Portrait of an Invisible Man
The book "Portrait of an Invisible Man," is a response by the brilliant Paul Auster to his father's death. His father dropped dead one day, unexpectedly, after being in perfect health. Despite the abruptness of his demise, Auster did not grieve and was ready to move on following the news. But, something troubled him and this concern would ultimately lead to the creation of this piece. He writes, "What disturbed me was something else, something unrelated to death or my response to it: the realization that my father had left no traces," (Auster 51). With the passing of his father, Auster was filled with so many unanswered questions about him that he felt he had no choice but to write about him. Auster writes, "An obligation that began to impose itself on me the moment I was given the news. I thought: my father is gone. If I do no act quickly, his entire life will vanish along with him," (Auster 51). This undeveloped relationship between father and son filled Auster with an overwhelming and desperate need to search for father. This urge to examine him, his feelings about their relationship, and investigate both their pasts ultimately became the purpose of this piece. "If, while he was alive, I kept on l
The manner in which Auster approaches the death of his father is to put his life into words. But, Paul encounters something that most writers meet up with at some point, writer's block. He struggles so much to express his father's life and sorting out his thoughts, that he begins to question the possibility of writing such a piece. Auster raises these questions when he breaks away from writing about his father to writing about writing. "For the past few days, in fact, I have begun to feel that the story I am trying to tell is somehow incompatible with language, that the degree to which it resists language is an exact measure of how closely I have come to saying something important, and that when the moment arrives for me to say the one truly important thing, assuming that it exists, I will not be able to say it," (Auster 71). By Auster including his thoughts concerning writing about his father while writing about him, it makes the piece difficult to read because it is unconventional. Auster also includes these thoughts at odd times throughout the work. Auster successfully achieves the purpose he set out to do with this piece, which was to save his father's life from vanishing along with his father. But, he never really paints a clear picture of him, due to his struggle with the work. He writes in an honest and genuine manner, but his father proved to be invisible, even to his own son. He evoked so many different thoughts and feelings out of him, that even he never truly is able to sort them out. Auster not writing a straightforward narrative shows this struggle even more and makes the piece difficult to read. This struggle also caused him to question even the possibility of writing this work. His questions are answered by the piece never fully achieving closure. Auster's work is an unusual and difficult piece, and it seems that he writes the work as a way to experiment with other ways of thinking. But, by doing so, he adds intrigue to it due to its originality. This piece also resists the more conventional method of closure, or to have a last word on Paul's father. Auster makes an attempt at this by writing of his worst regret of all, which was, "I was not given a chance to see him after he died. Ignorantly,
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Approximate Word count = 1519
Approximate Pages = 6 (250 words per page double spaced)
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