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"4 3 2 1" by Paul Auster

Max Sinister

Well-known member
Not joking: This New Yorker author who is usually considered quite highbrow wrote some book that we might call at least honorary AH. If that shouldn't be that obvious when reading it, consider that it's a kind of AH that centers on the life of a single person, a certain Archie Ferguson, member of the baby-boomer generation, born into an Ashkenazi Jewish family who lives in the author's favorite city, New York.

If you wonder now why such a guy bears a name that strikes anyone as Scottish, here's the story: When his grandfather Isaac Reznikoff emigrated from Minsk, a fellow on the ship to the USA told him that he'd never make it in the US with such a name, and he should adapt a more American name - Rockefeller, to be precise. But when the grandfather finally had reached Ellis Island and was asked by the clerk for his name, he blurted out in his native Yiddish "Ich hob fargessn!" (I've forgotten!), which the clerk rendered as "Ichabod Ferguson". And now you know.

But as said, the story/stories is/are centered on his grandson Archie. His family hasn't made it to Rockefeller levels when the story starts, but at least own a small firm lead by his father, in which a few family members work as well.

Of course(?), once the TLs start to diverge, the changes accumulate - no butterflies being killed here. This doesn't go as far as changing world history, esp. since Archie is still a quite young man when the story ends. (So prepare for a story set mostly in the 1950s/60s.) But Auster still manages to explore various possibilities of Archie's life: In one TL, his father dies; in another one, a family member becomes a criminal; in yet another one, his father's firm is very successful, which has the disadvantage that he doesn't have much time for his son...

The TLs also explore other topics: In one of them, Archie experiments with gaysexuality, but it doesn't stick; in another one, he becomes a full-fledged gaysexual; in yet another one, he's exclusively interested in girls. (Not sure whether that makes sense in science. Judge this as you like.)

The book is divided in seven chapters and 28 sub-chapters, which are numbered e.g. 3.7. So the story proceeds from 1.1 to 2.1 etc. until ending with 7.4. Jumping from TL to TL to TL, so you're forgiven if you might be a bit confused after reading the whole book with its over 1000 pages.

Oh, and in no less than two TLs Archie Ferguson actually dies before we have reached chapter 7, so from then on, the sub-chapters of these TLs still get a page each, but except for the sub-chapter number, all of these are empty.
 
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Not joking: This New Yorker author who is usually considered quite highbrow wrote some book that we might call at least honorary AH. If that shouldn't be that obvious when reading it, consider that it's a kind of AH that centers on the life of a single person, a certain Archie Ferguson, member of the baby-boomer generation, born into an Ashkenazi Jewish family who lives in the author's favoite city, New York.

If you wonder now why such a guy bears a name that strikes anyone as Scottish, here's the story: When his grandfather Isaac Reznikoff emigrated from Minsk, a fellow on the ship to the USA told him that he'd never make it in the US with such a name, and he should adapt a more American name - Rockefeller, to be precise. But when the grandfather finally had reached Ellis Island and was asked by the clerk for his name, he blurted out in his native Yiddish "Ich hob fargessn!" (I've forgotten!), which the clerk rendered as "Ichabod Ferguson". And now you know.

But as said, the stoy/stories is/are centered on his grandson Archie. His family hasn't made it to Rockefeller levels when the story starts, but at least own a small firm lead by his father, in which a few family members work as well.

Of course(?), once the TLs start to diverge, the changes accumulate - no butterflies being killed here. This doesn't go as far as changing world history, esp. since Archie is still a quite young man when the story ends. (So prepare for a story set mostly in the 1950s/60s.) But Auster still manages to explore various possibilities of Archie's life: In one TL, his father dies; in another one, a family member becomes a criminal; in yet another one, his father's firm is very successful, which has the disadvantage that he doesn't have much time for his son...

The TLs also explore other topics: In one of them, Archie experiments with gaysexuality, but it doesn't stick; in another one, he becomes a full-fledged gaysexual; in yet another one, he's exclusively interested in girls. (Not sure whether that makes sense in science. Judge this as you like.)

The book is divided in ten chapters and forty sub-chapters, which are numbered e.g. 3.7. So the story proceeds from 1.1 to 1.2 etc. until ending with 10.4. Jumping from TL to TL to TL, so you're forgiven if you might be a bit confused after reading the whole book with its over 1000 pages.

Oh, and in no less than two TLs Archie Ferguson actually dies before we have reached chapter 10, so from then on, the sub-chapters of these TLs still get a page each, but except for the sub-chapter number, all of these are empty.

This isn't the first time Auster did this-in Man in the Dark (good book btw),a character from a dystopian AH novel where the US went into civil war after a hung college in 2000 is sent in our world to kill the author of said novel and stop him from writting more of the hellish TL he created in a desperate attempt to bring peace.
 
Glad that a mega-highbrow author has written what could be considered AH, but your description is not exactly making me eager to read it.

yeah this sounds like that really interesting-sounding AH novel that @Meadow got a copy of, but it turned out to be incredibly difficult to read

I think it was about a Soviet Britain or something
 
yeah this sounds like that really interesting-sounding AH novel that @Meadow got a copy of, but it turned out to be incredibly difficult to read

I think it was about a Soviet Britain or something
It was a “Soviets win but via the west collapsing into revolution in the maybe 1960s” vibe, set in the late 90s with the first generation of revolutionary leaders dying off, which was indeed fascinating. But it was written in a very Contemporary Novel way, yeah.
 
I went through a Paul Auster phase in the mid-1990s, but eventually his style stopped agreeing with me. Once bumped into him at the Shakespeare & Co. bookstore, though I didn't find the nerve to strike up a conversation.
 
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