3/5
Certain moments are ideal for reflecting on one’s life: birthdays and the occasional unsuccessful meditation session, for instance. Paul Auster’s new memoir was spurred by the former, but reads like the latter. The autobiographical tome begins just before the author’s 63rd birthday. Surmising that most of his life is behind him, Auster takes inventory of his many years, in the hope of gleaning some truth.
Written in second person, the non-linear entries of Winter Journal revisit pivotal moments in the author’s life: falling in love, travelling to new countries and watching his parents die. One of his epiphanies arrives late in the book, when he muses that, ‘writing is a lesser form of dance’. The writer’s memories whirl through fleeting childhood recollections, leap toward present-day advanced age, then dive into the past to recover every isolated feeling in the wake of tragedies such as a car accident involving his family. Monika Fabian
