Timbuktu Book

At its worst, this novella is a prolonged & sorrowful swan song. An existential meditation. At its peak however, it remains a radical exercise in stream-of-consciousness narration. Although reminiscent of Virginia Woolf at her most coherent, it's a relief to have a book that does not require trips to the ever-faithful dictionary. And gratefully, this work is not rife with pretensions-galore (a-la "Book of Illusions," which is thankfully newly off the '1001 Best Books' List) and has the amount of imagination and sense of wonderment/awe which a work like this demands.

The whole book in P.O.V. of a dog: there are moments when you think the author will absolutely fail, and the time seems impending... though it never really comes. Paul Auster succeeds in telling a sad, simple, organic tale of the universal connection that makes everyone part of the biological Brotherhood/Sisterhood/Universe. Even dogs with men connect; even a dog's innermost psyche has substantial clout in the actual, outside real world.