GatesyRead

  Paul Auster writes about chance in most of his novels, from a chance phone call in ‘City of Glass’ ( New York Trilogy ) to writing four versions of the same life, with outcomes dictated by an incident or its absence in 4321 . The Music of Chance has such elements: Nashe begins a year of driving across America on a whim, after missing a ramp on the freeway, Nashe heads in the opposite direction to where he had planned to go. Committed now to the wrong road, he understood ‘that there was no difference, that both ramps were finally the same’ (p. 5). Similarly, when Nashe picks up a beaten-up young hitchhiker, Jack Pozzi, his life changes, ‘for better or worse’ in that moment (p. 19). For the record, decidedly for the worse. The strange, the surreal, also characterise many Auster novels. In Mr Vertigo , Walt undergoes bizare and difficult trainings (such as being buried alive) before learning to levitate, earning a living a circus by making the impossible appear to be simply a tri...