Auster Depresses With "Man In The Dark"

Can anyone out there remember the last time I wrote about a book? (I think it might be Shakespeare’s The Taming of the Shrew, but if we’re going to be technical, then it’s probably Unbroken.) Anyways, I suppose that’s what college courses and student journalism do to a person’s reading habits. Finished with the semester last Friday, I have started my reading regimen from last summer, so you can expect a few literary updates in addition to musical and cinematic fare for at least the next few weeks. Unfortunately for me, I started off my reading schedule with Paul Auster’s short novel Man In The Dark. I hate to be blunt—but, wow, I wish I had not picked up that book.

It’s one of those “tough reads.” I mean that not in its language or its concept or its originality. I mean that in the sense that this novel is brutally depressing. Like Richard Powers’s 2006 novel The Echo Maker, which sent me into a depressive, downward spiral for an entire month, this novel drops the reader into a cesspool of sorrow and then lets them wallow there. This novel is bleak.

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What might save the work in the eyes of some is the lighthearted pieces that Auster has wisely sprinkled throughout. For instance, the relationship between the depressed narrator and his equally depressed granddaughter centers on their practice of watching films together all day long. Auster, who, judging by this novel, must have connections to the antidepressant industry, reminds the reader constantly of how awful these days must be. At one point, the narrator himself notes, “I began to see this obsessive movie watching as a form of self-medication, a homeopathic drug to anesthetize herself against the need to think about her future” (Auster 15). But there is one fine, revealing conversation between the narrator and the granddaughter about the emotional life of objects within a trio of films, focusing on Ozu’s Tokyo Story.

But the depressing moments in this novel keep coming at you. The glimpses of hope and happiness do nothing to alleviate the weight of sorrow that presses down on everything. I cried at one point in this novel—here:

Betty died of a broken heart. Some people laugh when they hear that phrase, but that’s because they don’t know anything about the world. People die of broken hearts. It happens every day, and it will go on happening to the end of time. (Auster 87)

If you’re wise, you’ll stay away from this novel. Not because it’s badly written or the characters are wooden or you won't be invested in the story…stay away because it will sit on your chest in the middle of the night like a goddamn anvil. If you like that kind of thing…then have at it. For those who would rather avoid a series of catatonic moments, consider me having done you a favor.