WHO AM I? WHO ARE WE?

Abstract

The telling of a story is at the core of many of Paul Auster's novels yet, in the recent years, the author has shifted his attention from the "what" to the "who" of his narratives. As such, the present paper analyses the telling of the Other within Auster's latest novel 4321 through the lenses of Americana.

Headnote

Abstract: The telling of a story is at the core of many of Paul Auster's novels yet, in the recent years, the author has shifted his attention from the "what" to the "who" of his narratives. As such, the present paper analyses the telling of the Other within Auster's latest novel 4321 through the lenses of Americana.

Keywords: Americana, the Other, possibility, storytelling

1. Introduction

4321 is a countdown of sorts, a tour de force and a true frenzy that seems to encompass a lifetime oeuvre resembling a desperate call to "speak now before it is too late" (Auster 2012: 1). More intimate, colorful and vivid than any of his previous narratives, the writing under scrutiny takes upon itself the most uncomfortable of discussions, namely the multiple selves within an America that grows crazier by the day. Conscious that the everyman is the closest to the reader, the author employs polyphony and uchronia to bring to life a very subjective and yet mesmerizingly realistic depiction of American madness that brakes his character's future into four possible existences, which cyclically come together to underline "life's excessive possibilities" (Bataille 1957: 86). A solid 866-page experiment in prose, 4321 reminds us that fiction is supposed to be devoid of logic, just as reality is. With long Proustian lines that give away an almost stream of consciousness style, stressing the burden of a name that befalls Auster's main character - Ferguson, the deceptive realism imbedded in the narratives comes to inform us of inevitable blasts from the past. While "leading us on a walk down Memory Lane" (Auster 2017: 799), the author humorously reminds us of the plurality of Is that follows a never coincidental name, and points out what America(n) means in the eyes of various generations.

The beginning of the novel is another story which starts in the good old days, way back when America was welcoming immigrants from Europe with open arms. As usually, it all begins with the name and a Jew.

According to family legend, Ferguson's grandfather departed on foot from his native city of Minsk with 100 rubles sewn into the lining of his jacket, traveled west to Hamburg through Warsaw and Berlin and then booked passage on a ship called the Empress of China. While waiting to be interviewed by an immigration official at Ellis Island, he struck up a conversation with a fellow Russian Jew. The man said to him, forget the name Reznikoff. It won't do you any good here. You need an American name for your new life in America - something with a good American ring to it. Since English was still an alien tongue to Isaac Reznikoff in 1900, he asked his older, more experienced compatriot for a suggestion. Tell them you're Rockefeller, the man said. You can't go wrong with that.

An hour passed, then another hour. And by the time the 19-year-old Reznikoff sat down to be questioned by the immigration official, he had forgotten the name the man had told him to give. Your name? - the official asked. Slapping his head in frustration, the weary immigrant blurted out in Yiddish, ikh hobn fargesn (ph) - I've forgotten. And so it was that Isaac Reznikoff began his new life in America as Ichabod Ferguson. (Auster 2017:1)

So, 4321 is a novel centered around Archie Ferguson's possible lives, and becomes thus, a kind of fractured mirror that reflects different versions of Paul Auster. With all the usual Austerian ingredients, the novel focuses on the differences in these four possible lives of a man, which include everything from diligence at school to sexual orientation.

The paper examines Auster's four Fergusons, by discussing aspects which are related to the perception of the Other, viewed through the lenses of what is termed as Americana.

2.The beginning

In its initial form, Ferguson, the novel had to be re-named after the Ferguson Missouri incident happened, but it still preserved most of its original silver lining, i.e. the Other struggling to find himself in the American ongoing madness. Ferguson Missouri represented a wake-up call on all those thinking that issues of racism have become a question of the past. On August 9th, 2014, Michael Brown, an unarmed young Afro-American boy was shot to death by a white police officer. This set off a wave of protests that lasted for months and brought into attention an ongoing civil right crisis. Already built on the assumption that the Other is a character prone to suffering and misfortune, Auster's story hit close to home, and the author decided to depict various perspectives on one's life. Moreover, by splitting one character into four possible Others, Auster underlines todays' paradox of multiple selves: "One of the odd things about being himself ...was that there seemed to be several of him, that he wasn't just one person, but a collection of contradictory selves, and each time he was with a different person, he himself was different as well" (Auster 2017: 241), meaning that people build their selves according to the context they live in.

As a result, the novel can be read in numerous ways - i.e. either each story separately, each first chapter, and so on, or as a continuous narrative that switches between timelines and characters of various ages; yet, all in all, 4321 is a book about the first 20 years of one's life, with all their possibilities. In this sense, it can be interpreted as a book of youth, of the 1000 things done for the first time, opposing, consequently, Auster's previous pieces of autobiography (Winter Journal - 2012 and Report from the Interior - 2013). All the stories have a common start, namely the story of Ferguson's grandfather, the Jewish immigrant, who came to the promised land in search of a better life as well as of himself. He is the only Ferguson who does not have any predecessor, the one who foreshadows the others, and the only one who reminds us of the European man through his passion for knowledge and work.

After the short amusing introduction to the Fergusons and their beginnings in America, the narrative splits and 4321 becomes a novel centered on Archie Ferguson the third's possible lives at various times in American history. These stories span and superpose, here and there, Auster's own life as a child missing his father, as a teenager discovering the reality of America, or as a young writer trying his hand at journalism and whatnot. With four diverse universes across seven different chapters, these microcosms of Auster's abound in references to his wellknown themes, oeuvre, and life, making 4321 a literary exercise for both the writer and the readers. This structure play points out that Auster has switched from 'showing, not telling' to 'telling, telling, telling'. With all the usual Austerian ingredients, the novel presents the changes in Archie Ferguson's persona, which include everything - from how it feels to communicate through text to sexual awareness. Additionally, with the 'What if?' at the core of every narrative, the novel also discusses some political and social events between the 1950s ad the 1960s, highlighting the idea that the future is always a fiction, and when young, people never look back on the past, but rather towards what awaits them. Yet, the reality in which the novel was created proves that the past is a defining element for any individual. The novel is, in this sense, quite political, stressing the need to become aware of the cascading effect that decision making involves at all levels of life. Auster skillfully portrays American "laisser-faire" and its results: protests, frustration, political disarray, racism, etc. The 'What if?' of his narratives not only suggests a difference between what there is and what might be, but also that there could be something else that the Other could help with to change the prospect of the future. The idea that the Other is always the negative character has become outdated. Therefore, Auster questions whether the Other is not actually a solution and should be thus accepted.

The lines of this organic and natural novel have a sensation of propulsion and transform its reading into the experience of the Other on the page. With the unexpected always on the verge of happening, it underlines the idea that absolute strangers can meet in deep intimacy without actually ever crossing paths in real life; the only thing they need is a common cause. Thus, all the four Fergusons are the Other, and in telling the Other, i.e. in telling the four possible futures, Auster brings up current urgent issues, such as normalization of human life, patterns of behaviour, human development, social consciousness and America as an antiintellectual country. Somehow all four characters are damaged people exploring what it feels like to live in a racially, sexually and politically maddening America, with the hope that: "Everything always happens for the best - in this, the best of all possible worlds" (Auster 2017: 279).

3.The Fergusons

Auster's four Fergusons are a rare delight. They are all parts of dramas, disembodied men who mix private and public selves, because they cannot settle for just one life, for just one path. Their four stories are about human experience and urge the reader to go with the flow and, if and when s/he stops, there is a feeling of loss and forgetfulness that will overwhelm him/her. The novel is about people not allowing themselves to be as they really are. This is mostly the result of stereotyping and misconception on the majority's part. Nevertheless, through his four characters, Auster proves that anyone can and will feel alienated at some point in life, especially during one's years of self-discovery, i.e. the first twenty years of one's life. Accordingly, the text has many disjunctions, brakes and repetitions in names and relationships, which take the reader aback. Nonetheless, they exist because the main purpose of all the Fergusons is to "become the hero of his own life" (Auster 2017: 348) Hence, the different roads they pursue.

The first Ferguson is a handicapped journalist finding his way through the harsh 60s', trying to survive the anti-war, anti-racism protests and not feeling "ashamed of being different". His life is marked by identity creation, by a vivid American history and collective memory. As a journalist he is the only one who wants to depict reality and not the phantasm of a 'what if. Unfortunately, his personal life takes the best of him and he loses sight of reality. Too reflexive, redundant in break-through ideas and eager to be the one to singlehandedly change the world, Ferguson number one loses himself in an existential crisis with no perspective in sight, ending: "from one end of the earth to the other, the gods were silent" (Auster 2017: 228).

Ferguson number two has a short life; a lover of literature, with a body marked by numerous accidents, and a mind that penetrates even the most profound political issues, he unfortunately dies young in a summer camp, during a storm. Of the four Fergusons, he would have been the perfect one; the one who could have succeeded in life, who would have done something important and would have changed the world. He is the pure individual, the idealist, and the boy who becomes a man at an intellectual level. Maybe this is the reason why Auster kills him so early in the novel; a reasonable person would never make for a good character in a story of 'what ifs?'.

The third Ferguson is marked by his father's death in a fire, and loses faith in God. He is the queer character who struggles to fit into a world that does not accept him for what he is, yet praises him for what he pretends to be. This peculiarity makes him and his story the most realistic of the four. He leads a fearful double life. He enjoys pondering on possibility and the 'what if is his credo. Nonetheless, he becomes a successful writer, lives in Paris, yet dies in a stupid car accident, while promoting his only book in London. All three stories up to now would suggest that Auster does not see another end for his characters apart from death.

And last but not least, Ferguson the fourth is, in my opinion, the most normal of all, if American normality could be defined. He is a rich boy who rejects his legacy, due to a fall out with his father. He resembles the original Ferguson the most, in terms of life expectations and purpose. He is an impotent man, who leaves everything behind and moves to Europe to become a writer. Here, he learns the joke about Isaac Reznikoff and writes a novel about four possible Fergusons.

The four stories are far from Ricoeur's idea of sameness, so often employed by Auster. Sameness (měmetée) suggested that whatever we do, we return to the Other, as well as that identity is unique, yet recurrent. The Other is here a reflection and the result of one's decisions. Each version of Ferguson is part of the same individual and can, at any time, survive the odds, should the context in which he develops be auspicious. By means of Ferguson's four facets, Auster makes the reader see the world through the eyes of the Other and, more to the point, gives him the opportunity to choose whether to be silenced by fear, or face the person he might become once the fear is overpowered. That is maybe why, once you stop reading Auster's story, you cannot remember much, apart from the feeling of missing up on something.

The structure of the novel does not help too much in making sense of this feeling either. Although the book is divided into numbered sections, they are uneven due to the disproportioned stories of the four Fergusons. Some parts of the narratives dwell more on the historical context of the action, while others focus on character building. In this sense, the novel is both expansionist and narrow, but it all boils down to the journey of its characters. As such, 4321 points out that there is no identity without narrative and, as we discover at the end of the novel, everything, even the 'what if, encompasses a story about the unseen, misinterpreted, unwanted and yet always present Other.

4.Conclusion

By means of Auster's four Fergusons, 4321 brings to light the abnormalities of today's America, while echoing the postmodern decentered identity crisis. The Other is no longer a reference point or a mirror towards which to glance whenever at a loss, but rather a solution to the unpredictable future. The novel plays with the disappearance of the boundaries of self and time. From the patchy lives of the characters to the rough political and historical moments they have to go through, the story Auster creates catches momentum. 4321 turns to be a novel of all times and all ages. It makes sense for all those who question reality's cyclicality. In a sense, the novel is a nostalgic countdown of all the versions of Auster's, never to see light. It is a wide-awake man's dream about bridging the gap between two realities in which the I's and the Other collide only to discover they need each other to overpass difficulties. Inhabiting the Others' mind has long been one of Auster's main writing themes, after all. Auster's phantoms are, yet again, resurrected and reshaped to fit the patterns of sameness and otherness, so that, when read, 4321 becomes an immersion into Auster's cosmos, an invitation to cross into the Other's solitude. Here, one becomes two, two becomes three, and you never know how many Others come into existence. Hence the main novelty of this oeuvre. Never before were readers able to go so far into Auster's narrative as to feel the Other's silence at its core. Auster's story attracts through its debate on human condition. No one knows oneself, until one is faced with becoming the Other. Hence, the latter's silence is mesmerizingly loud, bringing together generations of I's and Others, because that "is how reality works. Nobody's life goes smoothly" (Kathimerini 2018). So, failure, triumphs and mishaps are explored to help the writer give voice to chance throughout this novel. In the end, the joke is on the reader. Finally, we get the full circle of the story. 4321 - a book born out of a joke about names - brings out the yearning for possibility in each of us.

Sidebar

Mihaela-Elisabeta Popuţa is a graduate of the West University of Timişoara and holds a Ph.D. in American literature from the same university. Her main area of interest is the 20th-21st century American literature and culture. For the past ten years, she has been teaching English and French language, literature and civilization at the French Institute in Timişoara, the West University of Timişoara, the Polytechnic University of Timişoara as well as the University of Medicine and Pharmacy of Timişoara. She has also been actively engaged in research work that varies from participations in international conferences to Erasmus scholarships.

E-mail address: [email protected]

References

References

Auster, Paul. 2017. 4321. London: Faber & Faber.

Auster, Paul. 2012. Winter Journal. London: Faber & Faber.

Auster, Paul. 2013. Report from the Interior. London: Faber & Faber.

Bataille, George. 1957. Le Bleu du Ciel. Paris: Jean-Jacques Pauvert.

I Kathimerini. 2018 May 1957.

[Online]. Available: http://www.ekathimerini.com/230221/article/ekathimerini/life/ paul-auster-to-kathimerini-time-is-running-out-but-im-happy. [Accessed 2020, January 5].

Ricoeur, Paul. 1992. Oneself as Another. Trans. Kathleen Blamey. Chicago and London: University of Chicago Press.