The review of the book „Moon palace” by Paul Auster

„Moon palace“ is a contemporary novel written by modern American novelist Paul Auster. The book tells story about young man who tries to find himself in a world and about two other men from his previous generations. All three men are linked through fantastic coincidences. Author’s purpose is to remind and make us face some things, which we already know, but usually are afraid to face, things we usually sheer from. “Moon palace” has really diverse characters. The protagonist Marco Stanley (M.S.) Fogg is student in his early twenties, an orphan with no family at all. This lonely orphan seems to be spending entire story searching for his identity, mostly appears, indirectly. He is at a loss in his life and for some time works for Thomas Effing. Effing is wicked person. Man is disabled and blind, but is far from being pitiful. He enjoys laughing at and fooling everyone. All his life is a lie, so it’s no surprise that man is extremely lonely. The last of the main characters, Solomon Barber is trapped in his 350 pound body. He separates himself from the rest of the world by putting the mask of cheerful eccentric, but actually lives in complete solitude. The story takes place in New York, though some of the actions happen in the desert of Utah and in the other parts of America. The events largely take place in the late 60’s and 70’s, but sometimes narrative goes back to early and mid 1900’s. M.S. Fogg is the central figure of the story, we see events unfold trough his eyes. We see how M.S. peacefully lives with his uncle and goes to the University of Columbia. Everything changes, when uncle dies. There is no one left to M.S. in the whole world, and this young man decides to do nothing to support himself. That of course almost ends up with his death in the streets, but luckily a woman, M.S.’s sole mate saves his life. The “fun’ begins when Fogg starts to work as a companion for old Mr. Effing – reading books for him, taking him on walks and so on. Effing tells him the story of his life which becomes the main theme of the novel and suddenly gets connected in various ways with the life of Fogg himself. There are some things Paul Auster wants to say for us. The most important – life often depends on coincidences. From the life of the characters we can see that our plans or even whole life can change in few seconds. On the other hand even most tragic changes, which might seem like the end can lead to a new life, can be reason to reborn. Reborn like moon, which follows the protagonist throughout the story, but each time appears with different meaning. The story wasn’t hard to read, as the style is peculiar. Considerable part of a book is stories told by characters. There is even a separate novel created by one of the characters. The plot doesn’t move quickly, there were some passages that seem to stretch on quite endlessly, providing some time to think. Story was revealing, but sometimes too unrealistic because of many unbelievable coincidences. I enjoyed reading and found the book interesting, but constant feeling of loneliness made me feel a bit weird at the end.