In the Country of Last Things
by Paul Auster
1988
In the Country of Last Things is a dystopian novel set in the capital city of an small, unnamed, fictional European country. The country is effectively a failed state, and the city is stuck in a condition of disorganization and lawlessness that resembles a warzone, although no fighting is happening, and the causes of the breakdown of society or the ongoing crisis are never stated. Auster has written the novel as the first-person account of a woman who traveled to the city to find her missing brother, and became trapped there herself. It takes the form of a book-length letter written by the narrator, Anna, to an old friend back home, explaining what's happened to her.
Structurally, the book isn't organized into chapters, only unnumbered sections with short breaks between them. In terms of plot, there are basically four parts. The first part is primarily exposition about the city. There is very little law anymore, and theft and murder are effectively legal. Private toll collectors defend spots of turf and demand money, food, or sex to pass by. Corpses and shit are collected by the city government and burned to make methane for fuel - these are virtually the only municipal services that exist. One of the only remaining occupations is private trash collection. This too is burned for fuel. Scavengers also hunt for lightly damaged objects to resell, and bandits survive by robbing scavengers. There is little food and many are homeless.
Anna explains that this is a place where things are lost, or taken away, and never return. Loved ones die, buildings collapse, streets are ruined, nothing is ever fixed or repaired, and nothing but conflicting rumors remain afterward, if anyone knows anything at all. We see this again and again, across the rest of the book. Only once in the book is one single lost thing ever returned. All the rest is a chronicle of repeated dispossession.
Anna arrives in the city, finds not the slightest trace of her brother, and becomes a scavenger for her own survival. In the book's second part, she helps an elderly woman who is also a scavenger, learns more about the city, and becomes the old woman's caretaker as her health fails and a killing winter cold sets in.
In the third part, she meets someone who knew her brother, another journalist who came to the city to look for him before Anna did. They become lovers, and partners, until he becomes lost to her too.
In the fourth and longest part, Anna works in a charity hospital and tries to help the city's poorest and most vulnerable. The book ends with Anna writing her chronicle of events thus far, and preparing to attempt an escape.
Throughout, Auster thinks about the nature of attachment and loss. Arguably, due to the arrow of time, all of life is the progressive ending of one thing after another, a series of losses that can't be recovered, not just in this city, or in war, but everywhere, always. But life is also always new things starting, and continuations of everything we haven't lost yet. Anna comes to the city hoping to remain above it. To go, find her brother, and get out, without forming attachments, without getting involved. When we're young, we don't necessarily think we're invincible, but we usually think we're special, lucky, blessed. Bad things will happen to other people, an pass over us like the Angel of Death during the Biblical plague. But it's impossible, for Anna and for all of us. She's dragged down into the mud and shit. She does things she's not proud of, makes mistakes she regrets. And she can't help but make friends, fall in love, to care, to try to help. That too is life.
Books like this, set in imaginary European countries, are sometimes called 'Ruritarian romances,' named for the fictional country at the heart of Prisoner of Zenda, although it somehow feels wrong to call a nightmare dystopia like this a 'romance.' I do like Ruritanian settings though, and they work well for dystopias, like Alan Sillitoe's Travels in Nihilon or Ferenc Karinthy's Metropole. Sometimes it's surprising that there's no corresponding tradition of American fiction set in a fictional state, but I suppose that the names and boundaries of the US states have been pretty consistent compared to the way various European regions and principalities have repeatedly been absorbed in war, split apart, or gained independence after a conflict. And DC Comics have their fictional cities, their Metropolis and Gotham and others, which is maybe the closest domestic analog.
Structurally, the book isn't organized into chapters, only unnumbered sections with short breaks between them. In terms of plot, there are basically four parts. The first part is primarily exposition about the city. There is very little law anymore, and theft and murder are effectively legal. Private toll collectors defend spots of turf and demand money, food, or sex to pass by. Corpses and shit are collected by the city government and burned to make methane for fuel - these are virtually the only municipal services that exist. One of the only remaining occupations is private trash collection. This too is burned for fuel. Scavengers also hunt for lightly damaged objects to resell, and bandits survive by robbing scavengers. There is little food and many are homeless.
Anna explains that this is a place where things are lost, or taken away, and never return. Loved ones die, buildings collapse, streets are ruined, nothing is ever fixed or repaired, and nothing but conflicting rumors remain afterward, if anyone knows anything at all. We see this again and again, across the rest of the book. Only once in the book is one single lost thing ever returned. All the rest is a chronicle of repeated dispossession.
Anna arrives in the city, finds not the slightest trace of her brother, and becomes a scavenger for her own survival. In the book's second part, she helps an elderly woman who is also a scavenger, learns more about the city, and becomes the old woman's caretaker as her health fails and a killing winter cold sets in.
In the third part, she meets someone who knew her brother, another journalist who came to the city to look for him before Anna did. They become lovers, and partners, until he becomes lost to her too.
In the fourth and longest part, Anna works in a charity hospital and tries to help the city's poorest and most vulnerable. The book ends with Anna writing her chronicle of events thus far, and preparing to attempt an escape.
Throughout, Auster thinks about the nature of attachment and loss. Arguably, due to the arrow of time, all of life is the progressive ending of one thing after another, a series of losses that can't be recovered, not just in this city, or in war, but everywhere, always. But life is also always new things starting, and continuations of everything we haven't lost yet. Anna comes to the city hoping to remain above it. To go, find her brother, and get out, without forming attachments, without getting involved. When we're young, we don't necessarily think we're invincible, but we usually think we're special, lucky, blessed. Bad things will happen to other people, an pass over us like the Angel of Death during the Biblical plague. But it's impossible, for Anna and for all of us. She's dragged down into the mud and shit. She does things she's not proud of, makes mistakes she regrets. And she can't help but make friends, fall in love, to care, to try to help. That too is life.
Books like this, set in imaginary European countries, are sometimes called 'Ruritarian romances,' named for the fictional country at the heart of Prisoner of Zenda, although it somehow feels wrong to call a nightmare dystopia like this a 'romance.' I do like Ruritanian settings though, and they work well for dystopias, like Alan Sillitoe's Travels in Nihilon or Ferenc Karinthy's Metropole. Sometimes it's surprising that there's no corresponding tradition of American fiction set in a fictional state, but I suppose that the names and boundaries of the US states have been pretty consistent compared to the way various European regions and principalities have repeatedly been absorbed in war, split apart, or gained independence after a conflict. And DC Comics have their fictional cities, their Metropolis and Gotham and others, which is maybe the closest domestic analog.
Fictional small towns are probably the closest American literary analog, though where Ruritania's are typical sites of adventure (hence the "romances") part the small town typical host less grandiose plots from quiet self-discovery to horror.
ReplyDeleteThat's a good point, the fictional small town, located vaguely somewhere in New England, or the Midwest, or the South, is relatively common in American fiction.
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