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November 13
I have added two new articles to the articles page. The first revisits "Timbuktu" and tries to put it in the context of Auster's overall body of work. It made me look at the book in a different light, and is definitely worth a read, especially if you found yourself less than thrilled with the book the first time you read it.
The second is a short story that was inspired by Auster's writings, particularly, it seems, by the Trilogy, and even more particularly by Ghosts. Both authors have chosen to include their addresses, so write to them if you'd like to comment upon their work.
August 14
Another reader-reported news item: Auster is supposedly at work on a book that compiles the best stories from his National Story Project, a weekly radio show that Auster hosts on NPR. You can read (or hear) all of the entries by clicking on the link above. It will be published by Henry Holt, but no release date has been set yet.
July 21
A visitor to the site sent me a couple of recent tidbits. The first is confirmation of news from earlier this year that Auster and his wife Siri were working on a screenplay together. That film is apparently going to be called "Center of the World" and will once again be directed by Wayne Wang. It is in post production now, but is scheduled to be released before the end of the year. You can read more about it on the Internet Movie Database by clicking here.
It is also being reported that Miramax is considering turning Smoke into a television series, which might have Harvey Keitel reprising his role from the movie.
If you hear any more news about either of these projects or any other tidbits you think would be of interest to Auster's readers, send them to me and I will post them here.
June 13
Not much new to report recently. I have done some work on the bibliography page, adding Amazon.com links to a few new items, including the Blue in the Face and Lulu on the Bridge videos. I have also added a few new links to the links page, but other than that I really haven't had anything to add to the site. If you have any news or would like to publish an essay or article you've written about Auster on the site, please let me know.
March 15
Well, I know it's been a while since I updated this page, and I'll try to be better in the future (although since I'm going to be moving in about a month, I won't make any promises). Anyway, here is the most recent news about Auster's activities, quoted from a recent email from his assistant:
Paul has been working on a script with Siri (their first collaboration after almost 20 years of marriage!) which Wayne Wang will direct. He's also working on a new novel. And the National Story Project segment for NPR's Weekend All Things Considered has been going really well. In case you don't have this on the site yet, it airs the first Saturday of every month.
Well, I haven't posted it to the site until now, but here are more details. A few months ago, Auster was featured on the NPR program "All Things Considered" (you can listen to Auster's entire segment by clicking here). They liked him so much, they asked him back to participate in the National Story Project, a collaborative effort between Auster and NPR listeners in which Auster reads his own stories and stories submitted by listeners. You can learn more about this and hear previous clips by clicking here.
"Lulu on the Bridge", Auster's directorial debut, was also released direct to video a few months ago after failing to find a distributor in the US, so it should be available at your local video store for rental. You can also purchase it on VHS or DVD, but the price is a little high right now (around $70) because it is still priced primarily for the rental store market. Some time in the next couple of months it should be reduced to a more reasonable level, somewhere between $15 and $20. I will post links to Amazon when the price is reduced to a more affordable consumer level.
There is also some a rumor that RKO Pictures is working on a movie based on "The Locked Room", adapted by Lem Dobbs and directed by Alexander Payne ("Election") for Fine Line.
Finally, here is an account of a reading Auster gave in Chicago last summer, submitted by Christopher Herman:
The reading was less eventful than apparently the one in Baltimore was. [See 1999 news archives for details.] The reading was held in a large room facing east in the Newberry Library. This is a "private" library in Chicago. It is a beautiful old building made of fantastic black cyclopean stone. It has an extensive rare book collection and is often used by people researching geneology. The room was set up for over a 100 listeners and was filled beyond capacity by the time the event started.
When Auster started he remarked that this was such a noble room that, had he known, he would have done something different. He stated, almost with regret, that the book he was going to read from, "Timbuktu" was a little "low to the ground."
He read about 20 pages from the book, ending, effectively, with the passage in which Willy confronts his mother with his fundamental questions of belief: "Don't tell me that two and two is four," Willy said to his mother when he returrned to Brooklyn. "How do we know that two is two? That's the real question."
The reading was very well received and the crowd applauded for a long time. Then came the queueing up for book inscriptions. The line was very long and slow moving and after a while the bookstore personnel began announcing that people should present one book only for inscriptions.
Last year I had stumbled across "Lulu on the Bridge" in Paris and was astounded that the movie hadn't been released here yet. I was dying to talk to him about it since I had been so impressed with this movie and the effective way he moved back and forth from a symbolic to a naturalistic vocabulary (which I thought was the happiest result of a novelist changing into a filmmaker). I almost wanted him to inscribe my book with a Bart Simpson punishment formulation: "I promise I will direct another movie. I promise I will direct another movie. etc."
Unfortunately, there were too many people there and I felt that in the circumstances it would have imposing to have tried to talk with him. In spite of having been instructed not to, the person in front of me presented a stack of freshly acquired books for signature. With my hard-wired obedience, I presented only one, thanked him and left.
That's all for now. I'll post again when I get more information about this collaboration with his wife, Siri.
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