Dystopian novels are relatively common; literary dystopian novels, not so much. In the Country of Last Things (1987) by Paul Auster certainly qualifies. A single, long letter, In the Country of Last Things tells the story a woman who flees the safe confines of her homeland in search of her brother, who has gone on a journalistic assignment into a destroyed hellscape of a city.
The cause of the urban woes is never quite clear, but the devastation is familiar to the genre: there is no food, no work, no infrastructure, and the struggle to live overwhelms all else. Our protagonist struggles to adjust, falls in love two–maybe, three–times, and manages to survive, all the while adding layer on top of layer of our understanding of the difficulties of life in the city.
I have not read other books by Auster, so I don’t know if he has a consistently unique voice, or if it one he adopted for this novel: in either case, you will quickly know if it is, as they say, your cup of tea. The sentences and the ideas they convey are complex, yet direct, and the literary skill is enjoyable.
There is nothing new here in terms of the genre, but it’s a quick read, and some of the images will stay with you long after you read it.
#WhatIWishICouldDo
Be this literate without drifting into pretentiousness. I’m not very comfortable with me “literary voice,” and I think that is a challenge I need to figure out.