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Written by Sarah Boslaugh Tuesday, 16 June 2009 15:00

If I'm less than celebratory about Man in the Dark, it's because Auster has written many better books and seems content in this one to coast on his reputation.

I'm a little confused about Paul Auster: Is he the author of intellectually challenging philosophical novels, or is he really a genre writer in hipster black who creates imaginative worlds which are pleasant to visit for a few hours (especially if you fancy yourself an intellectual) but which carry no meaning below their attractive surfaces?

I guess it doesn't really matter, because you probably already know whether you enjoy reading Auster's books or not, as he's presented us with at least one new work every year or so since City of Glass in 1985. While Man in the Dark is not his best book, it's still pretty good, if that's what you like. For the uninitiated, here's the beginning of the novel's opening paragraph which should give you an idea of his style (and to my mind, Auster is about 90 percent style):

"I am alone in the dark, turning the world around in my head as I struggle through another bout of insomnia, another white night in the great American wilderness. Upstairs, my daughter and granddaughter are asleep in their bedrooms, each one alone as well, the forty-seven-year-old Miriam, my only child, who has slept alone for the past five years..."

Welcome to the Auster-verse, where the highest virtue is cleverness and you never write a short sentence when a long one will do. The speaker is August Brill, a 72-year-old retired book critic with insomnia, who tells himself stories to pass the night and fend off memories of his past transgressions. He is recovering from a broken leg; his daughter Miriam and granddaughter Katya, who live under the same roof, are recovering from broken hearts. The novel takes place over the course of a single night, and Brill's invented story (about an unlikely civil war in the United States, starring a singularly ill-suited hero named Owen Brick) is interrupted at intervals by thoughts of his own past and present. Ultimately, Katya persuades him to tell her about his first wife, her grandmother, which leads to the novel's climax and resolution.

The most remarkable thing about Man in the Dark may be that anyone would bother to write a novel about a book critic, a profession which in the United States at least is becoming about as common as that of typewriter repairer. Of course it's also a good chance to get revenge on a profession which has not always treated Auster's books with favor, and he doesn't fail to gets his digs in. August wasn't much of a husband, nor is he much of a writer, and his imagined story about Owen Brick is remarkably poorly plotted. Of course, that may also be a cop-out on Auster's part, since any criticisms of the story-within-a-story can simply be attributed to the character's shortcomings rather than his own.

If I'm less than celebratory about Man in the Dark, it's because Auster has written many better books and seems content in this one to coast on his reputation. If a different name were attached to this manuscript, would it have even been published, let alone celebrated? I have my doubts. I'm also a little annoyed by his constant pushing of upper-middle-class intellectual buttons. The insiderly references to touchstones such as Nonesuch Records, the Gotham Book Mart and Sarah Lawrence (just once I'd like to read a novel about someone whose kids go to Glassboro State or Borough of Manhattan Community College) primarily serve the purpose of separating the sheep from the goats, while complimenting the former on their erudition and good taste. Similarly, the films Brill and Katya discuss (Grand Illusion, The Bicycle Thief, The World of Apu, Tokyo Story) will be familiar to anyone who attended a brand-name university while acting as shibboleths to keep out the unenlightened masses.

But second- or third-rate Auster is still pretty good, and if Man in the Dark seems to have been churned out and packaged like sausage from a factory, it's still recognizable as an Auster novel. If that's what you seek, it's a good way to get your fix while hoping that the next one will be better. | Sarah Boslaugh

192 pages. New York: Picador, 2009. $14 (paperback)