Imagine a small room, all in white, with a bed and a desk and a
chair and not much else. Piled on the desk are a series of black
and white photographs and a stack of manuscript pages. Sitting in
the room is an old man, also dressed all in white. A camera mounted
in the ceiling records his every action, and a sound-recording
device tapes his every word. This man has no recollection of who he
is, why he's there, or even what his name is --- we'll call him Mr.
Blank. Is Mr. Blank a prisoner or a refugee? An invalid or a
recluse?

Much of Paul Auster's newest novel, TRAVELS IN THE SCRIPTORIUM,
leaves these questions unanswered, forcing on readers the same kind
of disorientation, claustrophobia and, yes, at times, tedium that
plagues the mysterious Mr. Blank. Mr. Blank struggles with his
unreliable body, with his even more unreliable memory --- his
memories come back in brief flashbacks that are lost as quickly as
they come --- and with his fundamental questions of
self-identity.

During the course of the day, Mr. Blank contemplates the photos on
his desk, some of which correspond to the visitors who call on him
periodically throughout the day. But, again, who are these people,
and do they wish Mr. Blank harm or goodwill? Longtime Auster fans
will recognize some of these figures from Auster's earlier works,
particularly THE NEW YORK TRILOGY, but even these devotees are
unlikely to make heads or tails of the characters' connection to
Mr. Blank --- at least at first.

Mr. Blank also peruses the partial manuscript that lies on his
desk, which tells the story of Sigmund Graf, an officer of the
Bureau of Internal Affairs for a country called the Confederation.
Graf's story --- about an ill-fated mission to find a man named
Ernesto Land --- remains maddeningly unfinished, requiring Mr.
Blank to come to his own conclusions about Graf's narrative and its
future directions.

Finally, near the end of this most enigmatic novel, Mr. Blank's
lawyer arrives, explaining that Mr. Blank has been charged with
"the whole gamut…From criminal indifference to sexual
molestation. From conspiracy to commit fraud to negligent homicide.
From defamation of character to first-degree murder." But the
questions remain --- is Mr. Blank kept in this room for punishment,
or for protection?

Auster's latest is in many ways --- besides the recurrence of key
characters --- a throwback to his earliest novels, collected as THE
NEW YORK TRILOGY. With its postmodern self-referentiality,
existential questions and disorienting style, TRAVELS IN THE
SCRIPTORIUM is a far less accessible work than, say, his previous
book, THE BROOKLYN FOLLIES. It is also, with its claustrophobic
setting, spareness and unusual symbolism, an homage of sorts to the
minimalism and near-surrealism of Beckett and Kafka.

For readers not afraid to wrestle with existential questions,
TRAVELS IN THE SCRIPTORIUM is a demanding, but ultimately
satisfying, reading experience.