Samiksha Jaiswal (Editor)

Travels in the Scriptorium

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Language
  
English

Pages
  
160 pp

OCLC
  
62421289

Author
  
Paul Auster

Publisher
  
Henry Holt and Company

Preceded by
  
The Brooklyn Follies

3.2/5
Goodreads

Publication date
  
January 23, 2007

ISBN
  
0-8050-8145-3

Originally published
  
23 January 2007

Genre
  
Metafiction

Country
  
United States of America

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Media type
  
Print (Hardback & Paperback)

Similar
  
Man in the Dark, The Brooklyn Follies, Oracle Night, The Book of Illusions, The Music of Chance

Travels in the Scriptorium is a novel by Paul Auster first published in 2007.

Contents

Elements from most past Auster novels all converge in this book: every character other than the protagonist, Mr. Blank, is taken from a previous novel, with yet more characters mentioned peripherally.

Paul auster unique art book travels in the scriptorium novel artist michael bl mel


Plot

An old man is disoriented within an unknown chamber and has no memory about who he is or how he has arrived there. He tries to understand something from the relics on the desk, examining the circumstances of his confinement and searching for reasons and a method to exit.

Determining that he is locked in, the man — identified only as Mr. Blank — begins reading a manuscript he finds on the desk, the story of another prisoner, set in an alternate world the man doesn't recognize. Nevertheless, the pages seem to have been left for him, along with a haunting set of photographs. As the day passes, various characters call on the man in his cell — vaguely familiar people, some who seem to resent him for crimes he can't remember — and each brings frustrating hints of his identity and his past. All the while an overhead camera clicks and clicks, recording his movements, and a microphone records every sound in the room. Someone is watching.

Reviews

  • "Mr Writer Man": a review in the TLS by Deborah Friedell, October 2006.
  • Travels in the Scriptorium by Paul Auster, Strange Horizons
  • "Sure Shot, or a Round of Blanks?": a review for WritersNewsWeekly.com by Jeff LeJeune, May 2008.
  • References

    Travels in the Scriptorium Wikipedia