A few months ago a friend gifted us a
couple of books. She’s not a regular reader and thought she ought to try and be
one, so she had bought some Booker Prize shortlisted titles in hardback. It may
have been a New Year’s resolution or something, and like so many of those it
fizzled out pretty quickly. Lincoln in
the Bardo by George Saunders and 4 3
2 1 by Paul Auster subsequently appeared on our shelf. I was just coming
off a strict diet of John Connolly’s Charlie Parker novels, by way of style
research (did I mention I have a new Ger Mayes crime novel coming out myself
soon?) and thought a bit of highbrow reading was in order, after all of Parker’s
killing and mayhem. However, Lincoln in
the Bardo defeated me within the first dozen pages. Clever as the delivery
method might be in that book, I couldn’t stomach it. So I turned to the huge 4 3 2 1 by Paul Auster.
Inside the front of the hardback jacket
cover, 4 3 2 1 lets the reader know
what they’re taking on. Archie Ferguson is the MC and the book follows four
alternative life paths from 1947 through to the late 1960s. Chapters are
numbered 1.1, 1.2, 1.3, 1.4 and so on to signify which of the four Fergusons
are on call and the initial 1.0 sets the background with the Russian émigré Jewish
grandfather, his son Stanley and Ferguson’s mother, Rose. The parental
characters also develop different life paths and are a constant feature of the
book through flashback and forward. As a reader, I’m not a strong advocate of too
much flashback and I dislike foreshadowing, but the author manages to use both
techniques without being too invasive. Even when the certain death of some
characters is foreshadowed, Auster somehow acquires the reader’s permission to
do so. Perhaps that is because, knowing an individual is about to be killed off
in life path A, the reader rests assured that the same individual is likely to
endure in life path B, C or D. The discomfort of losing a character to which
the reader has built an attachment is diminished, as they’re only one part dead.
I had thought it would be difficult to
follow the four separate life paths of Ferguson. There were a few times when I
wasn’t quite sure if I was in 1, 2, 3 or 4, but I didn’t succumb to the
temptation of turning back to previous chapters. Instead, I trusted the author
to provide enough clues and hooks to keep me on track, and Auster manages that
well. As a reader, it was an enjoyable experience. As an author, I wondered how
much technical work had gone into writing the book. Did he write four different
250 page novels? Did he plot all the details and timelines in advance? Were
checks made to ensure the reader would intuitively know which of the four life
paths were being read?
Paul Auster’s style put me in mind of John
Irving, albeit with less acerbic wit. Auster’s coming of age story is threaded
through with the emotional and physical rollercoasters that the first quarter-century
of a life might contain. Love, abuse, disaster, romance, tragedy, sex, crime, friendship,
racism, violence, success, failure, in all their shapes and colours. With
Irving, the MC’s life story sometimes takes a route other than that which the
reader might have preferred. With Auster’s 4
3 2 1 there is a choice of routes. The reader isn’t trapped in lengthy observation
of a single trajectory. I could have eaten a little more humour than 4 3 2 1 contained, but that’s just a
matter of taste. The twist in the tail, however, is quite deliciously logical.
