Paul auster’s new novel is so stark, so disturbing in its watchfulness, it is such a sudden “return to more metaphysical territory” (according to the blurb), that it would be a good idea to keep his last novel alongside. Because, even as the reader gets absorbed in this chilling, slim novel, a suspicion seems confirmed. That Travels in the Scriptorium is the kind of indulgence that enhances the stature of writers in possession of a large heart and an imagination. It is a less ambitious book after a big novel, but it does not in any way fall below Auster’s standards. It is a book we like to think of as a mind-flexing exercise, before another big book comes our way. Do recall that this book comes within a year of The Brooklyn Follies. The Brooklyn Follies was a marker in Auster’s fiction. It held an unusual warmth. He still put the reader on alert for possible tricks, but as he wrote of a man “looking for a quiet place to die” — in practical terms, the improvised communities of Brooklyn —those tricks ended up constructing a pathway to happiness. Travels in a Scriptorium is stark and ostensibly without context. It begins: “The old man sits on the edge of a narrow bed, palms spread out on his knees, head down staring at the floor. He has no idea that a camera is planted in the ceiling directly over him. The shutter clicks silently once every second, producing eighty-six thousand four hundred still photos with each revolution of the earth. Even if he knew he was being watched, it wouldn’t make any difference. His mind is elsewhere, stranded among figments in his head as he searches for an answer to the questions that haunt him. Who is he? What is he doing here?” A pile of photographs and a sheaf of paper lie on the table. The photos bring flickers of recollection, but they are too wispy to be grasped. The papers hold a story, recognisably in a 19th century writing style, of a country that resembles the United States but the names and circumstances mentioned differ. And the historical feel of this ultimately inconclusive narrative intimates him to the remembrance that he lives in the US of the 21st century. People visit him. Among them, a very questioning ex-Scotland Yard investigator who wants him to think, to remember a story written by a man he is said to have known. A woman called Anna takes care of him, hinting that he had sent out many many people on arduous missions. What these missions could have been, she won’t say. The novel is being read as Auster’s homage to Beckett. However, once you get past its unnerving playfulness and its hauntingly unanswered questions, you cannot helpbut ask, what is Paul Auster going to serve up next?
