Travels in the Scriptorium (First Edition)

Auster, Paul

ISBN 10: 0805081453 / ISBN 13: 9780805081459

Published by Henry Holt and Co., New York, 2007

About this Item

New York: Henry Holt, 2007. First edition. First printing. A novel by Paul Auster, acclaimed American novelist and poet (The New York Trilogy, Moon Palace, The Music of Chance), exploring themes of memory, identity, and storytelling within a Kafkaesque framework. First printing, with full number line on the copyright page. Fine in a fine dust jacket, unclipped with the original $22.00 price on the front flap.

Seller Inventory # Fiction-Auster-3

Bibliographic Details

• Title: Travels in the Scriptorium (First Edition)
• Publisher: Henry Holt and Co., New York
• Publication Date: 2007
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0805081453
• ISBN 13: 9780805081459
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition: 1st Edition
• Condition: Fine
• Dust Jacket Condition: Fine

About this title

Synopsis

A man pieces together clues to his past--and the identity of his captors--in this fantastic, labyrinthine novel

An old man awakens, disoriented, in an unfamiliar chamber. With no memory of who he is or how he has arrived there, he pores over the relics on the desk, examining the circumstances of his confinement and searching his own hazy mind for clues.

Determining that he is locked in, the man--identified only as Mr. Blank--begins reading a manuscript he finds on the desk, the story of another prisoner, set in an alternate world the man doesn't recognize. Nevertheless, the pages seem to have been left for him, along with a haunting set of photographs. As the day passes, various characters call on the man in his cell--vaguely familiar people, some who seem to resent him for crimes he can't remember--and each brings frustrating hints of his identity and his past. All the while an overhead camera clicks and clicks, recording his movements, and a microphone records every sound in the room. Someone is watching.

Both chilling and poignant, Travels in the Scriptorium is vintage Auster: mysterious texts, fluid identities, a hidden past, and, somewhere, an obscure tormentor. And yet, as we discover during one day in the life of Mr. Blank, his world is not so different from our own.

About the Author

Paul Auster is the bestselling author of twelve previous novels, including The Brooklyn Follies, Oracle Night, The Book of Illusions, and Timbuktu. His work has been translated into more than thirty languages. He lives in Brooklyn.