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Hand to Mouth A Chronicle of Early Failure Paul Auster 9780312422325 Books

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Hand to Mouth A Chronicle of Early Failure Paul Auster 9780312422325 Books

Paul Auster's autobiographical account spanning about 12 years or so after he finished college, is an excellent exposition of a young writer's search for meaning, and then the translation of that meaning into money, to provide for further existence, to allow the writer to keep producing work, representative of his desires, but also able to be sold for money to continue the quest.
The appeal to almost all people is hidden in the fact, that at anytime, any person, can be living a "hand to mouth" existence. This feeling of abject poverty and financial ruin is not uncommon today, in an economy that has lost over 2 million jobs, and forced hundreds of thousands to start their own businesses because work was not available. Those in America who have had to do this, can relate directly to Auster's feelings, especially the salient concept of when will I ever get to the point when I am making a living again, even a somewhat less luxurious one than before, just any living.
As usual, Auster uses his incredible incisiveness and truly exceptional clarity in his construction of this book. It is of special interest to Auster readers, as it gives the reader some very interesting information about the author's early days when he was still struggling to become known. But Auster's story is one that every actor, every writer, every lawyer, every doctor, or most of them anyway, have to go through at the beginning, including every new entrepreneur. Becoming established is very hard work. And more people fail, than succeed. This high failure rate is generated by the need to be able to sustain high levels of suffering in bad times, to get to the good times. Most of us are just not up to the task.


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Hand to Mouth A Chronicle of Early Failure Paul Auster 9780312422325 Books Reviews

By and large, this book will be of interest to Auster fans only. The first section is a brief autobiography, which may be boiled down to this "How I Tried to Avoid Having a Regular Job." It's all about the crazy schemes Auster had to make money while not working 9-5. The stories are good, though nothing amazing. As he chronicles his early life, he references his "Appendices" -- a couple of one-act plays, a card-based baseball game he'd invented, and his first novel. I'd say of the entire book, the novel may be the best part. It's strictly a by-the-numbers noir novel (the unwilling detective, the femme fatale, a larger-than-life victim), but it's executed very nicely. It's funny how Auster thinks nothing of his work -- according to the memoir, he churned this out in three months (June-August), which to me is pretty impressive, but I suppose Auster thinks it's just pulp... I don't think it is, though because he stays so within the confines of the genre, it almost comes off as parody. Still, it's an enjoyable read.
3 stars
Hand to Mouth, by itself, is a somewhat raw but not at all insensitive memoir of life before publishing. I found it engrossing at times.
Auster recounts his youthful rejection of middle class consumerism, his odd and fascinating encounters with all kinds of characters and life situations, his stay in Paris, his first marriage, his ...well... failures to make it big as a writer. His admirable sense of integrity (no jobs except ones literary) unfortunately kept the author wallowing in translation work to put food on the table, and the sense of pain, desperation and even a sort of starvation are palpable. Agonizingly, but rather fittingly, he tells only of his years BEFORE success. This is no rags to fame & riches story.
Hand to Mouth is basically a reality check. Of some value to anyone who wants to get published, but the only thing that keeps this from being totally depressing is our knowledge of Auster's eventual literary success.
Lovely sections about the wacky people he met on ships and on streets reveal inspiration for characters he brings alive in his humanistic fiction.
If you do buy an edition (check out the number of pages before you order) which contains "Action Baseball" and "Squeeze Play", you are in for a treat. The former is a complete card game and the latter is a detective novel. Squeeze Play was written under a pseudonym and features a Jewish private eye with a law degree from Columbia who has a taste for fine wine and music. Mickey Spillane gets urban Semitic spit & polish in this totally enjoyable bonus read.
Paul Auster is no doubt an articulate writer. However, I picked up this hardcover at a used book store because I saw "Memoir" on the cover and found out mid-way through that three of his plays were also in the book, which I had no desire to read. Good marketing I guess to draw people in without telling them what's really inside but I put the book down after the memoir part and felt duped and ripped off. Yes, it was explained in the cover blurb that plays were also inside but on the cover you get the idea it is just a memoir. I saw that and did not bother to read the cover description. I mean--c'mon who writes a partial memoir and then pads it with old plays?? A more honest publisher would have let readers know at a glance at the cover that they were not only getting a memoir but also three plays. In terms of the memoir, it was comforting to know that even successful writers experience hard times, but I found he was very selective in his reflections. For example, he barely touches on his romantic life and you feel like he is skipping stones on a lake. Without letting you know the details he is suddenly married, having a kid, divorced, and married again. It would have been better if he delved more deeply into his whole life, including his growing reputation as a respected writer, rather than going part way and then tacking on three old plays to fill out the book. I loved his edited collection of "American Stories" that he did for NPR. But, to be honest, this was deeply unsatisfying.
This book recounts Paul Auster's youth from his childhood to his early adulthood when struggling to earn his means. Before becoming a full-time writer, Auster had tried his luck in different walks of life. The whimsical tone of these experiences also explain those frequent motifs and themes representing again and again in his novels.
I like all of his novels that I've read better.
Paul Auster's autobiographical account spanning about 12 years or so after he finished college, is an excellent exposition of a young writer's search for meaning, and then the translation of that meaning into money, to provide for further existence, to allow the writer to keep producing work, representative of his desires, but also able to be sold for money to continue the quest.
The appeal to almost all people is hidden in the fact, that at anytime, any person, can be living a "hand to mouth" existence. This feeling of abject poverty and financial ruin is not uncommon today, in an economy that has lost over 2 million jobs, and forced hundreds of thousands to start their own businesses because work was not available. Those in America who have had to do this, can relate directly to Auster's feelings, especially the salient concept of when will I ever get to the point when I am making a living again, even a somewhat less luxurious one than before, just any living.
As usual, Auster uses his incredible incisiveness and truly exceptional clarity in his construction of this book. It is of special interest to Auster readers, as it gives the reader some very interesting information about the author's early days when he was still struggling to become known. But Auster's story is one that every actor, every writer, every lawyer, every doctor, or most of them anyway, have to go through at the beginning, including every new entrepreneur. Becoming established is very hard work. And more people fail, than succeed. This high failure rate is generated by the need to be able to sustain high levels of suffering in bad times, to get to the good times. Most of us are just not up to the task.