Rating: 
Summary: Auster's Worse Book
Review: This was a major disappoinment. I have read nearly all of Auster's books, and this was one of my least favorites. The main problem is the ending, and how nothing comes together. Towards the end of the novel, the character, Sidney Orr, gives up on his book, which I think was a metaphor for Auster giving up on Oracle Night. Most of Auster's books, no matter what the subject matter, always manage to bring into question themes of great importance and value. This book failed to do that. Even though I live in Brooklyn, and enjoy the Brooklyn references, I still think it is a major unoriginal cop-out. This book could have been a lot better if he managed to tie in the significnace of "Portugal" with the climax of the story. For Auster fans, you might find some interesting patterns or insightful coincidences, but if you are new to Auster, skip it, and read The New York Trilogy or The Book of Illusions. Hopefully his next one will be better. -J
Rating:
Summary: "Pure rubbish"
Review: To quote Auster's own assessment of his screenplay within this novel within a novel, this is truly one of the worst contemporary novels I've ever read, and my first (and last) Auster book. Many friends whose opinion I respect love Auster, so maybe my reaction is anomalous. The book is primarily about a writer who begins a novel with a clever plot but then is unable to finish it, so literally tears up the manuscript, which is exactly what this book feels like. To hide this in a Russian nesting doll of narrative may be clever, but does not great literature make, and isn't enough to hide the essential lack of storytelling skill here. Once the author admits defeat, everything is tied up in a neat bundle of cliches and plot enders. Save your money.
Rating:
Summary: Disappointing
Review: Unfortunately, this book is too clever by half. In fact, its very essence, its purpose is to congratulate itself on how cutely each of its plotlines revolves around each other. Sadly, I looked at this book as a sign of our literary times. Developing a sympathetic, engaging character has become subordinate to creating a gimmicky, extremely "meta" plot. After I finished the last page, I feel like I'd been duped. Duped into reading someone's exercise in structure, someone's foray into painfully obvious foreshadowing, and possibly someone's desperate attempt at a screenplay option? I suggest William Faulkner's The Wild Palms for anyone wishing to read truly engaging, thoughtful, sympathetic, and painful stories woven around each other. Skip Oracle Night.
I also hope Mr. Auster returns to the eloquent, beautiful writing I've come to expect.
Rating: 
Summary: A Koan
Review: What is the real fiction? I read with amusement, but also respect, the dismissive reviews by some other customers. Two central themes of their laments are that the book is a complicated hash of Austerly notions, and that there is no "there" there; roads to nowhere. I have always found Auster's work, even in its sadder pondering of the dissolution of self, to be on the edge of a Zen awakening - with letting go comes a loss that is actually an attainment. As a good student of the sitting art, or of depth psychology, will learn, a desire such as that for a wholly produced and delivered product, sufficently durable for swallowing-whole and/or post-hoc analysis, is both the symptom and the cause of dissatisfaction/failure. Sometimes the teacher slaps one for thinking there is an answer. One's fiction about a work not-yet read will tip the scales. As readers, we bring fictions to fiction. Not an original notion. Certainly, artists have more and less successful projects. I think Oracle Night is a fine, quintessential Austerwork. I'm not an authority on Austerworks, but I know what they do for me. More broadly, though, is there anything solid or absolute that one can say about a book? Is a given book "substantial", or is it a meditation on nothing, on the process and minutiae of experience ( I recommend Eco's "Foucault's Pendulum" for some thoughts on the vanity of thinking one can sense the sense of things, such as it is; or try "Ulysses", or "Finnegan's Wake")? One can lower one's blood pressure, reach satori, make great jazz or create Seinfeld - or blow away - if one engages the challenge of creating from nothing. The ability to enjoy, or even appreciate this way of creating, and of its products, is very much for the individual to decide upon. But if you think its butter, but its not - check your presumptions. Enjoy the book.
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