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From Publishers Weekly
It will come as no surprise to the gifted Auster's ( Moon Palace ; The Music of Chance ) many fans that walking on air, the implausible premise of his marvelously whimsical seventh novel, is treated with convincing gravity. Walt Rawley recounts his life: an orphan born in 1924 with "the gift," he was seized by his master, Mr. Yehudi, a Hungarian Jew who taught him to levitate. Yehudi takes the boy from St. Louis to his own Kansas menage, which consists of Mother Sioux and Aesop, a young black genius. (Also influencing Walt's life is classy, henna-headed Marion Witherspoon, a seductive mom figure from Wichita.) After harsh training, Walt tours with his mentor as "the Wonder Boy," aka Mr. Vertigo. Crammed into this road saga is the potent Americana of myth: the 1920s carnival circuit, Lindbergh's solo, the motorcar, the ethnic mix, the Ku Klux Klan and the Mob, baseball and Kansas, "land of Oz." Diverse mishaps descend, but eventually Walt glides into old age and writing. The characters speak a lusty lingo peppered with vintage slang, while a postmodern authorial irony tugs their innocence askew. The prose grows particularly electric when demystifying "loft and locomotion." Implicit is an analogy between levitation and the construct of fiction: both require fierce discipline to maintain a fleeting illusion.
Copyright 1994 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.
Copyright 1994 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.
From Library Journal
Rescued from the streets of St. Louis and taught to fly by Master Yehudi, Walter Rawley soon becomes a national sensation. The boy wonder foils a kidnapping by his evil uncle, but his powers of levitation suddenly wane with the onset of puberty, and he declines from miracle worker to Depression-era mobster. Auster provides a dazzling display of narrative power, but his story remains a metaphysical muddle. Fluctuating between the fabulous and the mundane, it establishes no firm foundation in either realm. If Yehudi's mysterious powers are real, why must his wards die in a Klan lynching and why must Yehudi himself resort to suicide? If the alleged powers are spurious and Auster's aging narrator is unreliable, the extent of his unreliability needs sharper definition. Auster's previous novel, Leviathan (LJ 7/92), is a much more absorbing study of the elusiveness of truth.
Albert E. Wilhelm, Tennessee Technological Univ., Cookeville
Copyright 1994 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.
Albert E. Wilhelm, Tennessee Technological Univ., Cookeville
Copyright 1994 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.
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First Sentence
I was twelve years old the first time I walked on water. Read the first page
Front Cover | Copyright | Excerpt | Back Cover
I was twelve years old the first time I walked on water. Read the first page
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Front Cover | Copyright | Excerpt | Back Cover
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Most helpful customer reviews
4.0 out of 5 stars
A good light read. I liked it.,
By
This review is from: Mr. Vertigo (Paperback)
I picked this book up not entirely convinced that I was going to like it. The book felt like a HUGE departure from the standard fare Auster had been writing about and I didn't think I'd enjoy this book. However I'm happy to report that I was wrong. I quite enjoyed this novel.The book focuses on the story of Walt the Wonderboy who is able to fly. The book is written from Walt's perspective, as he is the one telling the story, and it is Walt who tells the reader all about his life going from street urchin to national hero. Once I picked up the book, I found myself getting quite wrapped up in the story. So much so that at times I as able to suspend my disbelief and actually think that there really was a Walt the Wonderboy who was able to fly. This however is much more a credit to Auster's writing ability and my ability to separate fact from fiction. Mr. Vertigo is probably one of Auster's lighter novels. The novel has a nice up-beat feel to it and at no point while I was reading the story did I ever feel down or sad or confused. If anything the book left me with one of those warm fuzzy feelings inside. Which, having read quite a few of Auster's novels, certainly cannot be said of the vast majority of his books. Was this my favourite Auster novel? No. That book is still The Brooklyn Follies. But I did find myself enjoying this novel much more than I thought I would. And I wouldn't hesitate to recommend the book to anyone looking for a nice light read. If you're looking for a book to read, you could to much worse than pick this one up.
4.0 out of 5 stars
A good light read. I liked it.,
By
This review is from: Mr. Vertigo (Paperback)
I picked this book up not entirely convinced that I was going to like it. The book felt like a HUGE departure from the standard fare Auster had been writing about and I didn't think I'd like it. However I'm happy to report that I was wrong. I quite enjoyed this novel.The book focuses on the story of Walt the Wonderboy who is able to fly. The book is written from Walt's perspective, as he is the one telling the story, and it Walt tells the reader all about his life going from street urchin to national hero. Once I picked up the book, I found myself getting quite wrapped up in the story. So much so that at times I as able to suspend my disbelief and actually think that there really was a Walt the Wonderboy who was able to fly. This however is much more a credit to Auster's writing ability and my ability to separate fact from fiction! Seriously though, Mr. Vertigo is probably one of Auster's lighter novels. The novel has a nice up-beat feel to it and at no point while I was reading the story did I ever feel down or sad or confused. If anything the book left me with one of those warm fuzzy feelings inside. Which, having read quite a few of Auster's novels, certainly cannot be said of the vast majority of his books. Was this my favourite Auster novel? No. That book is still The Brooklyn Follies. But I did find myself enjoying this novel much more than I thought I would. And I wouldn't hesitate to recommend the book to anyone looking for a nice light read.
3.0 out of 5 stars
I was *so* along for the ride...,
By
This review is from: Mr. Vertigo (Paperback)
This is the second Auster novel I've read. (Not true; 'Scriptorium' was unable to hold me past 40 pages.) And while there was a ton here to potentially captivate me, it didn't. Which, as a writer who loves a good premise made into an intoxicating reading experience, was disappointing.I think that what most fudged things for me was the narrator's voice. That of someone looking back on his childhood. The words that ended up coming out of his 9 year old mouth were, often, painfully ill-chosen. That is, if he'd written it all as narrative, how he'd chosen to express things would have been fine. But on so many occasions, he has the words of a fifty year old man coming out of a child. Clearly, what's being presented is authentic in terms of how the narrator in his head remembers things...but that doesn't make for a good tale. In fact, Auster took a very good tale...one that might have been as good as 'Kavalier and Clay' or 'Carter Beats the Devil'...and torpedoed it. That's not to say that there isn't a lot to like about this book. But a first-person narrator has to be a very good storyteller/writer in order for this 'effect' to work. And in this novel, he isn't. I believe the story would have been so much better told another way. Never mind the fact that this isn't just one story, that in the end, it's the memoirs of a life. And so the effectiveness of the main thrust of the story...a boy who can fly...is reduced. Especially reduced by the narrator's voice. Still, it had potential.
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