MEMORY IN A POST-APOCALYPTIC LANDSCAPE: PAUL AUSTER’S IN THE COUNTRY OF LAST THINGS

Abstract

This paper aims at understanding the postmodern victims’ struggle for survival in a post-apocalyptic, unnamed metropolis depicted in Auster’s novel In the Country of Last Things. It is a story about the loss of the known, recognizable world and the struggle to stay alive in a dystopian space. On the city streets, Auster’s characters experience loneliness, disconnection and personal disintegration, which are the dominant topics in this novel published in 1987. Individual as well as collective memory emerge from violence, destruction, war and despair in a fictional landscape of destruction and chaos. Auster’s imaginary country, which can be easily understood as an allegory, is peopled by characters trying to emerge from chaos, to preserve any memory mainly through narrative. As it appears, narrative is one way of preserving identities and language, memory and surviving.