4 3 2 1

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4 3 2 1 is a more than 1000-page novel by the American author Paul Auster , which was published in 2017 by Henry Holt , New York City, and in German translation in 2017 by Rowohlt under the same title .

It tells four versions of the life of Archie Ferguson, who was born on March 3, 1947 (exactly one month after the author's birth) and shares other biographical details with Paul Auster. Some of the historical and autobiographical backgrounds were explained by Auster in a 2008 article in the New York Times. Auster addresses the role that chance can play in a person's life and how differently different inner dispositions of a person can develop through external influences. The focus is on the different developments of the main character Archie Ferguson (always called Ferguson in the novel), who formulated the program of the work as a small child: “What an interesting thought [...]: to imagine how everything could be different for him even if he himself always remained the same. […] Yes, anything was possible, and just because something happened in one way didn't mean it couldn't happen in another way ”(p. 86). The range of development possibilities includes four versions: The first version is a typical development novel: the pursuit of a bourgeois existence in troubled times. In the second version, the failure of the loner in conflict with his environment is in the foreground. In the third version, Ferguson is initially a typical antihero who is unsettled and disoriented as a result of a traumatic childhood experience. The fourth version is an artist novel, in which the renunciation struggle for an existence as a writer takes center stage. In addition, "4321" is a time novel about the restless America of the 50s and 60s between conservative morality and racial discrimination on the one hand and an optimistic and revolutionary spirit of optimism on the other.

action

After an introductory chapter on the history of the grandparents and parents, seven stations in Ferguson's childhood and adolescence are told in such a way that each phase of the life of the four Ferguson versions is represented. On the one hand, the increasing differences in development are emphasized; on the other hand, the reader is required to visualize what happened in each section of the storyline. The sections can be classified relatively clearly through prominent historical events. However, they each set different priorities and treat periods of different lengths that also overlap. These are: 1. Ferguson as a child (approx. 1952 to 1955), 2. Ferguson at the beginning of puberty (approx. 1955 to 1963), 3. First experiences of independence in junior high school (approx. 1961 to 1964), 4. Ferguson as a high school student (approx. 1963–1965), 5. The first year at university or after graduation (1965), 6. The period of student unrest (1966–1969), 7. Transition to professional life ( 1969–1974). In all four storylines, the plot takes place predominantly in and around New York and Newark with secondary scenes in Paris and California. The constellation of figures in the four versions also partially overlaps. In addition to her parents and relatives, Amy Schneidermann plays a central role as Ferguson's great love. Like the other supporting characters, it develops differently in each version. For the sake of clarity, the following four storylines are presented one after the other.

prehistory

The topics of identity and the role of chance are already addressed in the “Family Legend” that opens the novel. The first section outlines the family histories of his parents and relatives up to Ferguson's birth in 1947. Ferguson's father, Stanley, comes from a poor immigrant family who always have to struggle for their existence. His brothers Lew and Arnold are good-for-nothing in contrast to the ambitious, upright and athletic Stanley, who is well received by women. It was only out of a family spirit that he managed to get them a job in the furniture and electronics store "Three Brothers Home World" that he had built. His mother, Rose, comes from the liberal Jewish middle class, characterized by prosperity and a musical and literary education. She is trained as a photographer; the children and grandchildren of her employer, Schneidermann, play an important role in all four versions. While Stanley falls in love with Rose the first time they meet, for Rose it is more of a marriage of convenience. This is based on the fact that both are left-wing liberal, Stanley is career-oriented and gives her freedom (p. 34), especially professionally. However, in contrast to Rose, he is neither interested in education and cinema, nor particularly emotional. During Rose's difficult pregnancy with Ferguson, her sister Mildred introduces her to the canon of Anglo-American literature. Thus, the interests and areas of conflict in which the four Fergusons will develop are already outlined before birth: The different traits inherited or exemplified by the parents are shaped differently in each version. These are partly contradictory: For example, Rose's striving for professional independence on the one hand and the desire for a child on the other, or Stanley's great love for Rose in contrast to his "lack of concern for the feelings of others" (p. 35).

Version 1

  1. Ferguson grew up in sheltered circumstances and developed a close relationship with his cousin Francie, to whom he confessed that he had invented a fantasy brother for himself because his mother could no longer have children and he wanted nothing more than siblings. When he was sick, he watched the 1954 World Series on television and discovered his love for baseball. Uncle Lew made a lot of money with a bet on the victorious Giants, but dies in a car accident without repaying his gambling debts to Ferguson's father. Uncle Arnold stages a break-in in "Three Brothers Home World". Although Stanley finds out, he refuses to report his brother and prefers to forego the sum insured. This marked the beginning of the family's economic decline.
  2. Ferguson develops into an excellent baseball player who is culturally diverse, even if he considers himself to be artistically unskilled (p. 174). Aunt Mildred, a college professor, inspires his love for music and literature. Politics is also important to him: Ferguson is an ardent supporter of Kennedy. For him, however, the focus is on the first affairs with the opposite sex, especially with unusual girls (see p. 202). After an unfortunate love affair with an exchange student, he meets the emancipated Amy Schneidermann. Both immediately fall in love with each other.
  3. On a ski vacation with Francie and her family, Amy and Ferguson are caught sleeping together. Outraged by the immoral behavior, Francie Ferguson gives a lecture the next morning while driving a car. On the icy road, she loses control of the vehicle. Ferguson loses a thumb in the accident; that means the end of his baseball career. Since Amy stands by him, he can overcome the resulting self-doubt and bitterness. The injury also prevents him from being drafted into the Vietnam War.
  4. The family's economic decline continues. Stanley and Rose close their stores. While Stanley becomes a salesman in a sports shop, Rose begins a career as a photo reporter in Newark. So she can find Ferguson a vacation job as a sports reporter for a local newspaper. Amy and Ferguson spend a month together in Paris, where Ferguson learns to love French literature. Like Amy before, Ferguson is accepted into the elite Columbia University .
  5. Ferguson has not written poems of his own since the car accident, but as a student he devotes himself to translating French poetry and writes articles for the student newspaper. He shares an apartment with Amy and enjoys togetherness. He is skeptical of the increasing politicization and drug excesses of the hippies.
  6. The legacy of his grandfather relieved Ferguson's family of all financial worries, but after the race riot in Newark and a job offer for Rose from a major newspaper, his parents moved to Miami. During the student unrest at Columbia University, Amy becomes radicalized and decides to study law at Berkeley. She and Ferguson become increasingly estranged and eventually separate.
  7. Ferguson is struggling to get over the loss and takes refuge in his translations, which are now being published. Without much enthusiasm, he took a job as a reporter for a local newspaper in Rochester near New York after graduating. He falls in love again and decides to quit and move to Massachusetts to meet his new love and start over. But before he can implement this decision, he dies in an apartment fire.

Version 2

  1. Even as a preschooler, Ferguson had to survive illnesses and accidents again and again and thus developed a skeptical worldview. When he has to stay in bed after a broken leg, he learns from Francie that the Rosenbergs were executed as spies. He is just as horrified by this barbaric act as his cousin and decides to learn to read as quickly as possible in order to be able to inform himself about the cruel, unpredictable world. His grandmother teaches him and Ferguson is a quick learner. A fire that destroys his father's business confirms his distrust of the divine world order, even though the damage is covered by insurance.
  2. Ferguson is enthusiastic about newspapers which, for him, organize the “messy world” (p. 227). When he published his own newspaper, the “street knight” at the age of eleven, he was first admired by his classmates. However, the admiration soon turns into envy and hatred because Ferguson does not want anyone to participate in his project. An article critical of the government not only earns him a school sentence, he is bullied by his classmates for the rest of the year. He doesn't tell anyone about this, not even his parents, who are busy at work - Rose with her photo studio, Stanley with the tennis hall he opened. Ferguson is popular with girls, but this year he is developing into a loner who lives in his books and develops an atheistic philosophy based on Ludwig Feuerbach . The 13-year-old is only happy in the summer camp with the telling name "Paradise". Full of euphoria over a thunderstorm, he runs outside and is struck by a falling branch.

Version 3

  1. Uncle Lew bet on the wrong team at the 1954 World Series and cannot repay his betting debts with his bookmaker. This forces him to burn down "Three Brothers Home World" so that he can pay his debts with the sum insured. Stanley gets behind the plot and tries to stop the arson. He dies in the flames. When the police clear up the background to the crime, Rose and Ferguson flee the scandal to New York, where they drift in shock for two months.
  2. During this "interregnum" period, Ferguson and Rose go to the cinema every day. This is where his love for film develops. Because of the suffering he has suffered, the boy rebels against God by deliberately failing school. He finds solace in the films of Laurel and Hardy. Rose manages a career as an art photographer. A turning point occurs when Rose married Gil Schneidermann, a music critic. A win for Ferguson are the children of Gil's brother Daniel, Jim and Amy. Jim is the big brother he always wanted, with whom he shares a passion for basketball. He falls in love with the bright and defiant Amy. However, it remains a fleeting, passionate relationship between the stepcousins.
  3. Ferguson is successful at school and his basketball team. But out of frustration over his unfulfilled love for Amy, he gets on the wrong track: alcohol, a fight, Ferguson skips school to go to the cinema and has a brief homoerotic affair with a student.
  4. Ferguson developed intellectually mainly through the writing of film reviews. A visit to his aunt Mildred turns into a fiasco. Mildred lives in a lesbian relationship herself, but accuses Ferguson of his homosexual experience. He is no longer used in his basketball team, and the attempt to initiate an erotic relationship with his heterosexual stepcousin Jim fails. He gains erotic experiences with a prostitute. In order to pay for it, he starts stealing. He is caught and sentenced. After graduating from school below average, he refuses to study. He escapes military service in Vietnam because he has a criminal record and comes out as gay when he is called up.
  5. Ferguson goes to Paris for a year, where he lives with Vivian, a rich friend of his stepfather Gil. Gil gives him an extensive reading list of classical literature to study, which Ferguson diligently works through. Above all, however, he begins an autobiographical work entitled "How Laurel and Hardy Saved My Life". At the same time, he experiences the lowest point in his sexual development when he lets an older professor pay him for sex during a party at Vivian. In disgust at himself, he throws the money out the window.
  6. Ferguson finishes his book and, with Vivian's help, finds an English publisher, Aubrey Hull. Hull is also bisexual; both enjoy themselves together. He met Albert Duquesne through Vivian's mediation. A steady, happy love relationship begins, the basis of which is also a shared enthusiasm for basketball and literature. Ferguson's book is heavily promoted by Hull and received with great interest in England. During his first reading trip to London, Ferguson dies in a car accident because he did not pay attention to left-hand traffic.

Version 4

  1. Ferguson's father's business has been thriving since he paid off his brothers. Ferguson rejects wealth and luxury because he hardly sees his ambitious father anymore. Prosperity also changes his parents' relationship, which is becoming increasingly superficial. Ferguson grew up almost in isolation. His only friend is the anarchic-ironic Noah Marx, the son from the first marriage of Mildred's husband Don.
  2. Thirteen-year-old Ferguson despises the sterile upper-class life of his parents, whose marriage has broken down. Since his mother gave up her studio at Stanley's request, she has been drinking too much. Ferguson wants to leave his family, but his proposal to go to boarding school is rejected. In the summer at Camp “Paradise” he meets his alter ego, Artie Federman, with whom he has an intense friendship. But Artie suddenly dies of a brain aneurysm while training baseball. In memory of Artie, Ferguson renounced baseball forever. The memory of this friendship inspires him to write his first story about a pair of shoes with the title “Sole Relatives”. The reactions to it are divided: While his English teacher rejects it as immoral, Noah and Ferguson's classmate Amy Schneidermann are enthusiastic.
  3. Ferguson has become estranged from his parents, he lives in "exile in his own home" (p. 523). At fifteen, after reading Dostoyevsky's " Guilt and Atonement ", he decided to become a writer. Shortly after he graduated from junior high school, his parents split up to his relief. Both are already in another relationship, Rose with the artist Daniel Schneidermann. After his wife dies of cancer, Rose and Dan marry. With Jim and Amy, Ferguson has the siblings he has always wanted. However, this also means that his love and his erotic desire for Amy remain unfulfilled. The new circumstances also mean the end of material prosperity, since Rose gets nothing in the divorce, for which Ferguson despises his father.
  4. Ferguson breaks off contact with his father and does not accept any money from him. In order to save for his studies, he works as a movers. With Dana, a student from South Africa, he has an erotic relationship for the first time, even if he is not in love with her. Because of his literary writings, he received a scholarship to the prestigious Princeton University , although he would have preferred to stay in New York with Noah to study at Columbia University.
  5. While studying, Ferguson continued to write without publishing his texts. Henry David Thoreau and John Cage are particularly influencing him now . He plans his life meticulously: no contact with his father, in a few years - when she is old enough - deep love for Celia, Artie Federman's little sister. For now, however, he has a relationship with Evie, his former English teacher. She wants a child from him, but Ferguson learns that he is sterile.
  6. Over the phone, Ferguson ends his affair with Evie and begins his relationship with Celia as planned. At the center of his life, however, is writing, for which he retires to a spartan apartment in New York. There he associates with the Bohème. Noah has Ferguson's first book published by a small publisher. Ferguson defends Amy's African-American friend in a pub brawl. In the subsequent process he was acquitted, but his scholarship was withdrawn because he did not behave “perfectly” (p. 1104).
  7. Because he can no longer afford Princeton, Ferguson finishes his studies at Brooklyn College. The relationship with Celia also fails because he admits that he loved the idea of ​​loving Celia more than Celia herself (p. 1221). He cannot be honest with her either and admit his sterility. After graduation, Ferguson is not drafted into the army because the drafting center where his documents are waiting to be processed is blown up by a terrorist ( Samuel Melville ). His father dies of a heart attack and leaves him $ 100,000. With the money he flies to Paris, where he begins to write the book "4321". The starting point is the legend about his grandfather. The theme is Archie Ferguson's various paths through life; all but the real Fergusons die in the course of the novel.

characters

Archie Ferguson

Archie is athletic in all versions. His favorite sports are baseball and basketball. He is interested in literature and art as well as current political events and is a typical young person insofar as sexuality plays a central role. The first great love is Amy Schneidermann, even if this relationship fails in every version. Archie has a close relationship with the mother (especially Archie 3), while the relationship with the father is superficial or, with Archie 4, even broken. Unlike the father, he is not interested in material things. In all versions, Archie is left-wing liberal, has a strong sense of justice, especially with regard to the racial conflicts of the sixties. Archie is open to new things, a talented student and has acquired extensive knowledge of world literature in every version. All four represent a skeptical worldview based on Voltaire , whose "Candide" is quoted several times. However, due to the different developments, there are a number of differences between the four versions of Archie.

Archie 1 is rather frugal and balanced. With the help of his close friends and intact family, he gets over the great crisis after losing his thumb. He is popular and well-balanced, but he is less confident than the other Archies. Instead of writing literature, he limited himself to translations and opted for the civil profession of a journalist.

Archie 2 is because of his many mishaps an internally unsettled loner who already as a child represented a nihilistic worldview. Outwardly he becomes a rebel because of his left political views. As a result, he is quickly isolated with boys of the same age, but interesting for girls.

Archie 3 is heavily influenced by the traumatic loss of his father. The negative experiences with Mildred and Andy also reinforce his tendency to let himself drift, not take responsibility and break taboos. At its core, like Archie 2, he is insecure and wants affection and recognition. At first he only got this from his mother, later also from Vivian, with whom he caught himself.

Archie 4 is most elaborated and reflected upon as he is the sole survivor and the narrator. Archie's goal is to become “the hero of his own life” (p. 508), that is, to be independent; because of the self-imposed renunciations and the struggle against suburban society, he becomes “stubborn” and “lost in his own thoughts” (p. 658). He doesn't manage to form deeper bonds and open up to his girlfriends. In this respect, in this version he is most similar to the unloved father. The focus is on developing into a writer; the literary texts written by him are reproduced in detail or printed in the original. He plans his life with strict inner discipline and consciously renounces the things that could distract him from his goals or provide him with comfort.

Rose Ferguson / Schneidermann b. Eagle

For Archie, his mother is an important caregiver in all versions. As a younger sister, Rose Adler initially sees herself as inferior to the ambitious and intelligent Mildred. She enters into her marriage of convenience with Stanley in order to be ahead of her sister for once (p. 35), but also because Stanley does not stand in the way of her professional plans as a photographer. While the marriage in version 1 is quite happy, Rose gets divorced in version 4 and marries Daniel Schneidermann, who she is also fond of in the other versions (see p. 210). In version 3 she marries his older brother Gil. She practices the profession of photographer in all four versions with passion and success, first in her own photo studio "Roseland Foto", later as a photo reporter (version 1) or as an art photographer (version 3). The failure of the marriage in Version 4 is also due to the fact that she stopped working because of Stanley's career and is bored.

Stanley Ferguson

Archie's father is characterized in all versions as sporty and ambitious, but also as closed to others. The character is only unfolded in the first and the last version: he is torn between a strong sense of family and the pursuit of a career that is most successful in the fourth version, in which he becomes a rich businessman. In the first version, the family is in the foreground for him. This prevents him from firing his fraudulent and unreliable brothers, so that he slowly but steadily declines professionally. In return, however, the marriage with Rose and the relationship with Archie remain untroubled, even if he never gets over his brother's betrayal (p. 576). In the fourth version he becomes a successful but increasingly closed businessman, so that both his marriage and the relationship with his son fail.

Mildred

Rose's older sister is intellectually brilliant and a full professor of English literature in all four versions, supported by Archie. Because of her egocentrism and insecure sexual orientation (in version 3 she is a lesbian), their relationships are always problematic.

Amy Schneidermann

In all four versions, Amy is portrayed as an unusual rebel against external conventions, which makes her so attractive to Archie. She shares with him an interest in literature and art as well as a political attitude. While Archie is skeptical of the student movement, Amy is radicalized. This alienates them from one another.

style

Auster's novel is typical of postmodern literature in many ways : it plays with the narrative levels, alienates historically real events and ironizes the narrated through comments. So the death of Archie 3 is succinctly dismissed with the remark "the gods looked down from their mountain and shrugged their shoulders" (p. 1028). Auster renounces a linear, causally developing action. Through the various developments and the central role of chance in a chaotic world, he undermines traditional patterns of the development novel and instead shows the fullness of what is possible. The novel alternates between personal and authorial narrative action. The narrator is the fourth Archie, which Auster does not reveal until the end of the novel (p. 1252 ff.). Only here is the tragic end of Archie 1 told and justified by the literary experiment on which the novel is based. The passages told personally predominate in the first sections and reflect Archie's childlike inner view. As an authoritative narrator, Archie reveals to the reader the events of which his characters know nothing and meticulously reproduces their reflections (such as the pros and cons of Rose's decision to join Stanley). In these passages the style is less narrative than narrative. There are hardly any other descriptions either. The sober style makes the fictional mind game look particularly realistic. The frequent references to real events as well as the directly reproduced dialogues at central points also contribute to this. This style also reflects Archie's journalistic ambitions. Versions 1 and 4 cite products from Archie's literary activity.

criticism

The reviews disagree: “The book is definitely too long for what it delivers.” Contrasts with: “Then you have to go through it. And it's worth it. ”The excellent transmission by the four German translators Thomas Gunkel , Karsten Singelmann, Nikolaus Stingl and the frequent translator by Paul Auster, Werner Schmitz, are praised . “You read this book as if you were lost in the labyrinth and realized that you don't want to get out of it. It is scrolled back and forth to compare the always the same and yet completely different Archies. "

expenditure

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Paul Auster: The Accidental Rebel. In: The New York Times . April 23, 2008, accessed April 5, 2017 (English, autobiographical article).
  2. ↑ Burkhard Müller : Four birds, one stone. In: Süddeutsche Zeitung . February 2, 2017, Retrieved April 5, 2017 (review).
  3. ↑ Peter von Becker : My name is Ferguson. In: Der Tagesspiegel . January 28, 2017, Retrieved April 5, 2017 (review).
  4. ↑ Adam Soboczynski : The soul is a butterfly. In: The time . February 2, 2017, Retrieved March 20, 2017 (review).