Rating: 
Summary: thought provoking
Review: If you've read other Auster novels, you'll recognize many of the themes and situaions here, but that did not decrease my enjoyment one bit. If anything, I enjoyed it more because of how it echoed other works. Ignore the critics who say it doesn't make sense or is poorly thought out. I think they haven't put enough thought into it. I've been able to come up with a coherent, satisfying reading--after about a week of thought. Of course, I haven't tied up all of the "loose ends" but that's what makes reading it so interesting: There's plenty to think about, especially when you start considering its themes in light of his other books. If you haven't read any Auster, I'd start with the New York Trilogy, and then read this. If you've read and enjoyed other Auster, you should enjoy this, if you're willing to really think about it.
Rating: 
Summary: Promising Start Leads to Disappointment
Review: In "Oracle Night" Auster tempts the reader with many intriguing subplots, only to leave each of them at a dead end, never developing them to completion. Overall, it felt like a waste of time- it was the portrayal of a marriage full of deceit and adultery, which Auster tries to pawn off as acceptable since the protaganist, Sydney Orr, writes about it first in his mysterious blue notebook. While the reader wants to sympathise with the protaganist, it's simply impossible. By the end of the story feelings towards Orr border on disgust, and his theory that the words we write dictate our futures leaves a foul aftertaste.
What could have been an intruiging tale wound up a confusion of underdeveloped subplots- and not worth the time it takes to pull the true story from the muddle.
Rating:
Summary: Creating possible futures...
Review: It is no understatement that Paul Auster is one of the top literary writers alive and working today. He never fails to astonish with his playful approach to writing, experimenting with form, while entertaining the reader at the same time. This is a difficult thing to do. When attempting to write a metafictional piece, in some cases, form overrides the story itself, and the general reader is left wondering, scratching their respective heads, and abandoning the work. Auster, for me at any rate, has never failed to maintain my attention, interest and respect as a reader of all his work. Oracle Night, Auster's eleventh novel, is an hypnotic, mythical, magical experience, that draws the reader in with its peculiar ideas, circumstances and characters, yet at the same time, proposes some heavy and important questions concerning writers, the process of writing and the shear power of the written word. The narrator of the text, Sidney Orr, a young writer, has been recovering from a near fatal illness and hasn't put pen to paper for some time. On one of his daily walks, he stumbles upon a stationary shop, the Paper Palace, run by a mysterious Chinaman. As Orr enters the store, time seems to stop, and there he discovers a set of beautiful Portuguese notebooks. He decides to buy the blue one, (a significant colour as we discover later) purchases it, which begins a journey of writing, coincidence, tales within tales, and the altering of time itself. When finally putting pen to paper in the blue notebook, the words flow, as they have never done before. Orr felt as if he was merely a bystander, as the words gushed forth effortlessly, forming a tale. While in the midst of writing, something strange occurs: Orr's wife walks into the room to check on him, and he isn't there. Orr could not explain this, because he knew he never left the room. Was he merely so immersed in the work that he absentmindedly left his desk, or was it something else? The blue notebook seems to be no ordinary notebook, but what exactly is it? It appears to be the nexus point of premonition, the creator of possible futures, which could possibly change everything. Many things happen, inside the writing and outside the writing, and somehow there is a connection. Can one create the future through the written word? As the character, John Trause, an accomplished novelist and friend, says to Orr: "We live in the present, but the future is inside us at every moment. Maybe that's what writing is all about, Sid. Not recording events from the past, but making things happen in the future." This a book about the power of the story and the written word set in the subtle, mundane and at times haunting realities of our day to day existence. This novel asks many questions, and leaves it to us to find the answers. One of Auster's better novels.
Rating:
Summary: No, don't ignore the critics...
Review: Like others here, I also have been an Auster fan. But the critical caveats already mentioned by others regarding this latest effort are all too well taken. Yes, it is readable in a "what happens next" sort of way, but it ends up being little more than a tiresome bag of tiresome, self-referential, post-modern humdrum, trotted about in the hope the reader will discover some sort depth within its slicked up surface. Zen? Meditations upon chance, time, dream, or the unforseen ramifications of choice? Not here, I'm afraid. Just a narrative exercise that, like others have said, goes nowhere in particular and ends the reader up at book's end in that locked, lightless little room with some "Pop! Smack!" and "Pow" thrown in to lend it all a dubious sense of location.
Rating:
Summary: Introspection Into The Future
Review: Mr. Auster's book is one of the best pieces of experimental fiction I have read in several years. His use of long footnotes to express the difference between the protagonist's thoughts, not declared, versus those declared, or additional information about a topic, that is extremely helpful to following his meaning. Central to his book is the question of time. What is time, is it the 4th dimension, can it be traveled in, does Einstein's theory really represent reality, that it is impossible to go into the future, what is the philosophy of future time travel, all these questions are mixed with the question of how much does a person themselves, travel, or detect the fluctuations in the space-time continuum (i.e. precogniton), and how much do our own thoughts, deeds and actions or inactions actually affect the outcome of time? While Auster used perhaps just a touch too much foreshadowing in his book, it is not the plot line so much that Auster seems to wish to convey, as the dilemmas of the characters, and how those dilemmas feel to the characters. The actual results are less important than the thoughts and deeds leading up to the results. In fact, that perhaps is what Auster is trying to say, that the future is both changeable, and immutable at the same time. How can anyone truly know at this time. This book is destined for greatness, it is easy to read, not too long, and not written with an erudite vocabulary that only those who have a PhD in literature can understand. And yet, Auster's message is deep, very, deep, and very personal, and very intimate. It is an experience that all should try to enjoy.
Rating:
Summary: more of the same... just right
Review: Oracle Night is a sweet metaphorical and metafictional swim; as absorbing as any of Auster's works -- except perhaps the archetypal City of Glass. We are working in a space where fact and fiction disperse and colour one another like dye drops in a glass of water, and Auster demonstrates the process like no writer can.
One common complaint is that the ending is too obvious, by which is meant that a certain revelation about Sidney's wife is easily foreseen.
But the real revelation is Sidney himself. To say so is hardly a spoiler. Can you have a spoiler in a randomly associative novel like this? Sidney's discovered the power of the Blue Note book, the power of imagination. He knows he's wronged Grace by succombing to the prostitute in Chang's underground club. He's guilty, and is subsequently punished. In accordance to a perfectly understandable dream-logic, Chang becomes his conscience... and the guilt robs Sidney of his ability to write (Chang won't let him have a notebook, red, blue or any other colour), thus the stories within the story cannot proceed.
But Sidney's also been betrayed. At first I was annoyed at Sidney's passivity, his forgiveness, his wimpy inability to do anything. But it's here that the book's ending delivers its true punch: the disturbing revelation that Sidney is not passive; passive-aggressive perhaps, but not passive. Rather, Sidney's wrath is devastating, and it brings about for him a perfectly happy ending. Scary. Made me worried about Paul's and Siri's real life.
Anyway, a great novel all round
Rating:
Summary: Auster at his best in Oracle Night
Review: Oracle Night is perhaps the best book Auster has written. It's been said that great writers focus on a single theme and revisit it throughout their careers. Oracle Night is the most compelling and moving example of how an author can revisit familiar themes in an altogether fresh and richly imagined manner.
I'm a writer who is recovering from a brain injury resulting from a car accident. This account of a novelist rediscovering his life and relationships after a nearly fatal illness rings true. The metaphysical pondering the author explores is an Auster trademark. Still, these characters live and breathe and you care about what happens to them. I felt like I knew these people.
I feel some obligation to identify other personal favorites by Auster to provide a context for the reader who has had some experience with him, but has not read this book. Oracle Night combines the strangeness of The New York City Trilogy, the narrative drive of Levianthan and the sweetness of Moon Palace. There are no wrong notes. Finally, I have a clear answer to the question:"If you were to recommend one book of Paul Auster's, which would you choose?"
Rating: 
Summary: Typical Auster
Review: Oracle Night is the story of a New York writer recovering from a life threatening illness and trying to get his life back in order. As is typical of Auster's work, the story takes a number of bizarre turns that send the story in new and unexpected directions.
I am a long time Auster reader and fan, and while I enjoyed the book, Oracle Night is neither Auster's best work not his worst. The story itself is well crafted, the characters are masterfully woven and the story is excellent. Like it or not (and I happen to like it), Oracle Night is typical Auster material.
Having said this, the book does have some problems, the most annoying of which are the footnotes. I found Auster's use of footnotes to be both irritating and unnecessary. They interrupt the flow of the story and in serve no useful purpose that I can see.
Bottom line, this is a good book for Auster fans. If you have never read Auster before, I would start instead with Moon Palace, Leviathan, The Book of Illusions or the Music of Chance.
Rating:
Summary: "Sometimes we know things before they happen..."
Review: ORACLE NIGHT starts out innocuous: while recovering from a serious illness writer Sidney decides to pick up the pen again and write. During one of his daily walks through his Brooklyn neighborhood he encounters a stationary shop that he never noticed before. Inside he becomes acquainted with the store's proprietor, M.R. Chang, who has immigrated to the United States to live the American Dream. While browsing the aisles Sidney decides to purchase a blue notebook made in Portugal. But what should be a routine purchase actually results in a bizarre adventure through both reality and fiction. Reading this novel is like reading a story about a story that is yet about another story. Not only is the reader introduced into Sidney's everyday life but they are also become familiarized with the story that Sidney begins to write in the blue notebook that, incidentally, also contains a novel with its own story. Got that?
Contained within the convoluted plot and sub-plots are serious philosophical lessons for the protagonist. What at first glance appears to be a series of mere coincidences between the differentiated plot levels actually strengthens the underlying message of this book. We often have knowledge of our existence that transcends the present. At first the coincidences seemed contrived, but as the novel progressed I starting going with the flow and was subsequently rewarded.
Despite how this book unfolds, I was never confused or disorientated. The fragmented strings that first appear to hang out on their own are indeed interconnected in their own manner and are nicely tied together at the end. I enjoyed the journey of reading ORACLE NIGHT. At first glance this appears to be just another slim book but between the covers is a story that worked well for me. Although I had guessed the ending this didn't significantly deter from my overall satisfaction. Paul Auster's gift of prose and imagination are admirable and result in a rewarding and pleasing book. Recommended.
Rating:
Summary: Magnificent Work By An Underappreciated Writer
Review: Paul Auster is both one of the best writers around and also one of the most underappreciated. However, he does enjoy a certain cult status with readers who appreciate truly imaginative fiction. The book begins when one Sidney Orr goes out and buys a blue notebook. That does not sound terribly interesting, but its what Orr does with the notebook that makes this book special. Orr writes a novel in the blue notebook purporting to forcast future events. As the novel progresses, it exerts a strange influence on the folks in Orr's life. As the above demonstrates, Oracle Night is a strange work, but its the wonderful writing that makes it hard to put the book down. This is truly a magnificent piece of work.
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