Moon palace door Paul Auster

Titel: Moon Palace
Auteur: Paul auster
Jaar: 1989 voor het eerst gepubliceerd in 1992 – 1e druk

Samenvatting:

Moon Palace is about a man named Marco Stanley Fogg and his life till he is about 25 years old. Marco lives with his mother untill she dies in a traffic accident. When his mother dies he is still a child. After that he lives with his Uncle Victor Fogg. Uncle Victor is a 42 year old bachelor and clarinet player of whom Marco grows very fond of. He lives with his uncle for years in New York and goes to college there. Suddenly he and his uncle move from their house, why this is I learned later on in the story. He continues his school anyway and grows up happily. He goes to college and is a smart student. Then his uncle Victor dies. This has so much impact on him that he starts to change. He inherits Uncle Vic’s books and his clarinet. He keeps reading the books in spirit of his dead uncle. Meanwhile it keeps getting worse. He spends his money the wrong way and ends up very very poor. Eventually he is evicted from his house and lives on the street. For some months he keeps living on the streets and in Central Park until his best friend finds him again. He helps him to get back on his feet. Then he meets Kitty Woo with whom he falls deeply in love with. For the following part of the book their love is something that goes without saying like they are made for each other. Later on complications are showing up. Anyway, after Marco is back on his feet and has payed his friend back all his debts he finds quite unusual work as, let’s call it entertainer for an old man called Thomas Effing. Mr Effing is blind and cripple. Marco has to read him books over and over every day again. Mr. Effing is a hard-fought man very stubborn and mean. Yet he is also an interesting person to the story. One day Effing starts to tell Marco about his life. The next chapters in the book are all describing the incredible life of Thomas Effing; how he is officially dead how he was a painter is his “lost” life, how he lost his ability to walk, his real name and so on. All this for an obituary Marco has to write because the old man feels that he is dying. Also, in the story it becomes clear that Effing had a son. Since Effing is a wealthy he wants to make sure his son gets all his money and his life story. Yet the old man has not played is last card. Effing wants Marco to help him with doing something good before he dies So they come up with a plan to give away 50.000 dollars to everybody who needs it. The plan works, and on the last night when it is raining like hell, Mr. Thomas Effing induces a pneumonia on himself by staying too long in the rain. Some time later Mr Solomon Barber, the son of Thomas Effing, turns up to meet with Marco. A friendship grows between the two. But as things go bad between Kitty and Marco, Marco kind of turns to himself a bit. Then after the break-up over an abortion between Kitty and Marco Solomon and Marco decide to take a road trip. Underway they stop at the grave of Marco’s mother and then it becomes clear that Solomon is actually Marco’s father. He tells how he tried to look for him but when Uncle Victor received his letter he moved away for fear Solomon would take the boy away from him. Sobbing and crying Solomon falls into a empty grave and breaks his back. He dies several weeks later.
In the end Marco drives away from everything and is finally free from all sorrow and goes determined forward to an unknown future.

Eigen mening:

Ik vond het een geweldig boek. Mijn ouders hadden me hem aangeraden en ik was gelijk al verkocht. Auster vertelt het verhaal op zo’n sterke manier dat je door wil blijven lezen. Dat is voor mij al het teken van een goed boek. Maar ook de wonderlijke gebeurtenissen die in iemands leven kunnen plaats vinden. Het wordt allemaal zo mooi beschreven met ook de nodige humor. Hoewel het gegevene simpel lijkt word het door de mensen en de gebeurtenissen die Marco doormaakt zo spannend/leuk/interessant dat je het in een ruk uitleest. Het was makkelijk Engels goed niveau en niet al te dik.
Wat ik er bij moet zeggen is dat de samenvatting zo bekrompen is dat het bijna ergelijk is voor iemand die het boek heeft gelezen maar aangezien de samenvatting niet al te groot kon is het maar het beste dat u het zelf leest.
Ik heb het met plezier gelezen, cijfer: 9.5