable him to craft a good life, different but fulfilling nonetheless.

I liked the flow of the book. In the hands of a writer like Paul Auster, he keeps us interested and gives us just enough of one experience before moving on and then seamlessly backtracks. However, my feeling is this is a book for a specific, narrow audience. One who might be interested in reading about a privileged man who has the resources to figure out what’s next, either despite of or because of his advancing age. One needing to believe in a future that might not be so bad after all.

Many thanks to Netgalley and Grove Press for the privilege of reading this ARC.
Please check out www.jantramontano.com/readerscafe for more reviews.

One of the best quotes about aging that I can recall, which has been variously attributed to an eclectic group that includes Mae West, Anthony Hopkins, and George Clooney, is: “Getting older is not for the faint of heart”. I am not sure whether Paul Auster ever said that himself, but the sentiment is clearly at the heart of Baumgartner, his novel that serves as a poignant meditation on one man’s experience as he nears the end game of life. Following the release of his affecting memoir Winter Journal by about a decade, this book continues the author’s exploration of the process of taking stock of one’s life and trying to make sense of the whole journey. Or, as Auster himself has put it regarding a writer’s function, trying “to explore the interior of his own head”.

The story opens with Seymour Baumgartner, in his early seventies and approaching retirement from the faculty at Princeton University, going about his daily routine. It is the same solitary routine he has followed for the past ten years since the tragic and untimely death of his beloved wife Anna. The tale then progresses with Sy spending a lot of time reminiscing about the past: events from his youth, his parents and the difficult upbringing they both faced, a jealous and resentful sister, his courtship and marriage to Anna, and his professional activities over a successful career. And all the while, Baumgartner tries to move forward with as much optimism as he can muster for a new love affair and a significant book project he has been struggling to complete. The book ends with him eagerly awaiting the arrival of a Ph.D. student who intends to write her dissertation on Anna’s work as a poet in a way he hopes will keep her memory alive.

The writing in Baumgartner is insightful and intellectually engaging, hardly surprising coming from someone who has been one of my favorite authors for quite some time. This is plainly a very personal project for Auster and it is hard not to see the parallels between the protagonist and the author’s own circumstances. That said, I did not find the essential plot to be particularly interesting or compelling; the book really reads like an extended character study or a fictionalized version of another memoir. While Auster has employed the stories-within-the-story approach to great effect in previous novels, it did not work nearly as well here; some of the vignettes were meandering and off-point, such as the one about the childhood of a maternal grandfather Baumgartner never knew. Further, the book concludes in a very abrupt and unsatisfying manner. So, while the novel merits a hesitant recommendation for craftsmanship in the writing, it does not rank anywhere near the top of the author’s considerable body of work.

“Does an event have to be true in order to be accepted as true, or does belief in the truth of an event already make it true, even if the thing that supposedly happened did not happen?”

Auster is getting up close and personal with his alter ego...

All started with Kierkegaard and an old crummy aluminum pot for Seymour (Sy) Baumgartner to drift away from the present to the flickering past, to the lost world of Then. A dreamer with a subdued perception of being, battles his convictions and collapses over the burden of memory and loss. He tries to pick up the broken pieces of his reality, but the unbearable toil of his “divided” life pesters him, leaving him tiptoeing into the void of solitude. In the end and when everything seemed lost…deliverance! The cacophony of false hopes is finally disrupted; harmony prevails, resurrecting his willingness to be!

“Remember this moment, little man, remember it for the rest of your life, for noting more important will ever happen to you than what is happening to you right now.”

Auster continues to play with the concept of identity, blurring the lines between reality and fiction, consciousness, and reverie. He utilises vignettes from the past to probe the complexities of the human experience, putting the audience in Baumgartner’s state of mind. His staccato yet rich prose encapsulates brilliantly the monotonic inner voice of Baumgartner and brings the story together in an absorbing and deeply engaging way.

In searching out the truth be ready for the unexpected, for it is difficult to find and puzzling when you find it (Heraclitus).

Many thanks to the publisher for an ARC, via NetGalley

I Loved 4321 by this author and was pleased to see this new novel on NetGalley uk
The novel reads at the start rather like like Fleishman in trouble by Taft Brodesser-Akner it is Fun and engaging from the start
However I found that for me it never really got going and it is one of those novels where nothing really happens and the novel started to drag for me and felt a bit flat as it progressed
The author has a strong skill in character development I felt I understood the main character well by the end of the novel although I felt frustrated by his inertia .The novel is mostly told in flashbacks looking at his life with his wife who had tragically died in a swim accident ten years before the novel starts .He has been unable to move forward with his life which seems very static
The author is accomplished and his prose style is beautiful and a joy to read I just needed something more to keep me loving this book
I read an early copy on NetGalley uk the book is published in the uk 7th November 2023 by Grove Atlantic Grove press
This review will be published on Goodreads ,NetGalley uk and my book blog Bionicsarahsbooks.Wordpress.Com

I consider Paul Auster one of the greatest writers of our time. I actually have quotes from his books on my refrigerator. I started out, absolutely loving this book. I was mesmerized. The first half dealing with his wife, Annie, and their life together was quite simply fabulous. Many of his quotes , many of the descriptions of his memories or passages that I read over and over again. However, at all his books, this was my least favorite. I really had to struggle to get through the second half. It just didn’t seem cohesive. It’s sort of red like a memoir, but not quite. Never. found out what his sister was like. I just wanted more information and perhaps more clarity. Thank you for my advance copy and I will continue to read all his books. Most of them have been a sheer pleasure..

I actually found this book a little hard to start, but once I got past the first chapter, I was pretty hooked. This isn’t so much a linear story (although there is a bit of one) as a collection of memories, stories, and stream-of-consciousness thoughts by the main character. There were parts I really connected with (such as the main character reviewing his wife’s writing), and other parts I found perhaps a little random (such as a memory of a boy and his father on a train in France). A short read at just over 200 pages, it’s a 3.5 / 5 stars for me.
⭐️⭐️⭐️💫

💕You might like this book if:
🔹 you like books that look at day-to-day occurrences and find a deeper layer of meaning
🔹 you like joining a character as they wander down memory lane

Thanks to Netgalley and Grove Press for the ebook. In his early 70’s, Sy Baumgartner, writer and Princeton professor, burns his hand grabbing a hot pot from the stove and then falls down a flight of stairs while leading the meter reader to the basement. It feels like we are going to follow the last days of this seeming failing and forgetful man, but Baumgartner quickly heals and the book focuses on his scholarly life from his very humble beginnings in Newark. But the bulk of the book is about his shared life with his beloved wife Anna, a translator and poet. Gone for ten years now, Baumgartner hasn’t entirely figured out how to move on, but he can still relish the years spent with his wife.

I love Paul Auster, In fact, I count him as one of my all-time favorite authors. I’ve read almost or all of his fictional work. I also thought he had retired. But no, apparently not.
Needless to say, I was very excited to see this on Netgalley and grabbed it right away. And…well, maybe Auster should have retired? Because this certainly isn’t up to par with his customary quality of work.
In this write-what-you-know effort, an old Jewish-American academic and writer creates an old Jewish-American academic and writer. Then throws you, the reader, inside that rambling mind. For 200 pages.
The eponymous protagonist is lonely, contemplative, and prone to extreme tangential recollections and reminiscences. The latter absolutely consumes the second 50% of the book, the first 50% of which at least has the decency to stick to conventional narrative.
Well, more or less conventional, actually. Auster has gotten really rambly and loquacious. There’s virtually no dialogue, and almost every sentence is nearly a page long. It’s amazing he managed to wrap it all up in just 200 pages. Frankly, any longer, and it would have gotten tedious. As is, Auster is still good enough of a writer, to hold attention if only for his cleverness and linguistic acrobatics. But just barely.
The novel's protagonist may be lost in his memories, but the novel itself appears to be just lost.
A quick read but leaves a lot to be desired. Not really the encore worthy of Auster’s talent. Read his earlier work. Thanks Netgalley.