Invisible [NOOK Book]

( 40 )
NOOK Book (eBook)
$9.99
BN.com price

Available on NOOK devices and apps

  • Nook Devices
  • NOOK
  • NOOK Color
  • NOOK Tablet
  • Tablet/Phone
  • NOOK for iPad
  • NOOK for iPhone
  • NOOK for Android
  • NOOK for Android (Tablet)
  • NOOK Kids for iPad
  • PC/Mac
  • NOOK Study
  • NOOK for PC
  • NOOK for Mac

Want a NOOK? Explore Now

Overview

Nova York, 1967: Adam Walker, un jove aspirant a poeta, estudiant de la Universitat de Columbia, coneix casualment en una festa un enigmàtic professor francès, Rudolf Born, i la seva discreta i seductora parella. Aquest encontre inicial es converteix en un triangle pervers i, amb poc temps, desemboca en un inesperat acte virulent que canvia el curs de la seva vida. La trasbalsadora experiència de joventut d'Adam Walker, els seus primers aprenentatges sobre els misteris de la vida -hi ha vicis, obsessions, violència i força sexe-, recorren sinuosament les pàgines d'Invisible. Una història que, explicada per tres narradors, viatja en el temps entre 1967 i 2007 i se situa en llocs tan diversos com Nova York, París o una
... See more details below

More About This Book

Overview

Nova York, 1967: Adam Walker, un jove aspirant a poeta, estudiant de la Universitat de Columbia, coneix casualment en una festa un enigmàtic professor francès, Rudolf Born, i la seva discreta i seductora parella. Aquest encontre inicial es converteix en un triangle pervers i, amb poc temps, desemboca en un inesperat acte virulent que canvia el curs de la seva vida. La trasbalsadora experiència de joventut d'Adam Walker, els seus primers aprenentatges sobre els misteris de la vida -hi ha vicis, obsessions, violència i força sexe-, recorren sinuosament les pàgines d'Invisible. Una història que, explicada per tres narradors, viatja en el temps entre 1967 i 2007 i se situa en llocs tan diversos com Nova York, París o una aïllada illa caribenya, i en la qual Paul Auster transita ben explícitament per la fina frontera entre realitat i ficció.El resultat: Invisible; una novel•la apassionada i intensament jove, una lúcida reflexió sobre els múltiples replecs de la identitat que revela alguns secrets provocadors.

Editorial Reviews

Clancy Martin
As soon as you finish Paul Auster's Invisible you want to read it again. And not because, as sometimes with his novels…you suddenly suspect, at the very end, that you haven't properly understood a word of what has gone before. You want to reread Invisible because it moves quickly, easily, somehow sinuously, and you worry that there were good parts that you read right past, insights that you missed. The prose is contemporary American writing at its best: crisp, elegant, brisk. It has the illusion of effortlessness that comes only with fierce discipline. As often happens when you are in the hands of a master, you read the next sentence almost before you are finished with the previous one…if, like me, part of why you read is the great pleasure of falling in love with a novel, then read Invisible. It is the finest novel Paul Auster has ever written.
—The New York Times
Jeff Turrentine
"I sometimes confuse my thoughts about the world with the world itself," says one character at the end of Invisible. "I'm sorry if I offended you." Some undoubtedly will be offended; you either enjoy the dizzy feeling you get from being lost in the funhouse, or you feel queasy and head for the exit. One hopes that, in this case, readers will stay for the duration. The pleasures found inside are well worth the labor required to uncover them.
—The Washington Post
More Reviews (4) Fewer Reviews
Publishers Weekly
In his latest, Auster is in classic form, perhaps too perfectly satisfying the contention of his wearied protagonist: “there is far more poetry in the world than justice.” Adam Walker, a poetry student at Columbia in the spring of 1967, is Auster's latest everyman, revealed in four parts through the diary entries of a onetime admirer, the confessions of his once-close friend, the denials of his sister and Walker's own self-made frame. With crisp, taut prose, Auster pushes the tension and his characters' peculiar self-awareness to their limits, giving Walker a fractured, knowing quality that doesn't always hold. The best moments from Walker's disparate, disturbing coming-of-age come in lush passages detailing Walker's conflicted, incestuous love life (paramount to his “education as a human being,” but a violation of his self-made promise to live “as an ethical human being”). As the plot moves toward a Heart of Darkness–style journey into madness, the limits of Auster's formalism become more apparent, but this study of a young poet doomed to life as a manifestation of poetry carries startling weight. (Nov.)
Library Journal
Auster's 15th novel at first may sound like another story about the familiar themes the writer's fans have come to expect: Brooklyn and New York, bohemian protagonists and their enigmatic sidekicks, meaningful quests for truth, and convoluted plots realistic enough to keep you from second-guessing the actions of the characters. Indeed, the story incorporates all such elements: divided into four distinct parts, told by three different narrators, and spanning 40 years, it is centered on the relationship among an aspiring Columbia University student-poet, a mysterious professor, and the professor's girlfriend that starts out as friendship but ends in manipulation and murder. Whether such themes still excite longtime Auster fans is less important than his still remarkably strong storytelling—perhaps even more so than in recent works of fiction—that his characters are still unpredictable and full of passion for life, and that once we start reading those masterfully bare sentences, we don't want to stop. VERDICT If you've never read Auster, this is a great place to start and work your way backward to such classics as the City of Glass and Leviathan. If you've been a fan for a long time, you will not be disappointed.—Mirela Roncevic, Library Journal
Kirkus Reviews
Many readers familiar with the work of Paul Auster consider him to be one of the most profound and provocative of contemporary novelists, a literary magician, a master of making fiction about the art-or the sleight-of-hand illusion-of making fiction. Auster attracted a loyal following in the mid-1980s for what was subsequently known as his New York Trilogy-an elliptical trio of genre subversions and meditations on identity-but his reviews have been mixed in the two decades since the subsequent Moon Palace and The Music of Chance. Now comes Invisible, a novel of such virtuosity and depth that it should not only unite the faithful in a hallelujah chorus, it deserves to draw legions of converts as well. More than a return to form, this might be Auster's best novel yet, combining his postmodern inquiries into the nature of fiction and the essence of identity-the interplay between life and art-with a thematic timelessness in its narrative of virtue and evil, guilt and redemption. If this isn't quite Auster's Crime and Punishment, it could be his Notes from the Underground. It's also a novel he couldn't have written a couple of decades ago, during what was previously considered his peak. Though it concerns a 20-year-old, literary-minded student at Columbia University in 1967-when the literary-minded Auster was the same age at the same university-its narrative reflects the autumnal perspective of four decades later, with a protagonist whose life has taken different turns than Auster's. In fact, there are three distinct narrative voices, as sections employ the first-person "I," the second-person "you" and the third person "he" in relating the story of how the student's encounter with a visitingprofessor from Paris and his silent, seductive girlfriend changes the lives of all three and others as well. The labyrinth of plot and narrative also includes the student's beautiful sister, a mother and daughter in France through whom he seeks atonement and a fellow Columbia alum who has become, like Auster, a successful writer. There are sins, obsessions, a corpse and a thin line between fantasy and memory. To reveal more would rob the reader of the discoveries inherent within this novel's multilayered richness. Auster writes of "the obsessive story that has wormed its way into your soul and become an integral part of your being." This is that story.
The Barnes & Noble Review
You don't read a novel by Paul Auster so much as you give in to one. There's the smooth and polished prose to tempt you. There are mysteries and misdeeds to ensnare you. There's autobiography, course. And there's the sheer, mad pace of the thing, rip-snorting right out of the gate, all of it conjured to life in an atmosphere of pervasive unease.

You read on to make sense of it. You read on to be free of it. You read on because you must. And so it is with Invisible, Auster's unsettling 13th novel.

It's 1967 and Adam Walker, a 20-year-old literature student at Columbia University, is unhappily hanging around the edges of a party, feeling sorry for himself. He's a loner and a poet and well read enough that when he first meets Rudolph Born, Adam's first thought is of an obscure figure with the same name in Dante's Inferno. Born, a visiting professor in his mid-30s, tells Adam that he and his strangely silent girlfriend, Margot, noticed the young man's distress and felt compelled to make sure he wasn't suicidal.

As the trio talk, of Born's boredom with Columbia, of Adam's concerns about the Vietnam draft, of Cuba and Kennedy and other touchstones of the era, Adam's disquiet grows. Born is so opinionated and unorthodox that Adam can't get a read on him. Margot, meanwhile, thin and dark and maybe even beautiful -- again, Adam can't quite tell -- won't stop staring. The pair, with European accents Adam can't place and an agenda he can't fathom, send him reeling.

"The truth was that I had never run across people like this before, and because the two of them were so alien to me, so unfamiliar in their affect, the longer I talked to them, the more unreal they seemed to become -- as if they were imaginary characters in a story that was taking place in my head."

The trio parts ways, but not for long. Adam's chance meeting with Born is soon repeated, this time in a seedy student bar where, after the briefest of conversations, Born offers to set Adam up as the editor of a literary magazine. Adam agrees and, just like that, tumbles down the rabbit hole of Born's twisted world. An affair with Margot, a botched mugging, and a brutal murder all follow in quick succession. In this heightened reality, Born's true nature emerges. So does Adam's.

Just as you're making sense of thecat-and-mouse game Auster has set in motion, he hands the story off to someone else. It's suddenly 40 years later, and the pages you've just read turn out to be the opening of Adam's memoir. Jim, an old college friend, is now the narrator of the tale, which Adam has divided into the four seasons of the year 1967. We now see Adam from Jim's point of view, learn that he was "handsome as a movie star" and that, in the eyes of many of his classmates, he was deemed the most likely of them to find success.

Auster fans will know not to get too comfortable. The narrative soon switches back to Adam, who, in a hallucinatory second-person rush, spins the tale of the hot, humid summer of '67, spiked with a month of incest and increasing mental instability. Add in a few weeks in Paris, another affair, a botched attempt at revenge, and a run-in with an openly malevolent Born, and not one centimeter of space in the entire universe seems safe.

It's classic Auster, of course, the story within the story. His novel City of Glass, part of the New York Trilogy, features Daniel Quinn, a reclusive crime writer whose life swiftly unravels as he pretends to be a private detective named Paul Auster. Timbuktu traces a hobo poet's final hours from the viewpoint of a dog. The Book of Illusions turns on the question of identity of the filmmaker, Hector Mann, who may or may not be dead.

In Invisible, told by multiple characters at different points in time, the ground never stops shifting. Even when we've been handed all the pieces, things still are not what they seem. Here's Jim, discussing his edits of Adam Walker's memoir:

"I have already described how I revamped Walker's notes for Fall. As for the names, they have been invented according to Gwyn's instructions, and the reader can therefore be assured that Adam Walker is not Adam Walker. Gwen Walker Tedesco is not Gwen Walker Tedesco...Last of all, I don't suppose it is necessary to add that my name is not Jim."

So nothing is what it seems except, of course, Auster's own seeming ceaseless questions about identity, memory, and character. Readers hoping for answers this time around are out of luck. Like a hound on the hunt, you chase and race after the scent of a resolution. Auster, meanwhile, if he does indeed know what he thinks, is still too foxy to share. --Veronique de Turenne

Veronique de Turenne is a Los Angeles–based journalist, essayist, and playwright. Her literary criticism appears on NPR and in major American newspapers. One of the highlights of her career was interviewing Vin Scully in his broadcast booth at Dodger Stadium, then receiving a handwritten thank-you note from him a few days later.

Product Details

  • ISBN-13: 9781429982467
  • Publisher: Holt, Henry & Company, Inc.
  • Publication date: 4/27/2010
  • Sold by: ST MARTINS / MPS
  • Format: eBook
  • Pages: 320
  • Sales rank: 92,556
  • File size: 223 KB

Meet the Author

Paul Auster
Paul Auster

Paul Auster is the bestselling author of Sunset Park, Man in the Dark, Travels in the Scriptorium, The Brooklyn Follies, and Oracle Night. I Thought My Father Was God, the NPR National Story Project anthology, which he edited, was also a national bestseller. In 2006, he was elected to the American Academy of Arts and Letters for Literature. His work has been translated into thirty-five languages. He lives in Brooklyn, New York. 

Biography

Much later, when he was able to think about the things that happened to him, he would conclude that nothing was real except chance. But that was much later. In the beginning, there was simply the event and its consequences.

This sentence from the opening of Paul Auster's first novel, City of Glass, could also serve as a template for the author's career, both in circumstance and theme. City of Glass is perhaps the best known of Auster's postmodern detective New York Trilogy, which is rounded out by Ghosts and The Locked Room. Though the novels nominally involve cases to be solved, at base they are about the mystery of identity and how easily it can be lost or altered. In City of Glass, a mystery writer mistakenly receives a phone call for detective Paul Auster and assumes his identity, becoming embroiled in a case. The trilogy was a welcome breath of fresh air for both detective stories and postmodernist writing, and it put Auster on the publishing map.

Setting out to write his subsequent novel, Auster kept in mind the subtitle "Anna Blume Walks Through the 20th Century." The result was a woman's post-apocalyptic urban journey, In the Country of Last Things. Subsequent works such as Moon Palace, The Music of Chance, Leviathan, and Mr. Vertigo offered heroes caught up in strange worlds, playing out their stories over existential subtexts. The Music of Chance carries references from Beckett's Waiting for Godot in its story about a drifter who ends up teaming with a card player named Jack Pozzi to hustle two wealthy eccentrics in a fateful poker game. In Mr. Vertigo, a boy who has the ability to levitate goes on the road in the 1920s as "the Wonder Boy," moving through a panorama of pre-Depression America.

Auster's ability to blur the line between fantasy and reality has resulted in unique stories that never operate solely as good yarns. The New York Times wrote of Leviathan -- a dead man's coincidence-ridden story, as narrated by his friend -- "Thus in the literary looking glass of Leviathan, in which things are not always what they seem, our pleasure in reading the story is enhanced by the challenge of making other connections." Auster's fondness for allegory has earned him both praise for his cleverness and criticism from reviewers who, even as they praise his talent, occasionally find him heavy-handed.

The director Philip Haas adapted The Music of Chance for the 1993 film starring James Spader and Mandy Patinkin. But it was Wayne Wang who drew Auster to the movie business in earnest, convincing him to write the screenplay for 1995's Smoke, which was adapted from the short story "Auggie Wren's Christmas Story." The film did well enough to get producer Miramax on board for a sequel bringing back star Harvey Keitel, Blue in the Face. This time, Auster not only wrote the script but co-directed with Wang; he later went full-fledged auteur with the 1998 film (also starring Keitel) Lulu on the Bridge.

In 1999, Auster made the unconventional choice of writing from a canine's point of view in Timbuktu -- although as Auster noted in the Guardian, Mr. Bones "is and isn't a dog." In telling the story of himself and his owner, a homeless "outlaw poet" named Willy G. Christmas, Mr. Bones offers a meditation on mortality, human relationships, and dreams. "If anything," Auster said in a chat with Barnes & Noble.com readers, "I thought of Willy and Mr. Bones as a rather screwball, nutty, latter-day version of Don Quixote and Sancho Panza, the befuddled knight-errant and his loyal squire." The New York Times called Timbuktu his "most touching, most emotionally accessible book."

Auster earned some of his best reviews with his tenth novel The Book of Illusions, about a widower who develops an obsession with an obscure silent-film star and is surprised with an invitation to meet the presumed-dead actor. Book magazine called it "certainly his best...the book [has] the drive and dazzle reminiscent of the classic hardboiled yarns of Raymond Chandler and Dashiell Hammett."

Auster is an author who, in both his fiction and his nonfiction, rekindles hope for the romantic, the coincidental, and the magical in everyday life. He does this not with fantastic story lines but by heightening the significance of twists and coincidences that happen to us all the time -- if we approach things in a certain light, our lives become like movies. Auster spins the projector.

Good To Know

Auster's wife Siri Hustvedt, whom he met in 1981, is also a novelist and essayist; writing about her novel The Blindfold, the Village Voice Literary Supplement called Hustvedt "a writer of strong, sometimes astonishing gifts." Auster's first wife was writer Lydia Davis.

Desperately poor in the late '70s and working unhappily as a French translator to make ends meet, Auster wrote a detective novel called Squeeze Play to make some money. He also invented a card game called Action Baseball that he tried to sell to game manufacturers. However, Squeeze Play is "not a legitimate book," he told the Guardian; it was published under a pseudonym. Later, an inheritance from his father allowed Auster the financial freedom to focus more on his writing.

Auster has enjoyed a remarkably international following, even in the days before his Hollywood projects raised his profile; his novels have been translated into several languages, and web sites from Germany to Japan pay him homage.

    1. Also Known As:
      Paul Benjamin
    2. Hometown:
      Brooklyn, New York
    1. Date of Birth:
      February 3, 1947
    2. Place of Birth:
      Newark, New Jersey
    1. Education:
      B.A., M.A., Columbia University, 1970

Customer Reviews

Average Rating 3.5
( 40 )

Rating Distribution

5 Star

(9)

4 Star

(19)

3 Star

(5)

2 Star

(5)

1 Star

(2)

Your Rating:

Review Guidelines
Add Recommendations
Your Name: Create a Pen Name or Leave Anonymously

Barnes & Noble.com Review Rules

Our reader reviews allow you to share your comments on titles you liked, or didn't, with others. By submitting an online review, you are representing to Barnes & Noble.com that all information contained in your review is original and accurate in all respects, and that the submission of such content by you and the posting of such content by Barnes & Noble.com does not and will not violate the rights of any third party. Please follow the rules below to help ensure that your review can be posted.

Reviews by Our Customers Under the Age of 13

We highly value and respect everyone's opinion concerning the titles we offer. However, we cannot allow persons under the age of 13 to have accounts at BN.com or to post customer reviews. Please see our Terms of Use for more details.

What to exclude from your review:

Please do not write about reviews, commentary, or information posted on the product page. If you see any errors in the information on the product page, please send us an email.

Reviews should not contain any of the following:

  • - HTML tags, profanity, obscenities, vulgarities, or comments that defame anyone
  • - Time-sensitive information such as tour dates, signings, lectures, etc.
  • - Single-word reviews. Other people will read your review to discover why you liked or didn't like the title. Be descriptive.
  • - Comments focusing on the author or that may ruin the ending for others
  • - Phone numbers, addresses, URLs
  • - Pricing and availability information or alternative ordering information
  • - Advertisements or commercial solicitation

Reminder:

  • - By submitting a review, you grant to Barnes & Noble.com and its sublicensees the royalty-free, perpetual, irrevocable right and license to use the review in accordance with the Barnes & Noble.com Terms of Use.
  • - Barnes & Noble.com reserves the right not to post any review -- particularly those that do not follow the terms and conditions of these Rules. Barnes & Noble.com also reserves the right to remove any review at any time without notice.
  • - See Terms of Use for other conditions and disclaimers.
Search for Products You'd Like to Recommend

Recommend other products that relate to your review. Just search for them below and share!

Create a Pen Name

Your Pen Name is your unique identiy on BN.com. It will appear on the reviews you write and other website activities. Your Pen Name cannot be edited, changed or deleted once submitted.

Your Pen Name can be any combination of alphanumeric characters (plus - and _), and must be at least two characters long.

Continue Anonymously

We're sorry, but penname is already taken.

Please select one of the following:
Your Pen Name can be any combination of alphanumeric characters (plus - and _), and must be at least two characters long.

Continue Anonymously

penname is available!

By visiting the BN.com website or marking a purchase on BN.com, a User is deemed to have accepted the Terms of Use.

Continue Anonymously

Welcome, penname

You have successfully created your Pen Name. Start enjoying the benefits of the BN.com Community today.

See All Sort by: Showing 1 – 20 of 40 Customer Reviews

  • Posted November 10, 2009

    more from this reviewer

    MASTERFUL, INVENTIVE, ORIGINAL

    For this reader Paul Auster is one of the most brilliant writers working today. He is a total original who pens intriguing, beguiling prose of great depth and intensity. There are some books that one may scan and pretty much capture the author's narrative. Not so with Auster, his work requires concentration, thoughtfulness as one plumbs his intentions. His novels are complex yet totally satisfying. Auster's narrative voice is so rich, so distinctive that you can almost hear it. Such is the case with his fifteenth novel INVISIBLE.

    Relating his story in four parts we are introduced to Adam Walker in 1967 when he is 20, a second year student at Columbia, a self-described "know-nothing boy with an appetite for books and a belief (or delusion) that one day I would become good enough to call myself a poet...." He was at a party where he met Rudolf Born, an enigmatic man who would change the course of Adam's life. With Born was Margot, a French woman dressed all in black who was more than attractive to a young student.

    As the relationship between the three deepens Born offers Adam a large sum of money, $25,000, to start a literary magazine. What a piece of luck for a cash poor student! Then one evening as the two are strolling to dinner along Riverside Drive they are suddenly mugged. Born defends them by pulling a switchblade knife from an inside pocket and stabbing the assailant. Adam runs for help but returns to find the body gone. Shortly thereafter a body is found in a park with multiple stab wounds, and Born has gone to France.

    Part 1 has ended on a tense note as do each of the succeeding sections which take us from that time in 1967 through 2007. Three different narrators relate periods in Adam's life. What is truth? How fallible is memory? What are the forces that drive us or destroy us?

    Reading INVISIBLE is an unforgettable experience, both exhilarating and unsettling. It is classic Paul Auster, which is to say it is the finest today's literature can offer.

    - Gail Cooke

    4 out of 4 people found this review helpful.

    Was this review helpful? Yes  NoThank you for your feedback.   Report this reviewThank you, this review has been flagged.

  • Posted January 22, 2012

    Great story told very well.

    This book is not only a great story but the way it is told is just amazing to me. Even though the point of view changes a lot throughout Invisible it is still very easy to follow and the reader get a chance to view certain events through several different characters perspectives. Invisible is story that really shows how differently human beings can live their lives for good or bad.

    1 out of 1 people found this review helpful.

    Was this review helpful? Yes  NoThank you for your feedback.   Report this reviewThank you, this review has been flagged.

  • Anonymous

    Posted May 4, 2011

    Recommended

    Paul Auster's Invisible was a novel that challenged the human mind to almost develop a new way of thinking. This novel truly enraptured itself around the concept of "haunted". Auster's style was one of the factors that truly made this book a step ahead of every other. He never used quotations, rather wrote out intrigue sentences that makes the reader follow each conversation closely. His division of the novel into different narrations left the reader begging for more of another character's thoughts. If I had to describe Auster's style with one word I would use brilliant. His words flow out onto pages which almost forces the reader into another mode of reading. Auster's intended audience would be anyone who is mature enough to appreciate the beauty of his brilliant, yet disturbing novel. I recommend caution to anyone who reads this novel: do not judge the book until you have read the entire novel. The title of this novel truly reflects a major element of Invisible. One of the biggest themes in this book is love and the other memories. After the end of the novel I found myself questioning what I had even read for the last 100 or so pages. The novel flows so quickly that by the end of reading it is easy to find yourself wondering what makes sense in the world. Were all Adam's, (the main character) thoughts true? Or were they just distorted thoughts from a twisted soul? The love relationships presented in this novel also reflect around an almost "invisible" theme. Afterall the most interesting part of this novel was the relationships between Adam and the other characters. The relationship between Adam and his sister was particularly haunting, but certainly keeps the reader on the edge of his or her seat. The other relationships in this novel were just as interesting, but they were presented in different ways which made them worth understanding. It would be impossible to pick the most exciting part of the novel because each part kept me excited in this book. Now that I am done reading it, it is easy for me to appreciate Auster's work fully. His characters, the setting, the narrations all contributed to the greatness of his novel. The way the story ended was arguably one of the better endings of great novels. The conflicted information presented throughout the novel sums together at the end of the novel to leave the reader what in the world happened. The ending was enchanting, and left the reader begging for more to read, which in my opinion, is the best way to end a superb novel.

    1 out of 1 people found this review helpful.

    Was this review helpful? Yes  NoThank you for your feedback.   Report this reviewThank you, this review has been flagged.

  • Anonymous

    Posted March 19, 2012

    don't waste your time

    not worth the paper it's printed on!!!

    0 out of 2 people found this review helpful.

    Was this review helpful? Yes  NoThank you for your feedback.   Report this reviewThank you, this review has been flagged.

  • Anonymous

    Posted May 2, 2011

    Recommended

    The author's style of the book is certainly a unique one. The book is broken down into four individual parts, and not broken down into chapters. Each of the four parts is told in a new perspective by a new person. This adds depth and detail to the book as you get to read about the four different sides. Also, the book does not use quotation marks to show a person speaking. Each time someone speaks it becomes its own new paragraph in regular sentence form. One of the more interesting parts of the book was how Adam coped with the death of his little brother. Adam's little brother was six years old and drowned in a lake due to his inability to swim. After this incidence Adam's family started to deteriorate. Through all of the grievances Adam found himself closer to his sister. They escaped all of the problems in the family by being with each other. One night through it all, some sexual play occurred between the two. Adam and Gwyn only seem to be happy with they are with each other. One of the most exciting parts of the book is when Born murdered Cedric Williams. Adam and Born were walking down a down road when approached by a young boy asking them for their money. Born suddenly pulls out a pocket knife and stabs Cedric in the stomach. Cedric was still alive so Adam ran to the phone booth up the road to call for help, but when he came back both Born and Cedric were gone. The next day Cedric's body was found at the local park with over a dozen knife stabs in his stomach. Adam received a threat note from Born, which made Adam hesitant to turn Born into the police. After one week, he decided to but it was already too late, Born had escaped back to France. This incident affects Adam for the rest of his life.

    Was this review helpful? Yes  NoThank you for your feedback.   Report this reviewThank you, this review has been flagged.

  • Anonymous

    Posted May 1, 2011

    Highly Recommended

    I think that the author created this book for mature teenagers and up. Some of the context is not appropriate for younger children. There are a lot of sexual references that are for mature audiences. I think the title is peculiar for the book, yet it is just right. It shows how someone can come into Adam's life and become invisible, yet, he is an extremely prominent figure in his life. Even though he is not present in Adam's life he is always there. It's like he is there, but invisible. I liked the ending. I think it tied everything together really well with all of the different perspectives. However,I wish Margot's perspective would have been included in the book. The most interesting part of the book was the way it was broken up into the different points of view. That added great dimension to the book and kept it interesting. The most exiting part of the book was when Borne just kind of ran off after the murder he committed. Then he just kind of randomly disappears. It was very suprising and I did not see that coming at all. I did not think he would kill that boy and then just run off. It creates the story because that incident affects the rest of Adam's life. I would describe the author's style as fresh and interesting. There was never a dull moment in the book, and everything tied together well with elements of suprise at times.

    Was this review helpful? Yes  NoThank you for your feedback.   Report this reviewThank you, this review has been flagged.

  • Posted September 3, 2010

    Amazingly Compelling

    This book takes your mind to places that you may have delved but not for long. The book provides a basis for thinking of events so horrid on one sense and titillating and even compelling on another. This was the first book I have read by this author and it has made me seek out other writings of his. I highly recommend it.

    Was this review helpful? Yes  NoThank you for your feedback.   Report this reviewThank you, this review has been flagged.

  • Posted August 26, 2010

    more from this reviewer

    Thoughtfully structured, Invisible is just the kind of brain candy that a true reader craves.

    The story itself is simple. Adam Walker is dying. Before doing so, he decides to share his life story with an acquaintance from his years at Columbia. Jim, who has agreed to read the story and provide feedback where needed, is given the story in parts.

    The first part is innocent enough. It's where Adam meets Rudolf Barn and Rudolf's mysterious girlfriend, Margot. The couple takes an immediate liking to Adam. The relationship is complicated in that Rudolf has offered Adam a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity.to start-up a magazine. This is an offer that Adam cannot refuse, but wait. there is an attraction to Margot. That's where it gets complicated.

    As Adam's story is delivered in parts, Jim is not sure what to think. The story centers around a violent act, incest and these rather eccentric characters. What at first appears to be Adam's life story, sort of morphs into what Jim thinks might be fiction or fantasy, but he can't be sure, so he does a bit of his own research to find out.

    Invisible is complicated in structure.there are multiple narrators, passages told in flashbacks, etc. However, it's not a difficult read. In fact, it's quite short for a novel and goes quite quickly, but there's something about it that piques the senses. Auster's use of language is admirable, but his ability to keep you slightly on the edge of your seat is what I enjoyed the most. This is not a mystery or thriller by any means but when he touches on incest I was like, "What? Did he just go there?" Yes, he goes there and gives you just enough to be utterly creeped out and disturbed and then pulls back to allow you a moment of reprieve.

    It's that delicate use of tension that pulls you in. I found myself hanging on every word. At times, it reminded me of The Talented Mr. Ripley. There's the larger than life Born, the sexual tension, the lure of adventure. It's packed with ambiguity, yet when you finish the novel, you somehow know how things turn out. When I finished it, I immediately wanted to read it again. Not because things were not clear, but because it's just that kind of novel. It's multi-layered and complex but in the best possible way.

    You should know that there are some sex scenes that could be considered graphic. However, it's the incest that will most likely disturb you the most, if you happen to be sensitive to that sort of thing. I am usually not, but there was one point where I remember squirming a bit in my seat. That said, I quickly got over it and felt that Auster's handling of that particular scene was quite well done. If you enjoy sophisticated fiction and complex structure, you will definitely enjoy Invisible. It is one of my favorites for 2010.

    Was this review helpful? Yes  NoThank you for your feedback.   Report this reviewThank you, this review has been flagged.

  • Posted May 14, 2010

    The Borderline between Memoir and Fiction

    In 1967, Adam Walker was a student at Columbia, an aspiring poet, when he meets a visiting professor of International Affairs, Rudolf Born, and his French girlfriend Margot at a party. They start a friendship, and Born offers to hire Walker to start a new literary magazine. This comes to a sudden halt when Born commits an act of violence and Walker refuses to cover it up. Born flees the country to his native France. Margot had preceded him there, after their relationship had ended, after she and Walker had a brief affair and Born announced that he was marrying a French woman. Walker then travels to Paris for a semester abroad, where he meets up again with Margot and Born.
    This story is told primarily through a memoir being written by Walker in the present day, where he is dying of cancer. He sends two chapters of his manuscript to an old college buddy he had not been in contact with since those days. Some other details of the story are told by two other players in Walker's story.
    What we are presented with raises questions about the borderline between memoir and fiction. How much can we trust what each of the characters in this story says about their life and motives? The story itself is an interesting one, and the book is a very quick read. At just over 300 pages it was easily completed on the quiet weekend that devoted to it.

    Was this review helpful? Yes  NoThank you for your feedback.   Report this reviewThank you, this review has been flagged.

  • Anonymous

    Posted December 15, 2009

    Unsatisfying

    After reading "Moon Palace" years ago, I keep picking up Auster's newest books and reading them. They consistently disappoint me. Maybe I just don't get them. He's a skillful writer, and he keeps you intrigued, but ultimately he does not satisfy. Reading his novels is like having great sex... that you fail to have an orgasm at the end of.

    0 out of 2 people found this review helpful.

    Was this review helpful? Yes  NoThank you for your feedback.   Report this reviewThank you, this review has been flagged.

  • Anonymous

    Posted March 10, 2010

    No text was provided for this review.

  • Anonymous

    Posted May 26, 2011

    No text was provided for this review.

  • Anonymous

    Posted January 25, 2010

    No text was provided for this review.

  • Anonymous

    Posted January 15, 2010

    No text was provided for this review.

  • Anonymous

    Posted April 25, 2010

    No text was provided for this review.

  • Anonymous

    Posted January 17, 2010

    No text was provided for this review.

  • Anonymous

    Posted December 1, 2009

    No text was provided for this review.

  • Anonymous

    Posted December 30, 2009

    No text was provided for this review.

  • Anonymous

    Posted December 28, 2009

    No text was provided for this review.

  • Anonymous

    Posted April 10, 2011

    No text was provided for this review.

See All Sort by: Showing 1 – 20 of 40 Customer Reviews
If you find inappropriate content, please report it to Barnes & Noble
Why is this product inappropriate?
Comments (optional)
500 character limit