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The point of this book is the disintegration of society as we know it. There has not been a nuclear holocaust or anythingof the sort; society is just collapsing in on itself as it can no longer sustain the pressures of population, economic crisis and factionalism. Now the safety nets that once existed are gone and mankind has run amok in this city highly reminiscent of NYC.Auster has taken the everyday features of our society (e.g.runners)and extrapolated each to the extreme as only he can do. This is our world falling apart when civility becomes the exception rather than the norm.I highly recommend this book to anyone who isn't afraid to look down"the rabbit hole" or enjoys futuristic novels.An overlooked book.

Ich habe dieses Buch vor Jahren im Englischunterricht gelesen und es, entgegen anderen Büchern, als gute Lektüre in Erinnerung behalten, so dass ich es mal wieder gelesen habe.

Die Geschichte spielt in einer Großstadt, die über die Jahre hinweg, trotz Bemühungen des "Government", verfallen ist. Die Menschen hungern und leben unter absolut unmenschlichen Bedingungen. Das Buch ist in der Form eines Briefes geschrieben und man erfährt die Geschichte von Anna Blume, die sich aus einer heilen Welt mit behüteter Kindheit aufgemacht hat, um ihren verschollenen Bruder zu suchen. Rücksichtslos beschreibt sie die Zustände in "the Country of The Last Things" und wie sie bisher überlebt hat.

Der Endzeitcharakter dieses Buches lässt einen Fragen, wie ein solcher katastrophaler Zustand entstehen konnte und die Menschen dennoch versuchen, in dieser Stadt zu leben. Vielmehr stellt sich sich Frage, ob dieser Zustand wirklich einmal eintreffen könnte.

Das Buch ist hervorragend geschrieben und ist deshalb auch für Leute, sich mit der englischen Sprache mehr vertraut machen wollen, gut geeignet.

Nachdem ich einige Bücher von Paul Auster auf Deutsch gelesen hatte, war dieses Buch nach "The New York Trilogy" und "Oracle Night" das dritte Werk, welches ich auf Englisch gelesen habe. Im Gegensatz zu seinen neueren Werken wie "Brooklyn Follies" oder "Oracle Night" ist dieses Buch realitätsferner, abgehobener, wenn man es so sagen will. Die Geschichte einer jungen Frau, die in eine vom Bürgerkrieg gezeichnete Stadt in ein fernes, unbekanntes Land reist, um dort ihren verschollenen Bruder zu finden, wird zu einer Lehre über die Möglichkeiten menschlicher Grausam- und Gnadenlosigkeit, aber auch über Liebe und Vertrauen. Hier beweist Auster, dass er auch tiefgründig schreiben kann, ohne platt zu wirken, im Gegensatz zu Büchern der letzten Jahre. Es zeigt sich ebenfalls, dass man Auster (soweit es einem selbst möglich ist) auf Englisch lesen sollte, denn nur hier beweist sich die sprachliche Raffinesse und Vielschichtigkeit Austers komplett.

Lediglich das Ende (von dem ich jetzt aber nichts verraten will) hält nicht ganz den Erwartungen stand, die man im Laufe der Lektüre aufbaut. Deswegen auch nur 4 Sterne. Aber für jeden, der "Moon Palace" oder besagte "New York Trilogy" gelesen und gemocht hat, wird dieses Buch eine Entdeckung und Bereicherung sein.

I would never have expected 'In the Country of Last Things' to be so strangely optimistic in the midst of the devastation it actually portrays. Anna Blume, one of the only female protagonists in Auster's novels, is an amiable and believable character who leads the reader through her encounters in a chaotic world, leaving him with a feeling of hope at the end. This hope makes the novel, to me, very 'un-Austerian'. Besides the often fascinating descriptions of the world Anna Blume is trapped within, the development from her initial helplessness to her inner strength towards the end is beautifully shown. The confidence Anna feels when the novel ends proved to me that she will finally be able to take the huge step into the great 'Unknown' and will therefore be enabled to leave the confining walls of the city. She has been reconciled with herself and most probably would have been able to leave the city at any point, IF she had found this inner confidence earlier. The totalitarian 'regime' of the city in which meanings are lost (as things disappear) is not capable of suppressing imagination and remembrance that essentially are Anna's strengths. By writing the letter she has perhaps saved herself, and this notion intrigued me. I would not have thought Auster to be so 'romantic'.

Inherent in "In the Country of Last Things" is this: "Our lives are no more than the sum of manifold contingencies, and no matter how diverse they might be in their details, they all share an essential randomness in their design"(143-4). One such contingency occurs when the protagonist Anna Blume rediscovers a forgotten blue notebook accompanied by six yellow pencils. This is the catalyst for a letter that may as well be called "In the Country of Last Things". The letter comes across as an exaggerated account, an apocalyptic depiction of a city stripped of its humanity. Old laws that once held the society together have been supplanted by newer laws that will again be replaced by even more corrupt and venal ones. Anna Blume is a girl who comes to the city in search of her brother, but, instead, finds disintegration, desperation, and hopelessness. She is really no different, only her story, from the other inhabitants of the city. In the city, everyone is searching for something or someone that has disappeared. For "nothing lasts, you see, not even the thoughts inside you. And you mustn't waste your time looking for them. Once a thing is gone, that is the end of it" (2). The immediate and never-ending concern is hunger: hunger in the literal sense, as food like everything else in the city, is in short supply; and hunger in the abstract, wherein people crave friendship, love, connection, and a shared understanding of language and meaning. The constant struggle is not to give up or lose hope, and thereby your life. In the "Last Things," Paul Auster fills the pages with vivid accounts of a city in ruin, on the verge of complete collapse. It is an unnamed city, therefore, one may recognize it as his own, or what one day may be his own. But through the narrator of Anna, and the people she befriends and loves, the reader is offered hope in a world of hopelessness, a reason for optimism even though it seems baseless. Precarious is life, subject to coincidences, and the important thing, the vital thing, is to connect and be hopeful. A person, a city, may just depend on it."In the Country of Last Things" is an imperfect novel. Too often the reader is introduced to words or ideas that seem to come out of nowhere and then just disappear before achieving full understanding, but this, too, may serve to add to the impermanence of ideas and objects that are so often lost, or in danger of being lost, to a civilization. Sometimes we do lose thoughts or objects or people before we ever learn to understand and appreciate them. On a personal note, if I may, as it applies, I thank one person, a nameless one, for introducing me to the world of Paul Auster. My gratitude, always!