The invisible novelist

In Paul Auster's gentle prose, the line between the narrator and the author often disappears.

Paul Auster is one of America's finest living novelists, a perceptive "" and affectionate "" chronicler of human foibles, whose work frequently dwells on the role that chance encounters play in our lives (his narrators often observe how a whole series of events might have turned out differently but for a single, random occurrence).

But he is also, as a friend once observed, "one of the very few writers who can get you so involved in the story that you forget there is a novelist's voice behind the narrator's".

Reading The Brooklyn Follies, a novel about life's constant ability to surprise, to throw a spanner in the works, I could see the truth of this observation. By the time I was on the third or fourth page, Auster was out of my mind and the story really did seem to have been written by its narrator, Nathan Glass, a retired insurance agent.

One reason for this is that Auster doesn't have an easily identifiable style. His writing is so functional, so centred on taking the plot forward, that the novelist's methods become invisible. This is less common than one might think. In most first-person stories narrated by characters who are not professional wordsmiths, the reading process entails a minor suspension of disbelief (though we tend not to dwell on it).

There's an implicit understanding that though the thoughts and experiences are the narrator's, the story is being ghost-written by a more accomplished novelist: he's clarifying the narrator's ideas, polishing the language, supplying order and structure.

While reading Kazuo Ishiguro's The Remains of the Day, for instance, narrated by the butler Stevens, we sink into the narrative and accept it as "realistic", yet we also understand that if Stevens were to himself sit down and write the story, his prose would not be anywhere near as elegant or organised as Ishiguro's.

It's different when the narrator himself is a writer by profession. Philip Roth's frequent narrator Nathan Zuckerman is a successful novelist "" in fact, there's very little that separates him from Roth "" and so the striking prose of books such as American Pastoral and The Human Stain doesn't seem incongruous. One is always aware that Zuckerman's own writing would probably be this classy.

Auster's Nathan, on the other hand, though an intelligent, well-read man, has never been a writer "" until, very late in life, he starts jotting down notes for a book, more for amusement than anything else. And the narrative of The Brooklyn Follies fits what one would expect of such a character.

Nathan is self-conscious about the writing process and about his own limitations: he tinkers with sentences, comments on his stylistic choices, begins one chapter on an experimental note, deliberately avoids all forms of description in another chapter.

He introduces his nephew Tom by flamboyantly bestowing the title Hero of this Book on him. And he fumbles for the right words, as in this passage where his car just stalled:

"...the engine coughed forth one of the most peculiar noises in automotive history. I have sat here thinking about that noise for the past 20 minutes, but I still haven't found the correct words to describe it, the one unforgettable phrase that would do it justice. Raucous chortling? Hiccupping pizzicati? A pandemonium of guffaws? I'm probably not up to the task..."

Later, after an unpleasant phone conversation with his ex-wife, he decides to stop referring to her by name, which leads to the use of phrases like "Name Deleted" at points in the narrative; this could have been gimmicky, but it's true to Nathan's playfulness and his growing confidence about his role as a storyteller. It's also a testament to Auster's seemingly effortless talent for immersing the reader into a character's interior "" and exterior "" life.

Other recommended works: The New York Trilogy, The Music of Chance, The Book of Illusions.