EXCERPTS:
Paul Auster, BAUMGARTNER

Baumgartner is sitting at his desk in the second-floor room he variously refers to as his study, his cogitorium, and his hole. Pen in hand, he is midway through a sentence in the third chapter of his monograph on Kierkegaard’s pseudonyms when it occurs to him that the book he needs to quote from in order to finish the sentence is downstairs in the living room, where he left it before going up to bed last night. On the way downstairs to retrieve the book, it also occurs to him that he promised to call his sister this morning at ten o’clock, and since it is almost ten now, he decides that he will go into the kitchen and make the call before retrieving the book from the living room. When he walks into the kitchen, however, he is stopped in his tracks by a sharp, stinging smell. Something is burning, he realizes, and as he advances toward the stove, he sees that one of the front burners has been left on and that a low, persistent flame is eating its way into the bottom of the small aluminum pot he used three hours ago to cook his breakfast of two soft-boiled eggs. He turns off the burner, and then, without thinking twice, that is, without bothering to fetch a pot holder or a towel, he lifts the destroyed, smoldering egg boiler off the stove and scalds his hand. Baumgartner cries out in pain. A fraction of a second later, he drops the pot, which hits the floor with an abrupt, clattering ping, and then, still yelping in pain, he rushes over to the sink, turns on the cold water, sticks his right hand under the spout, and holds it there for the next three or four minutes as the chilly stream pours down over his skin.

Title: Baumgartner

Author: Paul Auster

Language: English