Opening Brooklyn follies

Etude1  

Introduction

This first extract consist of the opening pages of Paul Auster's novel and introduce the narrator. In this introductory passage the narrator gives us details about his past life , his scattered family and the reason why after a long time he decided to come back and live in Brooklyn.

Firstly, we will focus on the narrator's situation as the story begins, then we will discuss about his relationship with his family .

I Nathan's feeling and situation

- First we can see that the novel began with a hard sentence « I was looking for a quiet place to die ».

After that the reader wants to know more about this sad man who's going to die, and we understand that he is probably sick.

• We learn that the narrator's is divorced,

• and he has a married-daughter , Rachel .

• He was working for many years for the Mid-Atlantic Accident and Life,

• but now he's jobless.

• He is 59 years old like we read l- « i was almost sixty years old »

• Like we understand in the first sentence of the book , the narrator was sick , he had a cancer , but it was in remission .

Then, we see l- that he compare himself to a dog l- : « crawling home like some wounded dog » and then l- that he say the more important for him is : « a silent end to my sad and ridiculous life » , he also say l- : « I explained that i was probably going to be dead before the years was out, and i didn't give a flying fuck about projects » ;

thoses two sentences shows that he has a really bad opinion of himself , but it also shows that he is bitter and pessimistic about the life and the futur.

We can see an anaphora of « I » in the whole extract , he's talking about himself and he appears narcisstic, we also see it l- « i possess all those qualities and more ». In spite of that Nathan is honest he says «  yes, i suppose there is something nasty about me at times » we can say that he recognize his faults ( exemple for the marriage ).

In contrast (en opposition) of his pessimistic vision of his end life we see that his new appartment is «  just half a block from Prospect Park » , this Prospect let us think for hope , just like chance was near him and waiting for him .

After all we can say that the narrator is introduce like a grumpy(grincheux) person, he don't believe in the future like it is said l- « i didn't know how much time i had left. » but he's going to try that's what he said at the end, telling «  i had to get off my ass and do something ». The author introduce his narrator and main characters like a bad person who want to do it better in the futur, as a result ( de ce fait ) by reading , the reader can only be pleasantly surprised with the change and become attached to the main character. In the last paragraphe we can see again a anaphora of «  the loss » who means that he's desperate of his situation.

He has remorse about his past life , and his present life is annoying just like a punishment .

II His relationship's with his family

a) his relationship with Rachel(bad)

To begin we can say that Nathan has a daughter who's called Rachel , she is 29 ans (l- « my only child has inhabited this earth for twenty-nine years... ») and she's just married (l- « my married daughter »). She has a doctorate in biochemistry from the university of Chicago and works as a researcher for a drug company Princeton. (l- )

After only a week in Brooklyn , she comes from New Jersey to pay him a visit , it prouves that she really loves him .

First we can see that Nathan is proud of his daughter , because he is making praise of her, by telling what she's doing for life . Nathan is not a person who complimented people but we can see that he say l- «  Rachel is not a stupid person » just like Rachel is really clever.

But in opposition we can see that he say of her that «  not once (she) has come up with an original remark »

We can see that Rachel wants to help her father l- «  she said that i needed to get involved in something, to invent a project for myself. »

But Nathan seems selfish(egoiste) he says that he's probably going to dead and he don't care about Rachel's feelings . We see that their relationship always been like that , like it is says l- « To hear Rachel i wasn't much in the parent department either . » After this quarrels ( dispute) Rachel will not speak with her dad after a long time , hurting by her father's comment .l- «  for a moment it looked as if Rachel was about to cry but she blinked back the tears and called me a cruel and selfish person »

b)his relationship with Edith (bad)

Secondly we learn that Nathan have a ex-wife , so he's divorced, he was married for 33 years old. In the beginning he talk a lot of his ex-wife , Edith (50years old) . He start by talking about his house in bronxville who is in sale .

Then he says that his ex-wife and his daughter are alike . He loves her but in his own way like he says l- « I wouldn't want to contradict her memories, but the truth is that i cared for them both in my own way »We can see that he don't speak about the love with Edith he says «  i loved having sex with Edith » After this chapter we can see a conversation between Edith and Nathan who shows that their relationship are really electric.

c) his vision about family and marriage

He says that the family can be a poison for all concerned, so Nathan wasn't make to get married and have a child. Nathan had been unfaithful to Edith and thats why after 33 years of marriage she decided to divorce , it wasn't Nathan's idea , indeed(en effet) he was going to stay till the end married with Edith like he says in spite of the fact that ( malgrès que) he wasn't a perfect husband.

Then we can say that in the beginning of the story his relationship with his family is really bad.

To conclude we can say that in the beginning of the story everything seems to be against to Nathan.

His relationship with his ex-wife , now after the quarrels with his daughters , he looks alone , and it appears just like a new start in his life , with no one , he come back where he began , in Brooklyn .

In the beginning of the text the author show us a selfish,a narcisstic and bitter , but a honest narrator , who's going to change.

People change people and this is what we gonna see afterwards( par la suite) .