Something Perfect

Endings, similar to New Year’s Eve and Star Wars sequels, are built to disappoint. Nevertheless, ever hopeful, I try to find a quiet, private place to relish the final pages of a novel I’ve enjoyed. There’s always the chance that I will read those last lines and feel satisfied and complete. More often I feel cheated, befuddled, or irritated.

Paul Auster faked me out twice within the last 50 pages of The Brooklyn Follies. Nathan Glass’s easygoing chronicle gained momentum soon after I last wrote. What had been a leisurely stroll through a rueful and pleasant emotional landscape went Disney on me— lots of interesting and potentially ugly complications worked out too neatly. Four pages before the end, Auster quietly unties the big red bow he’s wrapped the book up in. Nathan has an epiphany:

“I am no one…. Eventually, we would all die, and when our bodies were carried off and buried in the ground, only our friends and families would know we were gone…. Most lives vanish. A person dies, and little by little all traces of that life disappear.”

Nathan comes up with an idea to celebrate those unknown dead in a small but meaningful way—by creating biographies of them written from impressions and stories from their friends and families. He ends the penultimate chapter: “One should never underestimate the power of books.”

If Auster had ended there, with Nathan’s resolution as he steps out on to the avenue, I believe we would have landed in the right place. But three sentences from the conclusion Nathan tells us it is September 11, 2001, forty-six minutes before the first plane crashes. I groan aloud and ask, “Why? Why did you have to do that?” and perhaps, Paul Auster or any novelist would respond with, “What do you want from me?” And I don’t know what I’d answer. Something right. Something perfect. Something that may not always be possible.