Moon Palace

Read from Friday, April 8th to Thursday, April 14th.

Moon Palace, by Paul Auster.  This book caught my attention solely based on it's cover art.  It was a very interesting story, told in a unique way.  It is the story of three generations of a family that are united purely by chance, and the story is not in sequential order.  I will do my best to sum up the complicated plot.

Marco Stanley Fogg is the narrator and main protagonist.  Born shortly after WWII, his mother is killed by a bus when he is five, and he has never known his father, so he is raised by his Uncle Victor.  He is an aspiring musician, and when M.S. is old enough to go to college, Victor takes off on tour, and he gives M.S. his collection of 1492 books, which M.S. dutifully reads through.  M.S. is an introvert for the most part.  He survives on his mother's settlement money, and this gets him through most of college at Columbia in NYC in the 1960's.  However, Victor dies on the road, and M.S. is devastated, and soon his money starts running out.  M.S. refuses to do anything about it though, he doesn't want to get a job.  The reasoning for this is complicated, but M.S. wants to ask for no help, and he hides his poverty from his college friends.  He rations everything, and sells the books to prolong things, but eventually he is forced out of the apartment and he lives like a hobo in Central Park.  He gets hit with a flu after a storm, and he almost dies in a bush before being rescued by his friend Zimmer and a girl named Kitty that M.S. met recently.

Zimmer nurses him back to health, and M.S. and Kitty start a torrid love affair.  Finally M.S. gets a job working for a nasty old blind rich man named Effing.  He reads to him and takes him for walks outside, and Effing is strange.  He teaches M.S. to describe everything he sees in absolute detail, and to leave nothing out.  Eventually they start reading obituaries, and Effing reveals that he will die soon, and he wants to tell M.S. his whole life story.  Effing was originally a painter named Julian Barber.  He married after WWI, but was dissatisfied with life on the East Coast, so he decided to travel west to see the country and paint out there.  However, the guide he hired in Utah practically led him off a cliff, and his friend died, and Julian/Effing was left all alone.  He almost died, but he found a furnished cave that's previous owner had been murdered in.  Effing takes on that hermits identity and stays there for a year.  Eventually the gang of robbers that use the cave as a hideout come back, and Effing kills all three.  He takes the money they had stolen and uses it to start a fortune in California and in Europe, before settling in NYC. 

M.S. helps write the obituary, and Effing reveals that he probably has a long lost son named Solomon Barber with his original wife.  He makes M.S. promise that he will search for this man, since he is leaving his entire fortune to him.  Effing dies on the exact day that he predicted, but not before giving out $20,000 in fifties to random people on the street.  He hoped that would atone for the money he stole after the murders.  M.S. meets Solomon, who is a heavyset professor from the Midwest.  His career is in the tank because decades ago he got caught sleeping with a student.  It is revealed to the reader and Solomon, that that student turned out to be M.S.'s mother.  Solomon says that he knew Marco's mother, but he doesn't reveal that he is his long-lost father.  Solomon moves to NYC with his new inheritance, and they become good friends.  However, Kitty becomes pregnant, and she wants an abortion, but M.S. won't allow it.  She gets it, and they break up, refusing to talk to one another. 

M.S. is in a funk, and Solomon suggests they travel out West to search for Effing's cave.  However, they only make it to Chicago, where they stop to grieve at the grave of Uncle Victor and M.S.'s mother.  When Solomon starts blubbering over the grave, Marco realizes the truth.  He freaks out and starts shouting at Solomon, and Solomon runs away and trips over an open grave and falls in, breaking his back.  He is in the hospital for a long time, and they are able to reconcile from the fight, but eventually Solomon dies.  M.S. gets the inheritance, and tries to get Kitty back, but she won't take him.  The only thing left for him to do is continue West.  He tries searching for the cave for a long time, but he finds out it is now underneath a man-made lake.  Worst of all, his car and all his money are stolen.  However, Marco recovers and continues walking West, all the way to California, all the way to the Pacific, where he resolves to start his new life. 

It is a book about searching for your identity that is mixed up with American expansion and rebellion.  The cover description of the plot says it is an adventure out West, and I didn't realize that Effing's story was that adventure.  Him being M.S.'s grandfather is not revealed until after his death.  The plot is twisted, and the near death of M.S. in the beginning seems to be quickly forgotten as he takes the job at Effing's.  It is a strange set of adventures that make up the lives of these three generations.  However, the writing is poetic and beautiful.  Auster focuses on the moon as a symbol guiding Marco through life.  It is a symbol that is found in the paintings, Chinese restaurants, fortune cookies, and the final image looking out on the Pacific.  Though strange, the book was compelling, and although the ending left me hanging, I felt it was appropriate.  Marco knew his family history, and he finally is able to chart his own path.  His name is interesting as well: Marco for Marco Polo, Stanley for Stanley Livingston, and Fogg for Phileas Fogg of Around the World in 80 Days.  They are all explorers, searching for something, just like M.S.  Four out of five stars.