PAUL AUSTER – Narrative And Thought From a Dual Consciousness

Novels, as all the arts in general, must be considered as never being fulfilled and always open to new interpretations. By means of serenity, using Martin Heidegger’s term, novels serve the purpose of making possible the observation of reality. It is in the contemplation provided by this perspective that the work of Paul Auster must be inscribed. His novels are a means to deal with the world of life in a special way, a way similar to the one of the French philosophes. Rightly considered, Auster becomes a Diderot of the Postmodern Age, always keen on offering a perspective of complex character; one that in questioning the world always generates more questions than answers. Auster lets his ‘stories’ speak for themselves, stories that always grow as appendixes to other stories in a seemingly never ending production, searching for meaning in the world of reality. In this state of affairs, the value of the storyteller is recovered and the storyteller is transformed by the written word into someone who tries his best to understand the mutability of reality and communicate it as a process mediated by his understanding.