The Author as Reader: Reading Auster Reading Crane

Paul Auster’s study of Stephen Crane and his work, Burning Boy, will have been released shortly before this piece appears in print and so, it serves as a critical essay cum review article to accompany the arrival of Auster’s new book. “The Writer as Reader: Reading Auster Reading Crane” focuses on the subjectivity that largely determines Auster’s portrait of Crane and shows that it is strongly reminiscent of a particular type of protagonist pivotal in Auster’s own fiction. It is associated also with the filial anguish over missing fathers that lies at the heart of Auster’s literary universe. The essay concludes that “Burning Boy is a big book, both in terms of caliber and size. Auster takes his time with Crane. No stone is left unturned, no piece left unexamined; he analyses, examines, explores, interprets and occasionally surmises. In the end, Burning Boy is less a study than a splendid accolade in the form of an important work of art.