4-3-2-1 in not one
book. It is four. And they are in order, 4-3-2-1. Its title, incidentally,
could not be 1-2-3-4 for reasons the reader will eventually discover.
Ostensibly the novels are the life stories from birth to mid-twenties of
Archibald Isaac Ferguson, only child of Stanley and Rose from Newark, New
Jersey. But, as has already been implied, Ferguson, as he is usually known, is
not just one person with a single life. He is four people, depending on which
story one chooses to enter.
Ferguson´s grandfather
was a Jewish immigrant from eastern Europe. He became Ferguson as a result of a
joke an almost random association of misunderstanding and assumption that
recurs almost as a leitmotif throughout the book. It is of course by chance
that this name attaches to its future owner. And then, also sometimes by
chance, sometimes by choice drawn from a set of options presented by chance,
that Ferguson´s life twists and turns along the paths that fork through time.
Ferguson thus becomes
four parallel but diverging people. They are him, we believe, because a writer,
who may be Paul Auster, maybe someone else, tells us they are all one and the
same person. The four become different people as they progress through their
years. Parents divorce, or perhaps don´t. The father´s business fails
catastrophically. Or perhaps it doesn´t and becomes hugely successful. It might
indeed just trundle along, keeping the family in some comfort short of
riches. The mother becomes a photographer,
or perhaps doesn’t. There is a family feud, or perhaps it was never even
mooted. There´s an accident, a decision, a choice, but not necessarily for the
same Ferguson we knew a chapter ago. All events, however, have their
consequences.
And these four
characters who are all the same person, these four different Archibald Isaac
Fergusons live their lives in parallel episodes, are influenced by the same
current affairs, politics, crazes, cultural changes and commercial pressures,
but they respond and react differently, selectively, individually. Thus they
diverge, their paths never to cross again.
Other family members,
notable the step-sister Amy – who might be a step-sister in one story, a mere
cousin in another – plays her part throughout. Ferguson lives throughout the
1950s and 1960s. He goes to camp, or perhaps doesn´t. He is not drafted to
fight in Vietnam, perhaps because all four versions were born with the same
body, perhaps because of what time did to that body, or to the mind that
associates with it. They pursue a variety of educational options, attend
different schools, pursue different interests and adopt different specialities.
Their sexual preferences vary depending on which version of the life we opt to
follow, and of course depending on the availability or otherwise of partners,
and the pressures others bring to bear at certain crucial points in these
different lives.
They all negotiate the
rise of consumerism and the growing passion for white goods, a proclivity that
is crucial for at least one of the fathers. John F. Kennedy is assassinated, as
are his brother and Martin Luther King. There are just one of each, but they
appear several times. There are riots in Newark and in other cities. There is
Vietnam and the anti-war movement, with its activism and demonstrations. There is
the pursuit of the opposite sex, or the same sex, or both. There is learning,
much of which focuses on literature, and there is academic, economic and social
success, failure and a good deal of the mundane interspersed. There is
Jewishness and Christianity alongside the secular. There are accidents, fires,
break-ups and reconciliations, and all the other things that can go right
and-or wrong in any life, but not in any order and not always in the same
story. And thus there are four novels, or perhaps three, or two or just one.
There are 850 plus pages, of this we are sure.
Long before the end it
is quite hard to remember which version of Ferguson went this way or that, made
which decision, suffered which trauma, finished or made up with which
particular lover (again). But that may just be the point. As in A Winter´s
Tale, when Shakespeare resurrects comedy from the depths of tragedy, Paul
Auster´s Ferguson eventually reveals himself as one of the equally plausible
characters we have come to know.
In that ending of A
Winter´s Tale, Shakespeare’s comedy arises from the previous tragedy of
Hermione’s death. He brings her back to life from the statue she became. He omitted to repeat the gesture so that
Mamillius, her son, might follow her back to the living, condemning the lad to
remain petrified, and dead. And so we must also re-evaluate comedy. All the
world may be a stage, with all of us players upon it, but the writer remains
the director, the ultimate omnipresent and omnipotent power who wields the
weapon of fate.
Diverging plots have
also been used in film. In “Sliding Doors”, Gwyneth Paltrow´s character does
and also does not manage to enter a London Underground train that is about to
depart. Thus two lives live on, perhaps parallel in time, but certainly diverging
to very different ends.
Paul Auster´s 4-3-2-1
seems to inhabit the sum of the above territory. The writer directs, of that we
are sure. But the novel reminds us, perhaps even reassures us, that the choices
we make in life, the paths we take and those we reject determine life´s
chances, its outcomes, and perhaps even our personality. We become only what we
live.
And then, whatever the
destination, temporary or final, we always should remind ourselves that the
world remains a stage, except, of course, for the ultimate director, who holds
the pen.
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