2. How did you like the multi-layered plot? Was the plot too complicated or did you find it engaging? Which plot did you like the best: Sid and Grace's story or Nick Bowen's?
I liked the fact that the plot had more than one story line, without this distinctive aspect of Auster's writing style in Oracle Night, the plot would have probably turned out very ordinary and uninteresting, dare I say boring? There is even more than one "story within the story", because even the story that the protagonist Sydney Orr is writing contains the story Oracle Night , which is where the title of this novel comes from. I found it bizarre that this was the only time Oracle Night was mentioned because I was initially thinking that surely there must be a more significant and symbolic meaning to this intriguing title.
The title is mysterious and the plot is no different. Nevertheless, I found the transitions between the many story lines clear so it wasn't complicated in that sense. Things did get a little confusing however when in Sydney Orrs' life, the lines of reality are blurred. He is connected to his story about Nick Bowen (which he writes in the notorious blue notebook)just like Bowen is connected the the Sylvia Maxwell novel, Orr writes:
"He begins to see a connection between himself and the story in the novel, as if in some oblique, highly metaphorical way the book was speaking intimately to him about his own present circumstances."(pg.55)
According to Auster himself, Oracle Night is book about love and forgiveness, as he told Sean O'Hagan in an interview (the link is posted below).
A lot happens in the last few pages of the novel which contributes to Sydney and Grace's plot, and I found this more interesting than the Nick and Eva's plot because although the latter's started off more interestingly, when Orr locked Nick in a bomb shelter he effectively ended the story. The former plot developed unexpectedly,mostly through the premonitions of Sydney Orr which he documents in his blue notebook.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/2004/feb/08/fiction.paulauster1
