4 3 2 1 by Paul Auster
4 3 2 1 by Paul Auster
My rating: 5 of 5 stars
This book's central concept felt a bit similar to a book I read a few years ago, "The Versions of Us", in that it tells four versions of the main story. The whole premise seemed to be how seemingly random events can alter the course of a person's entire life. The concept can almost be summed up by one line from early in the book: "But it does matter, Archie. Everything matters."
It opened with a long chapter, charting how the main character, Archie Ferguson's parents came to meet; after that, the book would "flash sideways" at the end of each chapter, telling a different version of events.
So, the four different timelines were influenced by what happened in the book's first chapter. The first timeline had the store where Ferguson's father worked being robbed by his brother, in the second version the store burned down, in the third version, it also burned down, but it was clarified as an insurance scam, and his father died in the blaze, then in the fourth version the family closed the store and moved away from the area.
From this point, the four timelines told very different stories, with only a few recurrent themes, such as Ferguson's on-off relationships with a character called Amy, and his interest in writing. Because following multiple timelines was a bit of a challenge, I did have to keep notes throughout, and I did spot a few things that I would have missed, such as Ferguson's friend Howard appearing at different points in more than one of the separate timelines.
Each section of the book was divided into four chapters, each of them chronicling the story of one version of Ferguson during the same time period, and making reference to the real-life historic events that would have been happening at the same time, including racial tensions and the Vietnam war. Some chapters were completely blank, with just a chapter heading and no content; you'll realise why when you read the book.
This book's narrative style was a bit unconventional because there were very few conversations, with the book feeling almost like a rollercoaster ride through the different lives of its main character, preferring to describe events than go into detail; I imagine that if the book had gone into more detail though, it would have ended up being unbearably long (it is over 800 pages as it is).
This book was shortlisted for the Man Booker Prize in 2017 (it lost to George Saunders' "Lincoln in the Bardo" and I could see why; I found this to be an absolutely epic read, and despite the fact that it felt long-winded at times, I found the narrative style engaging and found myself identifying with Ferguson very quickly. I liked how the tone occasionally switched between being very dramatic, and occasionally tragic, to being very funny in places. The reason for having four timelines was explained at the end, and in a way that I probably should have seen coming.
Definitely a recommended book.
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