TRAVELS IN THE SCRIPTORIUM
by Paul Auster
Faber, £12.99; 130pp

THE SPLIT PERSONALITY at the heart of Paul Auster’s work can be represented by a series of opposing terms: modish intellectualism versus rambunctious storytelling, postmodern shenanigans versus old-fashioned narrative, European modernism (Beckett, Camus) versus American picaresque (Melville and Twain).

While some of his works, such as Oracle Night and The Book of Illusions, have encompassed both terrains, others, such as The New York Trilogy, have been notable for their preoccupation with the amorphousness of identity, reflexive metanarratives and what is considered “philosophy” by those whose idea of it is the first Matrix film. Pure hokum, in other words, dressed up as attractively profound.

Yet others, such as Mr Vertigo and The Music of Chance, have been more conventional attempts at spinning cracking good yarns, shorn of lit-crit acrobatics and philosophy-lite.

In Travels in the Scriptorium, Auster returns to what is billed as “metaphysical fiction”. Which means that this slim novel, all of 130 pages, is about a man called Mr Blank, who sits on a bed in a room and stares at the wall, unable to remember anything about what has brought him to this place where objects have their names on stickers.

The initial scenario, common to many of Auster's novels is one of the obviously Beckettian tropes that he uses with self-conscious consistency. He pays homage to the combinatorial mania that seize up Molloy and Malone, the deliberate frustration of simple inquiries, such as whether the closet can be located or a door can be opened; there is even a direct allusion to the famous trance-inducing rocking in Murphy.

Others enter the room — an affectionate nurse, Anna, who tells him that he must dress in white for his meeting with a Peter Stillman; a former inspector of Scotland Yard called James P. Flood; Mr Blank’s doctor, Samuel Farr — all leave him with tantalising information: a name, an act, a task, an exhortation to read the manuscript and look at the photographs on his table.

Readers who know by now that these names are all out of Auster's own books (more come thick and fast towards the end) will not be surprised that the old tune of nested metafictional narratives is played out again: Flood has come to seek Mr Blank’s help in locating a reference to himself in the work of a Fanshawe; the manuscript that Mr Blank is reading is written by John Trause (geddit?), below this manuscript is one called Travels in the Scriptorium by N. R. Fanshawe.

Unfortunately, the compressed density and the grip of the novel is ruined by a facile coda spelling out “what it all means”.

Explore Books

• Book Extracts

• Book Reviews

• Books Group

• Audio Books

Times Recommends

• Superfreakonomics by Steven D Levitt and Stephen J Dubner
• The Times picks the 50 best paperbacks of 2009
• Vincent van Gogh’s letters show the soul of the artist