I read a lot of Paul Auster in the 1980's and it was enjoyable to reconnect with him via this one. Auster has a wonderfully engaging style, his books are well plotted and always intriguing. Oracle Night didn't disappoint. ( )

Sidney Orr es escritor, y está recuperándose de una enfermedad a la que nadie esperaba que sobreviviera. Y cada mañana, cuando su esposa Grace se marcha a trabajar, él, todavía débil y desconcertado, camina por la ciudad. Un día compra en El Palacio de Papel, la librería del misterioso señor Chang, un cuaderno de color azúl que le seduce, y descubre que puede volver a escribir. Su amigo John Trause, también escritor, también enfermo, también poseedor de otro de los exóticos cuadernos azules portugueses, le ha hablado de Flitcraft, un personaje que aparece fugazmente en El halcón maltés y que, como Sidney, sobrevivió a un íntimo roce con la muerte, creyó comprender que no somos más que briznas que flotan en el vacío del azar, y abandonó, sin despedirse, mujer, trabajo, identidad y se inventó otra vida en otra ciudad.

Un número equivocado está en el origen de este libro. Un hombre lo llamó por teléfono una noche preguntando por la agencia de detectives Pinkerton; el novelista le dijo que se había equivocado. Llamada y respuesta se repitieron la noche siguiente. Y el narrador nato que es Paul Auster se planteó qué habría sucedido si hubiera fingido que, en efecto, él era un detective... Y un equívoco conduce a otro, y sibilinamente se pone en marcha el audaz mecanismo que mueve esta historia, en la que lo irreal va horadando lo real y el novelista ejerce de «cazador de coincidencias» de traductor de las siempre oscuras revelaciones del azar.

Sydney, a Brooklyn writer recovering from a near-fatal illness wanders into a stationery store owned by Mr. Chan, purchases a blue notebook, and for the first time in a long while begins writing, the story magically pouring from his pen. He writes of an editor, Nick Bowen, who is given a strange manuscript by a long dead writer to edit. But on his way to the office one day, Nick is nearly killed by a heavy falling object, and this experience impels him to just drop everything in his life and run away to the first place he can buy a plane ticket for, Kansas City as it happens. In Kansas City, Nick becomes involved with a man who collects worldwide telephone books and stores them in a "museum" hidden away underground under the railroad tracks, where Nick becomes trapped with no way out when the telephone book collector suddenly dies of heart disease.....So we have a story within a story, within a story: The manuscript of a novel called Oracle Night by a deceased writer, being edited by Nick, who has just abandoned his life to run away to Kansas City, as written/imagined by Sydney, a writer in Brooklyn who hasn't written in a while, as written/imagined by Paul Auster (a writer living in Brooklyn I believe). There's layer after layer here, and it was sometimes a challenge keeping track of whose story we were in, especially if I had set the book aside for a few days. But it was all thoroughly enjoyable. I'm a fan of most of the Paul Auster books I've read. I like the way he frequently plays games with the reader of his books, and I constantly marvel at his imaginative powers.

4 stars ( )

Once again I was drawn into this book by the strong narrative voice.
Sidney Orr is recovering from a near fatal illness. He is a writer, but since his illness has been unable to write. One day he sees a blue notebook in a stationary shop and feels compelled to buy it and start writing. The words flow and the reader is now following two story lines. Meanwhile, his wife Grace seems a bit distanced and eventually reveals she is pregnant. Their friend John asks him to visit his son, who is in drug rehab. When the plot for his novel becomes stuck, John who is an accomplished writer offers to send him a possible movie manuscript to help pay his hospital bill, Sidney starts considering his wife's strange behaviour and comes to a sudden realisation. The story comes to a violent tragic end.
Auster uses footnotes to fill in background details to the story. These continue over several pages and then you have to go back and pick up the storyline. An interesting device which might upset some readers.
I was initially totally absorbed with this story within a story format but then I started to predict the plot, perhaps I was meant to. I guess life can throw you sudden curve balls which change the trajectory of one's life. Overall a good book that kept me turning pages. ( )