Astounding. Read it in one sitting (or rather standing. I found it's easier to concentrate reading when I'm leaning on the door frame and occasionally gazing outside to look at the plants and the sky.) It's exhilarating to finally finish reading something after being in a reading slump these past few months.

The theme that is immediately apparent is that of the double. Doppelgangers, aliases, that whole thing. The discussions about the words are interesting. The Paul Stillman character was interesting. One of the main character's discussions with Peter Stillman reminded me of that episode in Garcia Marquez's 'Cien Anos ...' (R.I.P.) where the people were stricken by the sickness of forgetting. The episode about the child suffering for the greater good reminds me of the story 'Those Who Walk Away from Omelas' by Le Guin. The episode where the character tried to minimize his eating to focus more on the job, reminded me of Kafka's 'A Hunger Artist.' Keeping up with the theme of the double is the structure of the book itself. Paul Auster writes a book about an author (Daniel Quinn) who writes detective stories under an alias, who somehow gets hired by a woman, who assumed he was a detective named Paul Auster (again the whole double thing). And it gets crazier from there.

Overall the story very much lived up to the hype I've been reading about. This is the second story of his I've read after Moon Palace.