Travels in the Scriptorium by Paul Auster

I went to the library the day before and just picked up this book randomly. It was new, just brought into Cheng San Library and it was nice flipping the crisp pages of this novel. I might not have ever read such a short novel (only 140+ pages) nor such an unique one either.

Travels do not build on new characters, it does not have a specific plot and most of all it does not have a goal or a conclusion. It goes round and round in what I feel is a most frightening way. Auster builds this novel on previous novels, not in terms of storyline, but rather in terms of characters used before. Wondering what actually happens to the characters after a story has ended, he now puts them together in this one book.

Mr. Blank, the main character in the book, struggles to find out why he is kept in this small room and what place he is at. Whether or not he is actually imprisoned or free, his past, his memories, his life and also what this treatment he is receiving.
Readers in the beginning would think of Mr. Blank perhaps as some sort of a colonel, a sergeant or something who have sent many people on missions during wartime. You might even think, as I did, that he is the character in the story he is reading in the room. It is only when you reach the end of the book or long after you've reached the end, that you realized he is an author, a creator of many and also a destructor of many, many characters. At this time, you'll also realize that the puppets have taken over the master, kept him in the room in what they feel is a form of "supreme justice and compassion". For although he has destroyed the characters' lives in the stories he has written, it is also him who had given them life. From now until Mr. Blank's life ends, what he does and what he experiences will be entirely controlled by his characters... just as how he did before.

I have never read any of Paul Auster's books, but it might be good to actually read a couple of his other books before actually picking up this one. However if you do not wish to, you can still read this book but might not comprehend fully the emotions. I got my help from this review on this site.

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