Christopher Febles's Reviews > Baumgartner

Maybe I’ll change it to 5. It affected me in a big way. Review to follow.
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Seymour Tecumseh (“ST”) Baumgartner, philosophy professor at Princeton, is approaching his seventh decade. He’s a widower whose beloved wife Anna died in a tragic beach accident ten years ago, a loss that left him reeling. He’s picked up the pieces, has a new love, and is getting ready to retire. But his body and mind aren’t what they were, and lately he’s been wondering if he’s made the right choices. Pervading the novel is the notion: will old(er) age end in loneliness?

I became a Paul Auster fan many years ago when I perused my wife’s bookshelf when we were first dating. Always good to share interests, right? That set me on a path, which left off six years ago with the masterpiece, 4321. This is now the ninth book of his I’ve read, and I cherish them all (with 4321, Leviathan, and Moon Palace taking top billing).



That said, I was skeptical because of the layout of this novel. Nearly plotless, heady, introspective, intensely philosophical? Hmm. Those are all the reasons I never finished any Proust (yes, I’m a troglodyte). But, at just 208 pages, I figured that even if I did get bogged down, the traffic jam of thought wouldn’t last long.

I forgot, however, why I love this author in the first place. You philosophy majors can go ahead and laugh, but I find his writing deeply existential in a common-man way. OK, Sy isn’t exactly Joe Sixpack, as a Princeton professor and all, but Auster tortures him in a manner to which we can all relate. I adored the first chapter: the accidents, the solitude, the rambling of thoughts, things that happen to anyone. It’s all told in Sy’s head, and the sentences are Faulkner-esque, stretching for nearly half a page…but since it’s tactile, easy to imagine, it absolutely works. It’s not, “He loved his wife with all his heart,” but rather, “Anna looked like this,” and “She ran like the wind.” Auster illustrates his MC’s feelings, and somehow I was made to feel them intensely. Only a master does that.

He also has a way of describing characters with such intricacy, importance, and care. Even the gasman that shows up is given a personality, a tenderness that challenges our assumptions and fits in perfectly with Sy’s thoughts. Each gets a little backstory, which you think would be tedious. But no, “show, don’t tell” wins again. We see the contrast between Anna and Judith (his new love) shown through Judith’s upper-middle-class upbringing. We get a sense of every member of Sy’s family through the dress shop, through lived history, through interpersonal conflict. Again, it’s palpable, and thus, it’s not really introspection, is it?

Even better, Auster gives us love, pain, long-ago happiness using a tremendously creative and well-executed tactic: the main characters’ writings. Sy stumbles across short stories and poems written by his wife and shares them with us. I love an author who can portray different voices in the same novel, and Auster’s no slouch. Anna’s childhood memoir flattened me, and I’m no lover of poetry, but I adored the verse that seemed to be the beginning of their love affair. Not as crazy about one of Sy’s memoirs, but it was still an interesting way to share feelings and thoughts. The ending is a little abrupt and vague, but I gave it some thought and I’m OK with it now.

So, once again, if you consider yourself a budding philosopher, I won’t begrudge your snickering. But the reason I loved this novel was the everyman existentialism, the contemplation of Sy’s place in the world, his contributions to society, his struggle with his fears of loneliness. He looks, for example, at his relationship with his sister Naomi with regret and longing, and through real-life actions and tangible memories, we feel those regrets. Time and again I set down my Kindle, letting the sensations wash over me. But not for long, since I ripped through this novel, not your stereotypical “page-turner,” in a day and a half.

I could sit in these feelings all day. The ideas and situations Auster presents are the kinds that would remind me that the examined life is worth living.

Thank you to NetGalley and Grove Press for the distinct honor of receiving an advance copy of this novel in exchange for an honest review.

Baumgartner will be released November 7, 2023.