Sometimes a book leaves me puzzled. Sometimes that's good. Sometimes that's bad. Sometimes it's both. Paul Auster's latest novel, Invisible, falls in the latter category.

Before explaining why, the basic background of the story is necessary. Invisible is the memoir, of sorts, of Adam Walker's life in 1967 as an undergrad at Columbia University. Told during periods ranging from then until 2007 by different narrators, the spring, summer and fall of that year are recounted in four interconnected chapters. Each season ultimately involves some actual or claimed violation of criminal or moral standards, events that forever alter and mark not only Walker's life but several others. All stem from the then 22-year-old Walker, who wants to be a poet, meeting a visiting professor of international politics at Columbia and the professor's unusual but attractive girlfriend at a party.

The "bad" puzzles for me are unquestionably matters of personal preference. Auster is among those authors who engage in the post-modern tendency to leave it for the reader to determine what the story ultimately is or means. While I don't need to be led by the hand or have a postscript explain a work to me, I often tend to prefer certainty over uncertainty. Yet even though we believe certain historical facts when we finish Invisible it is still not quite clear exactly what is true and what isn't. In that way it is perhaps a contemplation of the meaning of truth or the sometimes thin line between it and fantasy. Perhaps Auster simply asks us to ponder how a chance meeting can set in motion a series of events that alter any number of lives forever. I'm not quite sure. Plainly, though, whether that is, in fact, "bad," rests with each individual reader.

The novel, Auster's fifteenth, also focuses somewhat significantly on sex or, as the book jacket puts it, "unbridled sexual hunger." You can't say it's immaterial to the story and, in fact, might also be viewed as reflecting the sexual revolution of the time. I am far from prudish and don't find the usage offensive. Still, Invisible is just one of a number of novels that leave me wondering why sex is such a recurring motif. Perhaps it is as simple as literature dealing with the fundamental emotions and motivations of human life. Again, though, it is this overall tendency, not just the usage in Invisible, that leaves me a bit puzzled.

Article Author: Tim Gebhart

Tim Gebhart lives in Sioux Falls, SD, where he practices law in order to provide shelter for his family, his dogs, and his books. He is a member of the National Book Critics Circle and his blog de guerre is A Progressive on the Prairie.

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