Timbuktu : A Novel

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Summary: I continue to think about the book long finishing it.
Review: A very wonderful book for animal lovers. Auster, as the dog narrator, does a fantastic job of telling this dog's story. Mr. Bones simply accepts and deals with whatever sad hand is dealt to him. And he definitely falls on many hard times both before and after Willie's death. After reading Timbuktu, you will forever communicate with your dog on a more intelligent level! The monologues by Willie Christmas were usually long and boring. Just skip over them - there are the rantings of an idiot under-achiever. All of the people in the book are very real; you will know them all. Read Timbuktu - but take a Prozac before doing so.

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Summary: a wonderful story about loyalty
Review: This is a wonderful and engaging story about loyalty, written in prose that takes you inside the head of Mr. Bones, an intellectual dog of character and very high standards. A dog to be emulated, if only other dogs could read.

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Summary: No need
Review: This book is the great! I think that it would be good if Paul Auster wrote a second book about Mr. Bones on how he reunites with Willy. and I think this book should be reconized a bit more

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Summary: makes you look at both dogs and people differently
Review: I loved this book and wished it would never end. I thought the accuracy with which Auster portrayed how dogs perceive our actions and how humans act towards each other and towards animals was exceptional.

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Summary: Wannabe
Review: Paul Auster is a pretentious failed scenarist who writes for Sight & Sound and whose movies are an embarrassment, it's clear he regards the novel as a minor art form judging by his ability to write one. Like Normon Mailer & Gore Vidal and the other totems of the "litry" establishment who lust after Hollywood recognition they only manage to leave a bad smell behind.

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Summary: This books a dog
Review: The cover and premise are appealing and the driving sentiment is nice but the writing is surprisingly lame. This reads like a very young writers first attempt at breaking in to the bohemian ranks. Reread "On The Road" instead.

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Summary: A wonderful book that ended much to soon for me.
Review: I have three dogs of my own and now think differently about them because now I know for sure they understand everything I say to them. I always felt they did, but this wonderful book about Willy G. Christmas and his dog Mr. Bones made me know they understand everything I have ever said to them. I couldn't put it down and had to read from behind the tears. I loved it and wished it would never end.

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Summary: I liked the book very much
Review: I have not read anything by Paul Auster before, so I had no pre-conceived notions about the book or the author. The first couple of chapters I was not hooked, but when Mr Bones' character came through more, I became very interested...perhaps partly because I have a dog I'm very close to. The parts of the book where Mr Bones has to fend for himself, and he becomes the main character were the most interesting to me, and he came alive as a very smpathetic character. Just because it is a simple story does not make it less profound but more so to my mind. Though it may not be so perfectly well-developed, that does not lessen its appeal--Who needs perfection??... this book has real humanity.

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Summary: This is very lightweight Paul Auster material.
Review: I read the Timbuktu reviews before buying the book, so I was prepared for a less-than-stellar Paul Auster novel. I wasn't disappointed. Timbuktu is superficial, marred by many cliche-riddled phrases. At times, the tone has the same sentimentality of a greeting card. The insights of the main character, Mr. Bones the dog, are interesting at times, but lack the profundity of the typical Auster protagonist. Mr. Bones' mentor, Willy G. Christmas, is boring, as are his rambling monologues. Aside from tepid interest in Mr. Bones, Timbuktu lacks characters to keep our interest. Because of the New York Trilogy, Leviathan and In the Country of Last Things, I remain a committed Auster fan. Here's hoping he regains top form for the next Millennium.

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Summary: Life's bite
Review: Is Mr. Bones his longtime human companion, Willy G. Christmas, and is Willy his longtime canine companion, Bones? Who is who, and when? (Note that in canine years and human years Bones and Willy are the same, in their mid-40s.) This is but one level on which I could read this book, which captivated me with its simplicity and complexity, its plain-speaking and its intuitive, imagined and dreamed speaking, its harshness and its compassion. Compassion is one lesson in the book. Without it, life truly is shown to be dog-eat-dog and human-eat-human. Mr. Bones and Willy fortunately encounter enough compassion, together and separately, to get by in this life, but this life's callousness is inescapble for the likes of them, and it seals their fate. It also sets them on the road to Timbuktu, proof, I suppose, that you gotta have hope. I've strongly recommended this book to both adults and young adults, sometimes telling them that it's a kind of "light summer read," memorably and touchingly so. I want this book to be widely read, especially at this time of broad prosperity, rapid environmental, technological and societal change, and near the close of the 20th Century. Where are we headed? Timbuktu?