Response

Lindsey, I do hope that my dissatisfaction with the book did not influence you since you were looking forward to reading it. I very much like your interpretation of the "brother", that feels right to me.



Did you notice on p. 68 it makes mention of Kafka? I can only assume that it Franz Kafka. So glad we read The Trial first because otherwise I would not have caught it.



Over the weekend we happened to have two moths come into the house and just as described in the book, they both stayed in one place on the wall for days. I had never noticed this phenomenon prior to reading it in the book, I too will never look at moths in quite the same way again. When on my front porch, when the porch light is on, I will check out all of the different varieties and have been know to call my family out to see them too.



The life that Austerlitz lead seemed extraordinary although it is sad that he always had the feeling that something was not quite right. Such heartache and mental anguish tortured this poor man. Facing your past is something that can be troublesome and difficult, it seems that his life and well being could have moved in a different direction had he been able to seek out this information earlier about who he really was.



Do you think he used the retelling of the story through the narrarator for ease of writing? Isn't it similar to Frankenstein that way?



I'm curious to know if the author had a stack of miscellaneous photos lying around and decided to tell a story based on them or if he wrote the story and then sought out the photos. Without the photos, I don't believe the story would have veered off course as much.



I'm looking forward to our next book, I am going to download it because my library only has the books on tape, not cd. If this is too much for you to deal with right now in your life, let me know. It is truly no pressure so I hope you don't feel any.