Auster’s art of the appalling cliché

Paul Auster has acquired the reputation of being a deep-thought writer

Paul Auster: the author is back, but is that a good thing?

Fiction: 4 3 2 1, By Paul Auster, Faber & Faber, €20

"First thought, best thought,” wrote Jack Kerouac, offering perennial encouragement to the sort of writer who never has any thoughts at all. Since anyone’s first thought about anything is likely to be a cliché, the business of literature should be to look for the last thought – or, at the very least, to declare war on the stock response.

Paul Auster ...