I started reading this book last summer in mid July, but I had to put it down when the seventh book of the Harry Potter saga came out. After reading J.K. Rowling's last, my mind was not ready to go back to The Brooklyn Follies, so I left it on the shelf -even though I had read more than two thirds of it- for a time when I would enjoy it more.
Three or four days ago I picked it up again and I started reading it all over, from the beginning. Great idea, no doubt, because I didn't remember what the story was about and I had also forgotten how much I had laugh with several pieces of it. I said in the previous post that the first thing I ask myself when I finish a book is "did I like it?", and in this case I have to say, simply, that I loved every bit of it.
Nathan is a sixty-year-old cancer survivor that has recently divorced his wife and decides to go to Brooklyn because "he was looking for a nice place to die, and someone recomended Brooklyn". There he reencounters his nephew, the brilliant studen who was supposed to become a doctor in English literature but has ended up as a book seller after being a taxi-driver; he meets his nephew's boss, a wonderful man with too soft a heart and a terrible destiny; and a number of other people, long lost family members or new acquaintances, that end up forming a beautiful tableau that could be expected in any of Woody Allen's movies. Reading Auster's book is, actually, like listen to Woody Allen talk, and we are constantly reminded that we are in Brooklyn, with a certain type of people, a different accent, a different way of living. It almost feels like being there.
I love this book from cover to cover. It is amazing how simply Auster manages to talk about love, death, pain, suffering, happinnes and family ties without breaking a stride, without us knowing what is going to come next, a teary-eyed moment or a laugh-out-loud one. Good summer read -or spring, or fall, if it comes to that-, a book that should be in everybody's library and in everybody's mind.
2 comentarios:
Se ha convertido en uno de mis escritores favoritos y aunque casi todos lo libros tienen esa casualidad que hace que al protagonista le cambie la vida tiene un algo que lo hace distinto en cada uno de ellos, a cual más grande.
D.
Me ha encantado. Es un maestro del arte de crear personajes. La historia no tiene un final, no tiene ni siquiera una trama, no puedes decir de qué va, pero es genial. Al final adoro a todos y cada uno de los personajes que salen.
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