Human Follies

I am in that netherworld of enchantment, joy, and despair that one
feels when finishing an exceptionally well written novel, the kind
where the characters become like family that you can't wait to sit
down with for your next 'visit.' Then, it all ends.

After finishing my second Paul Auster novel, I will declare him one of
my new favorite writers. Oracle Night and The Brooklyn Follies (the
one I just finished), both are first person narratives that are so
natural, so fluid, the divide between writer and narrator is
non-existent. Even more so, I suspect, for anyone familiar with the
intricacies of life in NYC, particularly Park Slope (I had a good
friend who lived there, so I am only slightly acquainted with that
area, but enough to feel transported back there with each story),
intricacies woven by both the habit of daily patterns and the constant
surprises and unexpected encounters that happen when thrown in to such
close proximity with so many other human beings also going about daily
habits and routines.

The book begins with a Nathan Glass returning to Brooklyn to die --
not in a suicidal dramatic way, but just to quietly let the days pass
until his days come. What unfolds is a series of events that reminds
the reader that each moment hold the hope for life altering changes
that may bring abundant joy or crushing despair, but wherever we are,
that change will come, so it is all hopeful. Like many of my favorite
stories, it is about the inexplicable connection of humans.
Ultimately, we are here to help each other along in our journeys.
Sadly, unless, like Nathan Glass, we are retired and resigned to wait
for death, we rarely take the time to listen and intervene, to become
involved and to care.

Still, there is that hope that around the the next corner will the
person I need to help me along the next phase. This week has been
like that for me, actually (which then reminds me of Oracle Night
where a writer buys a blue notebook with which he feels a mysterious
connection and the fiction he writes in the book seems to start
turning into reality, with much darker results that Nathan Glass's
notes on human follies), where old friends have resurfaced to replace
others who have fallen out of presence, new acquaintances have
be introduced for yet to be seen importance, and words of
encouragement and grace have come unsolicited.

The book ends (I won't give it away, really) with a mark that reminds
of the fragility of the circulation of life, individually and
communally, and, from our wiser perspective, of our resilience to keep
going, hopefully with more appreciation for that beauty.

I am thankful for all my human follies, and my accomplices in those follies.