Paul Auster’s latest novel maintains his penchant for authorial tricks and interpolating himself into the story. As well as ushering characters on and off stage for his protagonist, seventy-something semi-retired philosophy professor Sy Baumgartner, and offering sideways glances, Auster pops up as a branch of the lesser-known side of the family tree on a trip to Ukraine.

Unsurprisingly for a writer many decades into a career, this novel is also all about writing. Baumgartner is working on a new work about the duality of consciousness; his wife’s papers include autobiography, unpublished novels and poetry. A younger academic wants to make her the subject of a research project. Both Baumgarnter and his wife Anna, like Auster and Siri Hustvedt, are at the later stages of a life dominated by the written word.

On the whole though, Auster plays it straight in a novel that could be seen as his homage to the campus novel of Roth, Updike and De Lillo. Baumgartner’s academic career is really just a backdrop to the defining theme of his life: his glorious thirty-year marriage to translator, poet and editor Anna. Anna’s sudden death catapults Baumgartner into the story, which we join in a series of small humiliations that add up to an exploration of grief not as something which sweeps one away, but something which is present in every waking moment - from piling up Amazon orders in order to engineer opportunities to speak to the deliverer every day to burning a hand on a pan that has somehow still survived from their first household purchases together.

The pace slows and the action becomes more internal after this first section, as Baumgartner sifts through Anna’s papers - initially just as a coping strategy, along with his refolding of her clothes. Then as part of a project that perhaps will allow him finally to move on. Baumgartner’s thoughts range far and wide, from childhood and their early life together. Auster’s portrayal of the grief and loneliness that follows the death of a partner is vivid and true, as does his depiction of how age can render one even more desperate to grasp a chance of happiness.

If Auster can’t match the urgency of Sy’s awful day of chance encounters, comical injuries and small humiliations, there’s a fascination in seeing Auster, a writer all about control and structure, loose the stays and explore the mental drifting and sifting from past to present to past again that old age brings. For those who have found Auster forbidding, this is a great entry point. For those who love his Russian doll structures and intertextual playfulness, here’s a chance to see him let his hair down.

A wonderful book. I thoroughly loved this short, thoughtful, humorous and tremendously entertaining to boot narrative. In the first chapter we are introduced to the narrator (a 71 year old philosopher) in a catastrophic day filled with some of the indignities of body ageing.... the novel moves on to other pastures around our Baumgartner professor - intellectual, personal, political... in a deft, surprising and totally captivating manner. We are made to reflect on marriage, work, family, what keeps as going and alive... The narrative is both lineal and collage-like. I loved the different voices and spaces evoked. The final chapter kept me totally hooked and on tenterhooks... a masterful ending. Poignant, life-enhancing. A small masterpiece in my opinion.

Many thanks to the publisher for an early copy of this excellent book to read and review. This is the story of Sy Baumgartner, philosophy professor and author, living alone. When we first encounter him he is reflecting on his life and still mourning the loss of his beloved Anna some 10 years previous. In his 72nd year his memory is fading as he reminisces and recalls the events both sad and happy of a life well lived. As always Auster's style of writing is easy on the eye, Anna's voice and presence is everywhere as Baumgartner recalls the moments, and the passion of the 40 years they shared together....." She was the one person in the world I've ever loved, and now I have to find a way to go on living without her"...."For such are the powers of memory bestowed on a man who has listened to the voice of his dead wife talking to him through the disconnected wires of a defunct telephone"......"A person has no life without being connected to others, and if you're lucky enough to be deeply connected to another person, so connected that the other person is as important to you as you are to yourself, then life becomes more than possible, it becomes good.".........Highly recommended.

Yes, right, OK. I'm an Auster fan. So there's that. And make no mistake about it, this isn't your quick, aeroplane read. Of course it isn't - Paul Auster wrote it. And let's be clear, it's not actually a novel about a man who lost his wife and sits in his garden remembering all the lives he's ever had or ever known. Oh no. Not at all. This is a novel about writing - writing novels, and poetry. Read this and see how Anna Blume is back, originally in his novel 'In the Country of Last Things' (1987). This time, yes, she's Baumgartner's late wife, but that's just the part she (and he) play in this novel. Look again and see the edges of 4321 with the story of 'Baumgartner's' life. Ruth Auster makes an appearance. In this novel, Baumgartner philosophises about the practice of writing, that act of it. There are excerpts from his late wife's unpublished diaries. See how she recounts their first meeting, in a book store. In real life, that's how Auster met his wife, Siri Hustvedt, also an acclaimed writer and academic. Here, Auster is playing with us, with his life and with the act of writing. This isn't metafiction, it's far more complex than that, especially when you include the fact that Auster himself has cancer and is receiving treatment for it. His own, actual, life is (literally) flashing before his eyes, in a similar way to Baumgartner's is. If you choose to look for fictive elements here. Good luck to you. Of course there are characters, plot, etc, blah blah. But Auster isn't interested in that here, it's far deeper. I hope to God that this isn't Auster's last work. His work - and I count this novel amongst it - is inspiring and unique. What a privilege to have been allowed to read it ahead of publication. My grateful thanks go to the publisher and to NetGalley.

This is one of the more straightforward Auster novels I've ever read - a simple tale of loss and grieving and finally moving on. It felt quite different from the earlier work: much warmer, more immediate. I did find the ending somewhat abrupt, as if a whole chunk was missing, but perhaps it was wrong of me to expect a neatly tied-up closure.

Just finished this lovely book. Say Baumgartner is a philosophy prof in his early seventies who is still mourning the death of his wife, the love of his life ten years after her death. This gentle, funny story tells how he is alone in his home, trying to finish his own book, when a fall gives him the time to go through his late wife’s poetry. Say recalls how they met, fell in love and shared a life together. Later he has a call from a student who wishes to look at her work, this gives Sy a new lease of life. Will there be a next chapter’?

The previous Paul Auster novel I read was the eventually 2017 Booker shortlisted 4321 – which I had read on a 12-hour plane flight, five months prior to the longlist being announced and (on the whole) enjoyed but did not feel at inclined to revisit at either longlist or shortlist stage. Ultimately the book, for all its excellent writing, had two main flaws – the author seeming to think he had come up with a new fictional concept of parallel lives (when he really had not) and its excessive and seemingly self-indulgent length.

This book is his soon to be published next novel. Its close third person protagonist (although at times we also have a fourth wall breaking omniscient narrator) is Sy Baumgartner, in his early seventies at the book’s opening, “noted author of nine books and numerous shorter works on philosophical, aesthetic, and political matters, beloved member of the Princeton faculty” but also a near-ten-year widower after the death of his life long love and wife Anna (a posthumously published poet) in a swimming accident in 2008, a death from which he has not really recovered.

The book’s opening was for me perhaps its relatively weakest point, although narratively necessary to set up the rest of the book. In quick succession Sy burns his hand on a scorched pot, before falling down his cellar stairs – but then his mind turns, prompted by the pot which is one of the only household items from his married life he has kept, back to the past which is where we spend much of the book as Sy decides to re-examine the process of mourning (one he realises he has until now “thoroughly .. bungled”):

In his own fictional and non-fictional writing (for example in the examination of how the phantom limb concept might apply to loss of a person);

In his dreams (one particularly vivid one where Anna calls him on the disconnected phone in her study)

In his memories (the patchwork nature of these and the why as well as the what he can recall -however seemingly incidental - in almost perfect detail and what has completely faded, is a, probably the, key part of the novel)

In revisiting both his and Anna’s writings (a number of which are reproduced in the text – again which fragments have meaning for his mourning is important to the novel)

In another relationship which he starts (where he realises that the way his mourning makes him inclined towards re-marriage is very different from how his lover’s eventual split from her husband has left her impacted)

And towards the book’s ends in a proposed project from a research student to re-examine Anna’s unpublished work – one which gives the book a satisfyingly open ending.

Given my experience of 4321, it was a surprise to me that I was able to read this in the lounge awaiting a flight, and even more so that if there was an author I was reminded of it was Claire Keegan in the psychological precision of the prose – enabling a whole life, as well as an insightful treatment of memory as filtered through grief, to be set out in 202 generously spaced pages.

Overall recommended.

Ah the joy of reading Paul Auster where do I start......the quality of the prose, the character of Baumgartner, the cleverness of his ideas, how easy the reader moves from one thought process to another....and there's so much more.

Baumgartner looks at the life of Sy Baumgartner, he is a philosopher/lecturer and author and is now coming to the latter stages of his life (he's 72). Moving around through time the novel picks moments of time in Baumgartner's life, in particular his dead wife Anna who he lost a decade earlier and has grieved ever since. His thoughts are always interconnected with his wife's memory and he dwells upon her, memory keeps her alive. His thoughts go to his mother and father and their immigrant past and looks at what is going on in America and the world today.

This feels like a memoir of sorts, there are connections to be made with Auster and his character Baumgartner and one wonders how much personal experience has gone into this novel. This is a utterly moving, compelling read, one the reader should slow down, enjoy and meditate upon its ideas.

Austin is an absolute master of his craft and that is fully apparent here, in a volume that is so slim that every excessive note or stray thought would have the potential to upset the delicate balance of the narrative he's laying out. If his writing feels somewhat old-fashioned for today's tastes, that's fitting in a winter-of-life tale such as this - his gentle message that life always offers new meanings and connections, even at its darkest never comes close to saccharine, but balances a quiet optimism with its poignancy. Lovely.

This compelling novel is about the life of Sy Baumgartner. he is a successful author, now in his seventies. He is a widower and thinking about retirement.

The novel goes back and forth with Sy telling stories from his past and present but also about his much loved wife, Anna. Some of these are retold from her perspective, through him. He has spent ten years existing, rather than living, alongside Anna’s absence. It is very moving. Sy is able to recall tiny, subtle details which really make you think about the nature of love and of the grief of loss.

I wondered if I was reading part memoir on occasions, especially when Auster is about the same age as his protaganist. He also uses his own surname for a relative of Baumgartner’s. But this did not distract from the pleasure of reading fine writing which was sad, funny, thought-provoking and moving.

I read a copy provided by the publishers and NetGalley but my views are my own.

I’m a huge fan of Paul Auster and was really excited to get an ARC copy of Baumgartner.

This book centres on Sy Baumgartner a noted author, and soon-to-be retired Princeton professor.

Sy is inching into his seventies and is in his twilight years. He’s been widowed for a while and still lives in the house he shared with his wife Anna. Anna’s presence is felt everywhere.

The book is a beautiful meditation on growing old and looking back on on a life lived. He reminisces on his childhood, his relationship with his family and his relationship with his wife Anna - his one true love. Sy truly loved Anna and it was simply beautiful reading about their relationship. Sy and Anna didn’t have children, so he only has his memories.

I thought it felt a very honest read. Sy tries to move on and make changes. Adding to the honesty of the book there were some very real amusing ‘note to self’ moments - e.g. to do up one’s zipper after going to the bathroom, as it’s the first thing to go and everything spirals from there.

I don’t think it’s possible to come away from this book without reviewing one’s own life.

Huge thanks to NetGalley and the publishers, Faber and Faber, for making this book available to me to read in exchange for a fair and honest review.

A look back at the life of Baumgartner by Paul Auster is a romantic look at life such as people who are the age of the character in the book tend to do.
This short novel is wonderfully written with wit and love.
Every man who reads this book will wish that they had Baumgartner's life, or something very similar to it.
Brilliant . Thanks for an enjoyable read, and my thanks to the publisher for an advance reader's copy for honest review.

I enjoyed this, how could I not? Austers writing is always incredibly good, and so readable.
It flows.
There were some moving scenes, especially those dealing with his wife but equally ones where I questioned if I would like this man if we met.
I felt it ended abruptly, and too soon, its a short book, and I could happily have kept reading for a lot longer.

As with all Paul Auster books the writing washes over you like a warm bath. Beautifully written and I felt all of the character’s emotions. The ups and the downs. Early on we realise that he hasn’t been able to move on from his wife’s death, even ten years later. Things then change and there is hope again. I will read this again as there’s so much to take in. His early life and his relationship with his father and his father’s early life in Stanislav

You know what you're going to get with a Paul Auster novel - something well-written and compelling but also comforting, like catching up with an old friend. Baumgartner is probably not up there with his best work, but it is a very welcome and satisfying novel, and about a quarter of the length of the last one, 4321. It's the story of a writer, of course, ST Baumgartner reflecting on his life, especially his time with his long departed wife, as he approaches the end of it. As such, it's a moving book, given that you have to wonder how many more books Auster, now 76, has time and energy to write. At times, it doesn't quite hang together with the elegance we have come to expect from him - the two long narratives largely focusing on Baumgartner's wife, "Frankie Boyle" and "Spontaneous Combustion" feel a little shoehorned into the narrative, but that may in part be the point as fits Baumgartner's delight in absorption and storytelling. The ending is also a challenge to the reader in its abruptness and openness. It seems to open up the possibility of a sequel, although that may just be playing with readers' expectations. However, on balance there is much enjoyment to be had merely in following Auster's invitation to "saddle up the old horse and ride it though to the end."

Paul Auster's latest offering is a short, character driven, novella with its echoes of where the author is in his personal life, it is insightful in its glimpses of the ordinariness of the everyday, and the considerable challenges we face as we get older. It focuses on memory, loss, grief, the impact of what matters, the nature of truth, what we choose to remember, and what may be the possibilities of moving on and letting in the winds of change in the later stages of life. Jewish Princeton academic Seymour 'Sy' Baumgartner is in his seventies facing retirement, who having lost his beloved wife, Anna, is still feeling the grief, she had, after all, been the centre of his life. Events conspire to have him reflect on aspects of his life in a non-linear way, including his family, his youth, his professional career, the development of his relationship with Anna, whilst simultaneously change is brewing in the background.

Probably much like real life, here there is often no application of importance or logic in the richness of the chosen stories that come to the forefront of a lonely Sy's mind, with the unavoidable mental and physical deterioration that accompanies ageing, as he looks back on his life. However, it is also true that many people may not have the time, inclination or possibility of looking back on life, what is familiar, and to identify meanings and what matters, they are likely all too busy living their lives. This is a concise, beautifully written and intelligent piece of understated introspective fiction from Auster that maybe will not be everyone's cup of tea, but I certainly appreciated it. Many thanks to the publisher for an ARC.

I'm torn about this book. I loved it, right up until the very end. It reminded me of Anne Tyler's work when she is at her best, focussing as it does on someone on the margins of life and exploring with great tenderness and nuance their experience. Baumgartner is still in mourning for his wife, ten years after she died in a freak accident. Aware of his own ageing, he starts making friends and reconnecting with the world after an accident. As he moves forwards he looks back. It was perfect, subtle, charming, funny and sad. Baumgartner is a great character and I was completely invested in the story. When it finished the way it did, I was so mad I actually shouted. It's not that it's a bad ending. It's just that I don't really know what it is. I need other people to read it so I can talk to them about it is what I need. Then I will have some kind of closure. As it is, I find myself thinking about this at least once a day since I finished it.

In the twilight of his life, Sy Baumgartner reminisces about his life, and the love of his life Anna, who died ten years previously. This small volume - it is a novel I read in one sitting - is one of those finely crafted, sweeping epics yet deeply personal narratives that American writers seem to excel at.

Auster is a master of American fiction, and this is another fine novel in his ouevre. Whilst not his strongest work, it is still an exemplary one, and weakened only in stature by being compared to his other great novels. If you're a devotee, this will be loved by you. Of your new to him, this will easily convince you to read more.

Thank you to the publishers and Netgalley for the ARC.