A collection of anecdotes - Rated 
Marginally better than his last, but this colection of bits and pieces, and a semi-novel that he appears to have got bored with, just add to the impression that Paul Auster has really lost his way, or can't be bothered any more, which is a real shame.
The set up is interesting. The narrator is a 70 year old who is spinning stories to himself at night because he can't sleep. One of these stories concerns an alternative America where 9/11 never happened and there is a civil war instead. This scenario makes up the novel-within-the-novel, and we're instroduced to its characters, one of whom is given the task of killing the alternative world's creator - the narrator.
This might have been interesting, but it's really a device for Auster to play with SF ideas of alternate universes and histories. Dozens of hack SF writers have done this, and better. It's an irrelevance, there to pad out what is a very very slim story indeed.
Even this story, slim as it is, is padded out with irrelevancies, anecdotes from some of the characters, background data that would be fine if it were his synopsis or notes for a novel, but very annoying that it's sold as the novel itself.
Then we have the conclusion, the interminable dialogue (done in that horribly trendy no-speech-marks style) between the narrator and his grand daughter, all building up to the novel's horrific conclusion. Which demonstrates - what? The irrelevance of fiction itself? That would explain the pointless novel-within-the-novel. Or just that Paul Auster has now resorted to throwing a few ideas together and calling it a novel.
This might sound harsh, but Paul Auster has produced so many fine novels that have engrossed me for days and lingered in my mind long afterwards that it's very disappointing to read the skimpy fare of his last two books. I always buy him in hardback, but this might be the last time.
Auster losing his direction... - Rated
The last few offerings from the once brilliant Paul Auster suggest an author who has (hopefully temporarily) lost his way. If we had read Man In The Dark by an unknown, then it would be filed away as mildly interesting but showing some real flashes of brilliance. That the author is Auster can`t fail to disappoint. We realise that Auster has a story to tell here and many important points to be made, but the lasting impression is nothing more than a somewhat shmaltzy sentimental filler. The reminiscing between grandfather and granddaughter that concludes the novel is excrutiatingly out of place in an Auster book and one can only hope that the author re-discovers his former superb standard in the coming years.
Auster knows he`s good....and the book is written in my opinion with the view that his fans will welcome and drool over anything that he cares to submit.
Not this one !
Short, simple, but profoundly moving - Rated 
Whether through its shortness of length or through the familiarity with typical Paul Auster subject matter, there seems to be a tendency in other reviews here so far to underestimate the true worth of the author's latest novel. Man in the Dark may indeed appear short and simple on the surface, but the importance of its subject matter and the emotional depth it covers is nonetheless remarkable.
Through August Brill, the man in the dark, Auster tries to make sense of the world through the medium of the writer spinning ideas in his head. Yes, that's nothing new with Auster and there's certainly a sense of post-modern reflection on the nature of writing and the duty of the writer, but as with Brooklyn Follies and his collection of True Tales Of American Life, Auster is interested in ordinary people and the impact of the exceptional or significant moments on their lives.
Those significant events affecting American people today are alluded to in the book's references to Iraq and the Twin Towers. It's not Auster's intention to confront such grand events, however significant they might seem, but to reduce them to the smaller scale in considering how people learn to deal with such experiences. That does not make Man In The Dark a lesser work. Through memories, shared experiences of joy and suffering, through the fictions they create and the movies they watch, his characters struggle to make sense of an absurd world ever more inclined to bring new unspeakable horrors. Auster masterfully brings these all together into a profoundly moving piece that is richer in meaning and worth than its apparent brevity suggests.
Typical Auster fare, but immensely readable - Rated 
Man in the Dark is typical Auster fare. It contains stories within stories within stories, and it plays with the concept that people can inhabit more than one world. It also explores memory, and the differences, if any, between the real and imagined.
It is told through the eyes of August Brill, a 72-year-old invalid, who dreams up stories in his head as a way of overcoming his insomnia. One of these stories is about a young man who awakens in a parallel universe in which September 11 did not happen. The America he finds himself in is not the calm, peaceful nation one would expect but a country at war with itself resulting from the secession of New York and a host of other states unhappy with the 2000 election result that put George W. Bush in power.
It's a horrifying glimpse of another world that might have been. It reads like something that Cormac McCarthy and Stephen King might have colluded on. It's dark, menacing and incredibly realistic.
But this is but one narrative thread of Man in the Dark. There is another in which the grieving August Brill recounts his marriage and long life with his now dead but much-loved Sonia to his granddaughter, Katya, who also suffers from insomnia. Katya, too, is grieving for the loss of her boyfriend, Titus, who was murdered in Iraq, and she stalls her grief by watching world movies with her grandfather all day long.
Later, the story of Titus's untimely death, is also spelled out. So what results is a novel composed of many different stories that share common themes including love, loss, loneliness, fear and war.
Man in the Dark is an immensely readable book that moves along at a fast pace, so fast that I was able to read it in one sitting. There's little clutter, but there's a lot of stuff going on, too much, probably, to absorb in one reading. Whether the diehard fans will like it as much as me remains to be seen, but I thought it was an enjoyable, affecting and thought-provoking read, one that I am sure will linger in my mind for a long time to come.
The weird world of Paul Auster rolls back into town - Rated
The first half of the book has an alternative universe thing going on which kept making me think of a high school kid trying to rewrite Terminator it was just so cringey; I think intentionally bad and overdramatic dialogue, plus an old man, August Brill, lying in bed inventing it all.
Yet in the second half, the story became for me much more moving, about family, forgiveness, and the redemptive power of stories. Brill and his grief-stricken granddaughter Katya watch old movies together and re-tell the plots later; the story of Brill's own complicated marriage emerges during a long dark night chat with Katya.
There are chunks of the story missing as far as I'm concerned - I wanted to know more about Miriam, Brill's daughter! - and it won't go on my list of his best books ever, but by the last few pages, I was weeping (as usual with his books) and I found it in the end incredibly moving. Don't miss it if you are a fan, but be prepared for that weird meta-science fiction slant to start with...
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