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In Timbuktu Paul Auster tackles homelessness in America using a dog as his point-of-view character. Strange as the premise seems, it's been done before, in John Berger's King, and it actually works. Filtering the homeless experience through the relentlessly unsentimental eye of a dog, both writers avoid miring their tales in an excess of melodrama. Whereas Berger's book skips among several characters, Timbuktu remains tightly focused on just two: Mr. Bones, "a mutt of no particular worth or distinction," and his master, Willy G. Christmas, a middle-aged schizophrenic who has been on the streets since the death of his mother four years before. The novel begins with Willy and Mr. Bones in Baltimore searching for a former high school English teacher who had encouraged the teenage Willy's writerly aspirations. Now Willy is dying and anxious to find a home for both his dog and the multitude of manuscripts he has stashed in a Greyhound bus terminal. "Willy had written the last sentence he would ever write, and there were no more than a few ticks left in the clock. The words in the locker were all he had to show for himself. If the words vanished, it would be as if he had never lived."
Paul Auster is a cerebral writer, preferring to get to his reader's gut through the brain. When Willy dies, he goes out on a sea of words; as for Mr. Bones, this is a dog who can think about metaphysical issues such as the afterlife--referred to by Willy as "Timbuktu": What if no pets were allowed? It didn't seem possible, and yet Mr. Bones had lived long enough to know that anything was possible, that impossible things happened all the time. Perhaps this was one of them, and in that perhaps hung a thousand dreads and agonies, an unthinkable horror that gripped him every time he thought about it. Once Willy dies and Mr. Bones is on his own, things go from bad to worse as the now masterless dog faces a series of betrayals, rejections, and disappointments. By stepping inside a dog's skin, Auster is able to comment on human cruelties and infrequent kindnesses from a unique world view. But reader be warned: the world in Timbuktu is a bleak one, and even the occasional moments of grace are short lived. --Alix Wilber
From Library Journal
Meet discerning and sympathetic Mr. Bones, a dog who is unconditionally faithful to his troubled master, Willy G. Christmas. Auster's leading human character is once again a tormented writer from Brooklyn who blindly believes in his ideals and willingly chooses to become a vagabond (see, for instance, Leviathan, LJ 7/92). But the real hero is the four-legged creature who follows him on his impromptu journeys and leads readers through the story. Yes, he thinks and he understands, and although he cannot speak, he keenly observes and contemplates the questionable logic of human behavior. The beginning of the story is promising; the middle gets suspiciously trivial but is rescued by a clever and moving ending. This is not the kind of work Auster has been praised for, but it proves his hunger for innovation once again. Timbuktu will undoubtedly provoke mixed responses, but that is the price of originality. There is something plain yet mysteriously intricate beneath Auster's trademark smooth writing.-AMirela Roncevic, "Library Journal" Copyright 1999 Reed Business Information, Inc.
The New York Times Book Review, Jim Shepard
Ultimately ... Timbuktu is much smarter than either of its seekers of wisdom, and there are periodic flashes of gorgeous prose to prove it.
The Times, London, Hugo Barnacle
...told with deceptive lightness in persuasive, rhythmic prose.
The New York Times, Michiko Kakutani
...Auster does a nimble job of showing what the world might feel like from a dog's perspective.... [Timbuktu] emerges as Auster's most touching, most emotionally accessible book.
From Kirkus Reviews
A slender doggy tale from Auster, who lately seems more concerned with providing product (and making movies) than matching the high standards of his earlier literary work (for example, Leviathan, 1992). This newest fiction, written from a dogs point of view, smells suspiciously like a bid for domestic bestsellerdom. The sappy opening flirts with kitsch, but Austers light, transparent, fluid prose redeems it somewhat, particularly after we meet Mr. Boness master. Willy Christmas is a logomaniacal drunk who lost his mind in 1968 while a student at Columbia, where he cultivated an image as an outlaw poet and indulged heavily in mind-altering drugs. A Brooklyn public-school prodigy nurtured by his high- school English teacher (shades of Henry Roth), Willy was born William Gurevitch but changed his named after Santa Claus spoke through the TV set and convinced him to pursue an itinerant life as a do-gooder. Wandering across the country with Mr. Bones, Willy veers between being a bedraggled, demented pain in the ass and, when hes in his right mind, acting as Santas saintly helper. He has also scribbled in 74 notebooks over the last 23 years and, fearing the end, takes Mr. Bones with him to Baltimore in hopes of handing dog and notebooks over to his long-lost teacher. Austers portrait of this latter-day Joe Gould takes a sharp turn into mush with Willys demise. Mr. Bones spends a season with a lonely Chinese boy, then finds a loving home (complete with pretty Mom and adorable kids) in suburban Virginia, where he ends his days dreaming of Timbuktuhis notion of an afterlife. Loyal Auster readers may feel betrayed by this slim novel, which contains little that would put off readers of shlock in the Nicholas Sparks/Robert James Waller vein. The wordplay is embarrassingly commonplace (dog/God, Santa/Satan), and the dog jokes are TV-quality. Shockingly bad, especially for someone of Austers stature. (First printing of 60,000) -- Copyright ©1999, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved.
Review
"Lovely . . . [Paul Auster] is one of our most inventive and least predictable authors."—Jonathan Yardley, The Washington Post Book World
"A novel of haunted love whose themes loop around one another like glowing coils, connecting gracefully beneath Auster's clear prose, eliciting the fanciful and the tragic."—Oscar Villalon, The San Francisco Chronicle
"After reading Timbuktu, we ramble through our world with reawakened senses and newly alert minds. This is the Auster magic."—Paul Kafka, Boston Globe
"Resonant and tender."—Newsweek
"Enchanting . . . provocative . . . The mind of Mr. Bones moves with mesmirizing fluidity."—Peter Rock, Philadelphia Inquirer
"Affecting . . . a moving story, wonderfully told."—Arizona Republic
"[Timbuktu is] held aloft with audacity and brilliant, idosyncratic language . . . Its risk-taking and brazen energy suggest a writer on the verge of an even more rewarding leap into the air of his own uncharted territory."—Philip Graham, Chicago Tribune
"A beautiful memory piece . . . the dark but tender memoir of a man and his canine sidekick unfolded itself as a tragicomic story of a modern Don Quixote de la Brooklyn."—Dana Coffield, Rocky Mountain News
"A modern parable that invites readers to probe below its deceptively simple surface for deeper truths . . . Auster demonstrates a well-honed talent for illuminating secluded facets of the soul."—Michael Hopkins, Milwaukee Journal Sentinel
Review
"Lovely . . . [Paul Auster] is one of our most inventive and least predictable authors."—Jonathan Yardley, The Washington Post Book World
"A novel of haunted love whose themes loop around one another like glowing coils, connecting gracefully beneath Auster's clear prose, eliciting the fanciful and the tragic."—Oscar Villalon, The San Francisco Chronicle
"After reading Timbuktu, we ramble through our world with reawakened senses and newly alert minds. This is the Auster magic."—Paul Kafka, Boston Globe
"Resonant and tender."—Newsweek
"Enchanting . . . provocative . . . The mind of Mr. Bones moves with mesmirizing fluidity."—Peter Rock, Philadelphia Inquirer
"Affecting . . . a moving story, wonderfully told."—Arizona Republic
"[Timbuktu is] held aloft with audacity and brilliant, idosyncratic language . . . Its risk-taking and brazen energy suggest a writer on the verge of an even more rewarding leap into the air of his own uncharted territory."—Philip Graham, Chicago Tribune
"A beautiful memory piece . . . the dark but tender memoir of a man and his canine sidekick unfolded itself as a tragicomic story of a modern Don Quixote de la Brooklyn."—Dana Coffield, Rocky Mountain News
"A modern parable that invites readers to probe below its deceptively simple surface for deeper truths . . . Auster demonstrates a well-honed talent for illuminating secluded facets of the soul."—Michael Hopkins, Milwaukee Journal Sentinel
Book Description
Mr. Bones, the canine hero of Paul Auster's astonishing new book, is the sidekick and confidant of Willy G. Christmas, a brilliant and troubled homeless man from Brooklyn. As Willy's body slowly expires, he sets off with Mr. Bones for Baltimore in search of his high school English teacher and a new home for his companion. Mr. Bones is our witness during their journey, and out of his thoughts, Paul Auster has spun one of the richest, most compelling tales in American fiction.
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