tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2013099116454762594.post3247988867946592431..comments2024-01-31T17:20:47.037-05:00Comments on Ultimate Indivisibility: Alternate Lives: Books by Paul Auster and Jim MurdochBrent Robisonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06882060411376854563noreply@blogger.comBlogger5125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2013099116454762594.post-26349695370073370972018-05-24T16:45:19.697-04:002018-05-24T16:45:19.697-04:00Also, you just sent me to my shelf to refresh my m...Also, you just sent me to my shelf to refresh my memory about Travels in the Scriptorium. Yes, it shares some qualities with your novel -- the lives of characters in novels as parallel to our own, puppets of the god-like author etc. -- but it was not one of my Auster favorites. I enjoyed yours more!Brent Robisonhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/06882060411376854563noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2013099116454762594.post-66467027697008656892018-05-24T16:36:16.068-04:002018-05-24T16:36:16.068-04:00Many people espouse the idea that marketplace succ...Many people espouse the idea that marketplace success and artistic merit actually have a direct relationship. "If it's good enough, it will be discovered." That's bogus logic, in my opinion. I sometimes think about all the Shakespeares or Becketts or PKDs who, for reasons unknown (chance or not), never became famous. Masterpieces lost! At least in this timestream. Thanks for reading and commenting!Brent Robisonhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/06882060411376854563noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2013099116454762594.post-91539579757159699152018-05-24T10:36:05.715-04:002018-05-24T10:36:05.715-04:00Well, I'm surprised to learn that The More Thi...Well, I'm surprised to learn that The More Things Change was actually written before Milligan and Murphy. I'm not surprised to learn how deeply it's based on Beckett -- I assumed it probably had hidden nods to him (besides the overt one late in the book) but I knew I'd be getting in over my head if I started mentioning Beckett in the post, since I'm not a Beckett scholar. Wow, 1453 footnotes! It certainly is a study-able book, and maybe Beckett fans will make it a cult hit one day, if they somehow learn about it.Brent Robisonhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/06882060411376854563noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2013099116454762594.post-94599497313779182018-05-22T21:44:57.061-04:002018-05-22T21:44:57.061-04:00That is an interesting comparison between two book...That is an interesting comparison between two books, both in content and execution. It is also an interesting question you ask as to why one of the authors is famous and the other is not.<br /><br />I think the answer concerns luck. It is pure chance. The next question would be why someone is lucky. Do certain personal attributes make someone more prone to be lucky? Napoleon thought so. But then why do some people have these attributes and others not? The questions continue exponentially in a rather recursive fashion which might say more about the human condition than any hidden reality. The human condition to me is the ability to think about thinking and to think about thinking about thinking. The whole issue suggests a randomness comprised of parts that do not appear at first to be random, but are probably completely arbitrary in the long run.<br /><br />Smaller pebbles wash further up the beach than larger ones. It looks as if they have been sorted, and they have - by gravity and the tide.<br /><br />This might mean that a famous author’s writing might be no better than that of an unknown. Or the other way round. Life is strange. Thank you know who.Anonymoushttps://www.blogger.com/profile/04652779338038674366noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2013099116454762594.post-26151751220064226702018-05-21T10:32:49.467-04:002018-05-21T10:32:49.467-04:00I enjoyed this, Brent. Thank you. It was a clever ...I enjoyed this, Brent. Thank you. It was a clever way to introduce people to my novel. I’m a fan of Auster and Auster, as you probably know, is a fan of Beckett. We both channel him in our own ways and we both had to break free from him. This was my first Beckett-inspired novel—third written, fourth published—and I really thought I’d got him out of my system by the time I thought I’d “finished” it. It came as a great surprise to me when I found myself writing <i>Milligan and Murphy</i> and I have no idea where the radio play <i>Vladimir and Estragon are Dead</i> came from but that seems to be me now. There’s so much Beckett packed into the book it’s hard to know where to start but since you mentioned the structure let me just say this, the arc is meant to cover the major periods of Beckett’s writing. The early works were in the third person, he then moved into the long first person narratives before focusing on theatrical works, broadly speaking.<br /><br />The first draft of my novel was finished in 2003 but if you did want to compare my book to one of Auster’s the obvious choice would be <i>Travels in the Scriptorium</i> from 2007. I had, of course, seen <i>The Matrix</i> when it came out in 1999. In the following quote<br /><br /><i>There are days when it simply refuses to happen. Nothing you can do save wait for it to come to you. No forcing it, no chasing after it—that’s fatal —and no little blue pills.</i><br /><br />we have nods to both <i>Endgame</i> and <i>The Matrix</i>: “You take the blue pill, the story ends. You wake up in your bed and believe whatever you want to believe.” My copy contains 1453 footnotes. I’d never remember all the various nods otherwise. The thing I always loved about Beckett is how much was going on under the surface. Even in his (seemingly) most straightforward of works. I wanted to write a book you could <i>study</i> even though I knew full well I’d be lucky to get anyone to read it even the once.<br /><br />Why’s Auster famous and I’m not? I’m more puzzled with how Beckett achieved success let alone fame because he actively avoided both especially in the early days. Had he been born in 2006 rather than 1906 I bet he’d have started self-publishing his work and no one would’ve heard of him. My parents waited twenty-one years for me and I’ve occasionally wondered what my life would’ve been like had I been born in 1948 rather than 1959. I would’ve been a peer of Paul Auster for starters.<br />Jim Murdochhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/12786388638146471193noreply@blogger.com