“Paying attention is the first step in learning how to be alive."

Paul Auster, one of the greatest writers of our time, knew what made a story come to life and how to make use of all the rich nuances of the English language. The art of paying attention is a central theme of his masterpiece `4 3 2 1: A Novel´.

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Best known for his New York Trilogies, American novelist Paul Benjamin Auster has passed away at too young an age just a few weeks ago, April 30, 2024. There are still some books of his I have not read yet (so much to look forward to), but one of his latest novels touched me to the core when I read it a few years back: “4 3 2 1: A Novel”.

Now, after having picked it up again, I yearn to share my joy in this piece of art with you. Let his work speak for itself.

These quotes from “4 3 2 1: A Novel” by the one and only Paul Auster are sufficient proof – to me, at least – as to why this book is one of the greatest works of our time.

Auster shares his protagonist Archie Ferguson´s most intriguing perceptions with his reader: on books and newspapers, on life´s struggle to find oneself, on his truest friend´s wisdom and on finding the answer to the single relevant question: What makes life worth living?  

A great truth about life is summed up in this breathtaking paragraph:

"The word psyche means two things in Greek, his aunt said. Two very different but interesting things. Butterfly and soul. But when you stop and think about it carefully, butterfly and soul aren’t so different, after all, are they? A butterfly starts out as a caterpillar, an ugly sort of earthbound, wormy nothing, and then one day the caterpillar builds a cocoon, and after a certain amount of time the cocoon opens and out comes the butterfly, the most beautiful creature in the world.

That’s what happens to souls as well, Archie.

They struggle in the depths of darkness and ignorance, they suffer through trials and misfortunes, and bit by bit they become purified by those sufferings, strengthened by the hard things that happen to them, and one day, if the soul in question is a worthy soul, it will break out of its cocoon and soar through the air like a magnificent butterfly."

I will forever keep this passage in mind, whenever I take up a newspaper:  

"In Ferguson’s opinion, newspapers were one of mankind’s greatest inventions, and he had loved them ever since he had learned how to read. Early in the morning, seven days a week, a copy of the Newark Star-Ledger would appear on the front steps of the house, landing with a pleasant thump just as he was climbing out of bed, thrown by some nameless, invisible person who never missed his mark, and by the time he was six and a half Ferguson had already begun to take part in the morning ritual of reading the paper while he ate his breakfast, he who had willed himself to read during the summer of the broken leg, who had fought his way out of the prison of his childish stupidity and turned into a young citizen of the world, now advanced enough to comprehend everything, or almost everything but abstruse matters of economic policy and the notion that building more nuclear weapons would ensure a lasting peace, and every morning he would sit at the breakfast table with his parents as each one of them tackled a different section of the paper, reading in silence because talking was so difficult that early in the morning, and then passing around completed sections from one to the other in a kitchen filled with the smells of coffee and scrambled eggs, of bread warming and browning in the toaster, of butter melting into hot slabs of toast."

How can this possibly be one single sentence, so rich and full of details, making you feel like you are there, with the Ferguson family, sharing their early morning ritual at the kitchen table? It´s a lovely passage. As is this realisation of his:

There seemed to be several of him.

"One of the odd things about being himself, Ferguson had discovered, was that there seemed to be several of him, that he wasn’t just one person but a collection of contradictory selves, and each time he was with a different person, he himself was different as well. With an outspoken extrovert like Noah, he felt quiet and closed in on himself. With a shy and guarded person like Ann Brodsky, he felt loud and crude, always talking too much in order to overcome the awkwardness of her long silences.

Humorless people tended to transform him into a jokester. Quick-witted clowns made him feel dull and slow. Still other people seemed to possess the power to draw him into their orbit and make him act in the same way they did."

What our protagonist Archie Ferguson realizes about his best friend, may be one of the greatest truths of life. Pure and simple.

“(...) the thing that impressed him most about Federman was how observant he was, how remarkably attuned his senses were to the world around him, and whenever he pointed to a cloud passing overhead, or to a bee alighting on the stamen of a flower, or identified the call of an invisible bird crying out from the woods, Ferguson felt he was seeing and hearing those things for the first time, that without his friend to alert him to the presence of those things, he never would have known they were there, for walking with Federman was above all an exercise in the art of paying attention, and paying attention, Ferguson discovered, was the first step in learning how to be alive."

Reading stories by writers as wise as Paul Auster, to me, is one of the most rewarding pastimes. His work will continue to make his readers feel alive. His work will keep him alive in us readers. R.I.P., Paul Benjamin Auster!

So many summers, so many different versions of our young hero Archie Furguson, created by the magnificent Paul Auster in his novel "4 3 2 1: A Novel"

#paulauster #read #booklover #truths #meaningoflife

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Foto Reading Books: Anita Jankovic via Unsplash

Foto Reading Newspaper: Adrian Cogua via Unsplash

Foto Camp Fire: Tegan Mierle via Unsplash