The Book of Illusions by Paul Auster Page B

visual terms. The whole experience was like a hallucination.
    And what about the living, David? Do you spend much time with them?
    As little as possible.
    That’s what I thought you’d say.
    I had a conversation in Washington last year with a man named Singh. Dr. J. M. Singh. An excellent person, and I enjoyed the time I spent with him. He did me a great service.
    Are you seeing a doctor now?
    Of course not. This chat we’re having now is the longest talk I’ve had with anyone since then.
    You should have called me when you were in New York.
    I couldn’t.
    You’re not even forty, David. Life isn’t over, you know.
    Actually, I turn forty next month. There’s going to be a big bash at Madison Square Garden on the fifteenth, and I hope you and Barbara will be able to come. I’m surprised you haven’t received your invitation yet.
    Everyone’s worried about you, that’s all. I don’t want to pry, but when someone you care about behaves like this, it’s hard just to stand by and watch. I wish you’d give me a chance to help.
    You have helped. You’ve offered me a new job, and I’m grateful to you.
    That’s work. I’m talking about life.
    Is there a difference?
    You’re a stubborn son-of-a-bitch, aren’t you?
    Tell me something about Dexter Feinbaum. The man’s my benefactor, after all, and I don’t even know the first thing about him.
    You’re not going to talk about this, are you?
    As our old friend in the dead-letter office used to say: I would prefer not to.
    No one can live without other people, David. It’s just not possible.
    Maybe not. But no one’s ever been me before. Maybe I’m the first one.
    . . .
    F rom the introduction to Memoirs of a Dead Man (Paris, April 14, 1846; revised July 28):
    As it is impossible for me to foresee the moment of my death, and as at my age the days granted to men are only days of grace, or rather of suffering, I feel compelled to offer a few words of explanation .
    On September fourth, I will be seventy-eight years old. It is full time for me to leave a world which is fast leaving me, and which I shall not regret ….
    Sad necessity, which has forever held its foot against my throat, has forced me to sell my Memoirs. No one can imagine what I have suffered in being obliged to pawn my tomb, but I owed this last sacrifice to my solemn promises and the consistency of my conduct…. My plan was to bequeath them to Madame Chateaubriand. She would have sent them out into the world or suppressed them, as she saw fit. Now more than ever, I believe the latter solution would have been preferable ….
    These Memoirs have been composed at different times and in different countries. For that reason, it has been necessary for me to add prologues that describe the places which were before my eyes and the feelings which were in my heart when the thread of my narrative was resumed. The changing forms of my life are thus intermingled with one another. It has sometimes happened to me in my moments of prosperity to have to speak of my days of hardship; and in my times of tribulation to retrace the periods of my happiness. My youth entering into my old age, the gravity of my later years tingeing and saddening the years of my innocence, the rays of my sun crossing and blending together from the moment of its rising to the moment of its setting, have produced in my stories a kind of confusion—or, if you will, a kind   of mysterious unity. My cradle recalls something of my tomb, my tomb something of my cradle; my sufferings become pleasures, my pleasures sufferings; and, now that I have completed the perusal of these Memoirs, I am no longer certain if they are the product of a youthful mind or a head gray with age .
    I cannot know if this mixture will be pleasing or displeasing to the reader. There is nothing I can do to remedy it. It is the result of my changing fortunes, the inconsistency of my lot. Its storms have often left me with no table to write on but the rock on which I have