Book Review: 4 3 2 1 - P. Auster

“Why isn’t this little boy in school?, to which his mother replied, with a hard stare into the nosy man’s face: None of your business. That was the best moment of those strange two months, or one of the best moments, unforgettable because of the sudden feeling of happiness that rose up in him when his mother said those words, happier than at any time in weeks, and the sense of solidarity those words implied, the two of them against the world, struggling to put themselves together again, and none of your business was the credo of that double effort, a sign of how much they were depending on each other now. “

One thing is certain: Paul Auster can write, and he can do so as a master. He could write the shopping list and it would be interesting. Secondly, the plot is quite original, as it covers the life of this young Jewish, Archibald Ferguson, in four different ways, a bit like the movie Sliding doors, what would have happened if. And in this case there are four paths that Archie's life could have taken.
Reading the plot on the back cover of the novel, I though he had a mental health issue and the four people lived at once within himself, silly me! So at the beginning I was very confused, and then I suddenly understood what the plot really was about.
I really liked the characters, especially Archie's mother, Rose, positive, strong and a great maternal figure.
Nothing really happens in the book, it is the ordinary story of a family, to which tragedies happen, depending on which path it is, of minor or major gravity, but overall the novel describes the day to day life and thoughts of the main character. Which I found very interesting, For a bit. Then I wanted to skip pages to see if something more happens through the book, which is a thick one.

Overall, great original idea and superbly written, but too long in describing day to day life.

“That was the real difference, Ferguson concluded. Not too little money or too much money, not what a person did or failed to do, not buying a larger house or a more expensive car, but ambition. That explained why Brownstein and Solomon managed to float through their lives in relative peace—because they weren’t tormented by the curse of ambition.”

Overall rating: 6      Plot: 5     Writing style: 8      Cover:  6,5

Title: 4 3 2 1 

Author: Paul Auster
Publisher: Faber & Faber
Pages: 880
Publication year: 2017

Plot:

On March 3, 1947, in the maternity ward of Beth Israel Hospital in Newark, New Jersey, Archibald Isaac Ferguson, the one and only child of Rose and Stanley Ferguson, is born. From that single beginning, Ferguson's life will take four simultaneous and independent fictional paths. Four Fergusons made of the same genetic material, four boys who are the same boy, will go on to lead four parallel and entirely different lives. Family fortunes diverge. Loves and friendships and intellectual passions contrast. Chapter by chapter, the rotating narratives evolve into an elaborate dance of inner worlds enfolded within the outer forces of history as, one by one, the intimate plot of each Ferguson's story rushes on across the tumultuous and fractured terrain of mid twentieth-century America. A boy grows up-again and again and again.

The Author:

Paul Auster is the bestselling author of Winter Journal, Sunset Park, Invisible, The Book of Illusions, and The New York Trilogy, among many other works. He has been awarded the Prince of Asturias Award for Literature, the Prix Médicis étranger, an Independent Spirit Award, and the Premio Napoli. He is a member of the American Academy of Arts and Letters, the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, and is a Commandeur de l'Ordre des Arts et des Lettres. He lives in Brooklyn, New York.