Portal de Periódicos da CAPES

The Poetics and Politics of Metafiction: Reading Paul Auster's Travels in the Scriptorium

2008; Routledge; Volume: 89; Issue: 2 Linguagem: Inglês

10.1080/00138380801912883

1744-4217

Martin Butler, Jens Martín Gurr,

Modern American Literature Studies

He feels like a man who has been condemned to sit in a room and go on reading a book for the rest of his life. This is strange enough—to be only half alive at best, seeing the world only through words, living only through the lives of others. But if the book were an interesting one, perhaps it wouldn't be so bad. … But this book offers him nothing. There is no story, no plot, no action—nothing but a man sitting alone in a room and writing a book. That's all there is, Blue realizes, and he no longer wants any part of it. But how to get out? How to get out of the room that is the book that will go on being written for as long as he stays in the room?1 1Auster, New York Trilogy: Ghosts, 201. References to Auster's fiction will be abbreviated as follows: New York Trilogy: NYT; In the Country of Last Things: CLT; Moon Palace: MP; Music of Chance: MC; Leviathan: L; Mr. Vertigo: MV; Timbuktu: T; The Book of Illusions: BI; Oracle Night: ON; Travels in the Scriptorium: TS.