Tuesday, January 25, 2011

Initial Reaction to Sunset Park

To say I was disappointed by the ending of Sunset Park is to put it mildly. I don't necessarily need a happy ending, however, after I have invested my time and energy into a book, I at least want to feel satisfied once I put it down. The ending of Sunset Park, however, is very abrupt and does not really seem to fit with the rest of the story. I felt slightly betrayed by the end of the story. Although a showdown with the police is a logical conclusion for the story or at least a logical event to take place since they were squatting illegally, I feel as though Auster lulls his reader into a false sense of security with the positive upturn in all the character's lives and then completely crushes that trust.

This might have been Auster's intention. It's possible that he meant for the journey of the readers to parallel the journey of the characters in that the characters are not really living in reality their entire stay at Sunset Park. They have managed to find a respite from the reality of their lives, however, reality must eventually intrude. Auster could also be trying to make a point about the housing crisis. That so many people were deceived by the notion that they could buy expensive homes that in reality they could not afford and were living in an economic bubble that did not reflect the actual economic circumstances, and therefore, this bubble eventually burst, much like the bubble of the characters' and the reader's security.

Needless to say, whatever Auster's intentions, the book ultimately fell flat with me. There seems to me an abrupt change in the tenor of the book starting page 266 with Morris' narrative when he and Miles are reunited. I felt as though the entire book was building up to the point where Miles would reunite with his family and yet this supposedly joyful reunion seems very downplayed and is given very little attention. There is a direct juxtaposition between Miles reunion with his mother and that with his father. I believe that a significant difference is that the scene with his mother is told in the present tense, the reader is living the moment along with Miles and Mary-Lee. However, the father and son's reunion is told in the past tense. As though it is almost an afterthought and doesn't merit a present tense description. Morris also seems very detached from his telling of their reunion. This could be Auster's way as Morris says, of showing how, "the imagination is a powerful weapon, and the imagined reunions that played out in your head.... were bound to be richer, fuller, and more emotionally satisfying than the real thing." Possibly Auster feels that since he has emphasized this reunion so much, the return of the prodigal son, that the reader will have already imagined a dozen different scenarios that he cannot surpass so he decides to instead focus on the reunion the reader will have given less thought to, that of mother and son. However, I believe this is a mistake since it downplays the significance of Miles reuniting with his family.

Overall I feel as though the ending just sends a very negative message and that Auster is trying to pull a deeper meaning out of the ending than the story merits. Over the course of the book, it seems as though Auster himself gets caught up in the lives of his characters and that at the end as almost an afterthought, remembers that he's supposed to be writing a book that reflects the issues of the housing crisis and therefore, proceeds to "dispossess" every one of his characters.

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