I really enjoyed the book until chapter 1.4, but I was so confused after that. It was said Aunt Mildred and
her husband Henry had already moved to California, but in other chapter she just married to
a writer, Don Marx. Then, Archie’ father was dead in burning store, but in another
chapter he was still alive. Then I said to myself, something has been wrong with this
book, so I skipped hundred pages and finally found the answer on page 975-978. The
story was about a boy who transformed to be four boys. There were four Archie
Fergusons at the same time, lived at the different place, but identical. He was
described as a voracious reader, a book lover, her aunt and uncle had supported him books
since he was only small kid. The pretty girl Amy was always to be attractive to
him, except when she was as his stepsister. There is a journalist Archie, a successful
writer Archie in Paris, and an ordinary Archie.
Then he turned to be a successful
writer, it was only Archie’s imaginary in his new book 4321. Ferguson was
inspired by his paternal grandfather, who had three names at a short time, while
his landing in Ellis Island in 1900. The book drives the reader to some puzzles
on the four of Fergusons, the author is so brilliant at creating a boy in four
bodies, four childhood’s lifes, four families, and four teenager’s lifes, until he
got his twenties.
I found the book is extremely well-written one, smart and beautiful narration and rich information almost in every pages. The setting of time was linked to some historical days of WWI, of Korean War, of Vietnam War, great classic and modern novels, and
great persons: numerous great names in literature. To be honest, the story
is too long for 981 pages for me, and is too tedious. I received this fiction as a Christmas gift from a friend last month, the social-realist novel was published by Picador in USA in 2017 with 981 pages. The book does not fit for
younger reader, it exposes sexual (bisexual) activity, and I noticed the
editing needed some more works on double quotation marks.
4321
(2017), a Realism Novel by Paul Auster: summary
His mother, Rose Adler, told
him about his grandfather who had three names only in hours. The story of his
grandfather has inspired him to write a novel 4321, about a young man’s life
named Archie Ferguson, who lived at three four houses, since the boyhood until
he got 20’s at the same time. But Ferguson had same biological father and
grandfather. His grandfather, Isaac Rezkinoff, had transformed his name three
times since just landed in Ellis Island in 1900. His fellow, a Russian Jew, had
suggested him to have a new name, an American name, Rockefeller, but when
immigration official had asked him what his name was, he had forgotten
instantly, then he answered it in Yiddish: Ikh
hob fargassen, to the man from immigration it was Ichabold Fergusson, a.k.a
Ike Ferguson. A man with three name in hours.
Ike
Fergusson’s offspring
Archie’s grandfather had
died 1923, the unexpected death at age forty-two- gunned down in a hold-up at
the leather-goods warehouse in Chicago where he had been employed as a night
watchman. The leather-goods company made
a small settlement with Fanny, his wife, to compensate her for her lost. Ike
Fergusson had left three boys. Fanny took left Chicago with the boys and, moving
to Newark, New Jersey, at the invitation of her husband relatives, who gave her
the top floor apartment in their house with small nominal monthly rent.
Her eldest son, Louis (Lew),
was fourteen. The middle was twelve, had taken to calling himself Arnold,
meanwhile his real name was Aaron. And Stanley, the nine year old, was commonly
known as Sonny. Times was tough, Fanny took in laundry and mended clothes,
soon, the boys also contributed to the household finance, they took an
after-school job. Archie was not yet two when his grandmother died, he retained
no conscious memories of her. Fanny was a difficult and erratic woman, prone to
violent screaming fits and maniac burst of uncontrollable sobbing, who bet her
boys with broom. No one knew where she had been born, but word that was said
she had landed in New York as a fourteen year-old orphan and had spent several
years at a place making hats.
It was Millie, Lew’s wife
who passed the story that Stanley, Archie’s father, was only eighteen, when his
mother died. According to Lew, there was a fourth Ferguson child, a girl born
three or four years after Stanley. Ike Ferguson was gone when Fanny gave birth
to the child. Ike was an ordinary seaman. With couple reasons, including
extreme poverty, Fanny drowned her newborn daughter in bathtub. Stanley never
told the story to his son.
Both Lew and Arnold had
fathered children, when Stanley met the twenty-one-year-old Rose Adler on blind
a date in New York City. So pretty she was, Archie’s mother, and Stanley the
twenty-nine year-old who had never once been burned by the fires of love.
Archie
Ferguson’s mother, Rose Adler
She, too, was the child of
immigrants, a Warsaw-born father and an Odessa-born mother, both of whom had
come to America before the age of three. Rose’s father left Detroit the day
after he graduated from high school, and headed for New York, where distance
relative had secured a job for him as a clerk in a downtown clothing store, but
young Adler gave up the job within two weeks. After stints sales
door-to-door-salesman of house cleaning products, a soldier in World War I, a
car salesman, he now earned his living as one of three minority-share partners
in a Manhattan real estate firm, with income large enough to have building
moved his family from Brooklyn to a new building in 1941, six months before
America entered war. There were doomed to a life conflicts and
misunderstanding, but marry they did, and even tough Benjamin Adler had trouble
staying faithful to Emma, his wife, after their daughters were born.
Rose adored her older
sister. By the time the girls were twelve and ten, it was already clear that
Mildred had exceptional mind, that her success at school was the result not
just of hard work but of superior intellectual gifts. Rose gradually stopped
competing on Mildred’s term. When she met Stanley, she had been employed for
the past two years by a portrait photographer named Emanuel Schneiderman. Old
Schneiderman was in his mid-sixties by then, a German-Jewish immigrant who had
come to New York with his wife and two sons after World War I. The war had
taken love from her. Before she met Stanley, she had been engaged to, David
Raskin, the Brooklyn-born future doctor who had entered her life when she was
seventeen. Raskin had been killed in a freak explosion during a basic training
exercise in Georgia. She would never recovered from David’s death, he would
always be the secret ghost who walked beside her as she stumbled into the
future.
It was Nancy Fein who set up
the blind date for her with Stanley. In Nancy’s words, Stanley Ferguson was
about six feet tall, good looking, a bit old, in business for himself and
apparently doing well, charming, polite, and a very good dance. Nancy met him
at a weekend dance. Only a year after married to Stanley, Rose’s uncle, Archie
Adler, dropped dead of heart attack.
Stanley was now working in
collaboration with his brothers, both of whom had also been exempted from
military service because they had flat feet and poor eyesight. Rose wanted to
be a mother, but three times she miscarried, three times in her third month of
pregnancy, and when they celebrated their second wedding anniversary in 1946,
they were still childless. It was in 1947 her only son, Archie Isaac Ferguson
was born.
Early
Life of Archie Ferguson
His father left the house
early in the morning, often before Ferguson was awake. Sometimes his father
would come home for dinner, sometimes he would not come home until Ferguson had
been put to bed. His father worked. His parents had two cars, his father’s the
blue DeSoto and his mother’s green Chevrolet. His mother smoked cigarette, but
his father smoked nothing.
The New Jersey Fergusons,
the big families with two aunt, two uncles, and five cousins and the Adlers,
the small family with grandparents and Aunt Mildred. It was not just a temporary
problem, he now realized, it was eternal. The doctor told his mother that was
it was too risk in having another baby. His mother No siblings ever, he created
imaginary brother for himself.
Two best places to visit
were his grandfather’s office in New York and his father’s store in Newark.
There were many things in his father’s store: row of small gadgets and large
appliances and a whole area on the second floor for beds and table and chairs,
numberless numbers of beds and tables and tables and chairs. Not long after
Ferguson’s fifth birthday, his aunt Mildred married Henry Ross, a tall man with
thin hair who worked as a college professor, as did Mildred, who had finished
her studies in English Literature four years earlier and was teaching at a
college.
When he was seven-year-old,
his older uncle, Uncle Lew, had suffered us and downs as a gambler over the
years Ferguson, consistently losing more than winning. His mother started
bad-mouthing Uncle Lew to his father. Uncle Lew had been owing his father’s
money. Just after Thanksgiving the following year, his father warehouse was
emptied out in a nighttime burglary. It would be taken out of the warehouse by
man named Ed, a big man with mermaid tattooed who had served on an aircraft
during the war.
Time passed, no robbers were
found, but his father managed to get the loan from bank which mean Archie and
family were spared dishonored of having to relocate to the poorhouse. The
police and insurance company were still working on the case, they had both come
to the conclusion that Uncle Arnold, his father’s brother, had related to the
robber. Since then Uncle Arnold and Aunt Joan moved to California.
Uncle
Lew
Archie’s cousin, Andrew
Fergusson was shot down to death in Korean War. It was 1952, Archie was only
five-year old. The extent of Lew and Millie’s grief over the death of their
son, compounded by the fact that they saw themselves as failed parents. Lew and
Millie had taste of alcohol. Lew’s drinking was increased, spreading beyond
parties, the cocktails hours, and the booze began affect him his work at store.
Another fact bout him Lew was his penchant for gambling. He was thirty-six thousand dollars in hole,
and Ira Bernstein, the man who had been handling the bets for the past dozen
years, was running out of patience. Some check form check book had been lost,
later Lew talked about his loan, for Bernstein had begun charging interest, and
every day the mount was going up. He was so scared, Bernstein’s men would hurt
him and family. Stanley just said nothing, because the only thought in his head
at the moment was how much he wanted to kill his brother.
Lew was in danger. They were
threatening to blind him to kill his daughter Alice and his wife Mille. The
burglar did not know that Staley was sleeping in the back room when he lit the
match. The fire was burning its way through the door of the back room, it rushed
over to the desk where Stanley was sitting and ate him alive.
Uncle Lew was in prison,
along with the gasoline man Eddie and his friend, and the master mind of the
operation Ira Bernstein. His father’s death had forced them to leave New Jersey
suburbs and were leaving in New York, His father’s life insurance policy had
provided with large money. There were no financial burdens.
Aunt Mildred was an
associate professor of English, and Uncle Don Marx was a writer, and although
they must have made money from those jobs, enough money to live in in any case,
it was clear to Archie that they lived for other things besides making money.
Uncle Don had already had a
son from his previous marriage. The boy’s name was Noah, he was three and a
half months younger than Ferguson. Much to Ferguson’s regret, the two of them
had been kept apart during the years of sinful cohabitation, since Uncle Don’s
ex-wife, justify angry having dumped in favor of Aunt Mildred, had refused to
allow his son to be tainted by contact with home-wrecker and family, which
extended beyond Adlers and Fergusons as well.
Noah was the first cynic
motormouth, so smart, both smart and funny at the same time. He lived his
mother, and saw his father only thirty days a year.
Mr. Scheinederman had two
grown sons, Daniels and Gilbert both of them around Ferguson’s father age, Daniel
and his wife had come to Archie hose or lunch. They had two children, a
thirteen-year-old boy and a nine-year-old girl, Amy, was about the prettiest little
girl Rose had even seen.
The school year ended, and
the following weekend Archie was sent off to sleepaway camp in New York State.
It was the first time he had left home, but he went without dread because Noah
Marx was going with him.
Fortunately, Camp Paradise
was not rough sort of place. In his first days there, Ferguson began to adjust
to the new environment, he made several discoveries. Among of the fact that he
was only boy in his camp who lived in suburbs. Everyone else came from New York
and surrounded by multitude city kids. He learned the names of scores of boys
and girls, first name and last name both, he understood that everyone was
Jewish.
Camp was better than home,
he realized. Life among friends was richer and more fulfilling than life with
parents. Something was wrong, Uncle Don supposed to have driven to the camp
with Ferguson’s parents. Don and Mildred have spilt up, their marriage was
over.
The warehouse robbery of
November 1955, followed the car crashed, had removed both Ferguson’s uncles
from the family circle. The disgraced Uncle Arnold now lived in far-off
California, the deceased Uncle Le had left the world for good, and the store, 3
Brothers Home world no more. Ferguson’s father returned his father’s in law’s
loan and open up a new, significantly smaller store in Montclair, Stanley’s TV
and Radio.
His father new business
happened to be on same block as Roseland Photo. Money was less plentiful than
it had been in the days of the old store. In 1958, when Ferguson was in need of
a new baseball glove, his father had to make long drive only to save money in the
grand scheme things but a crucial savings.
From his earliest childhood,
Aunt Mildred had been in the habit of buying him gifts, an abundance of gifts
that usually come in the form of books and records. The numbers of books and
records she shipped to him from California. They were fairy tales, fantastical
novel by Lewis Carol, E. Nesbit, Greek and Roman myths, and others. She was on
her visits back east with Uncle Henry, she had come out to Montclair to spend
some days with him.
He loved baseball, he
exulted in plying quarterback. He had been paying football steadily from the
age six. In November 1961, as a fourteen and a half-year-old nine grader, he
was sacked by the line man and wound up in hospital with a broken left arm. He
had been planning to try out for high school, but his had mother refused to
sign parent’s permission form. His parents were so upset when he broke his arm.
Ferguson’s career as a football player ended.
His parent held a large
gathering in his house, New Jersey. A family from New York, Dan Scheneiderman
with his family, were there. There was the sixteen year-old daughter, Amy.
Ferguson and Amy had known each other as small children and played together a
few times.
January 19, 2018
Sekapur
Sirih
Tulisan pada lembaran-lembaran
awal novel drama realis ini banyak dibumbui sejumlah peristiwa penting dan sejarah dunia, dari
PDI, Perang Vietnam, perang Korea, gejolak demonstrasi pembebasan kulit hitam, nama-nama
besar dan karya-karya besar dari sastrawan klasik hingga modern, sungguh menarik. Namun,
sempat dibingungkan, apa penulisnya salah, sempat terpikir. Bagaimana tidak,
dalam satu bab disebut ayah Archie Ferguson, dikatakan tewas dalam kebakaran, tapi pada bab berikutnya ayah-ibunya masih lengkap padahal saat usia yang sama. Menguji
pemahaman, sengaja tidak membaca review atau ringkasan, informasi apapun tentang novel ini. Agak
aneh dan menjenuhkan, hingga akhirnya, saya temukan pada halaman 970 ibunya
bercerita tentang kakeknya yang memiliki berubah menjadi tiga orang, dengan
tiga nama hanya dalam waktu pendek. Memang, di halaman pertama telah dikisahkan
kronologis kedatangan kakeknya, hanya saja tidak terpikirkan, penulisnya seorang brilian.
Kakeknya seorang imigran
Jahudi-Rusia ketika berlabuh di Pulau Ellis, seorang teman imigran yang juga tengah
menunggu antrian di kantor imigrasi, mengusulkan agar ia membuat nama baru,
nama Amerika. Isaac Rezkinoff pun menerima nama barunya Rockefeller, dua jam
berikutnya, petugas imigrasi menanyakan namanya, ia pun menjawab dalam Bahasa
Yiddish, Ik hob fargessen (saya telah
lupa), petugas menuliskan namanya Ichabod Ferguson.
Archie, tokoh utama, terinspirasi dari kisah kakeknya dalam menuliskan novel 4321, satu orang
membelah diri menjadi 3 orang dengan orang tua biologis yang sama, tinggal di
empat rumah berbeda, kota yang berbeda, tapi ada kesamaan lain; dia menyukai
membaca buku sejak belia, menyukai gadis bernama Amy, gadis ini kadang menjadi
anak dari bos ibunya, kadang saudara tirinya, kadang sepupu tiri.
Kehidupan masa kecil tidaklah
sama, tentu saja, karena lingkungan berbeda sama, masa remaja, dan masa ketika ia berada dua
puluhan, tentu berbeda. Archie Ferguson menjadi novelis hebat dan terkenal, jurnalis,
lelaki biasa, dan penulis biasa. Ada Archie yang kehilangan beasiswa dan tidak
mampu mendanai kuliah hingga DO dari kampus, ada Archie yang kuliah di Universitas Princeton, ada Archie kaya, ada pula Archie biasa agak nakal hingga mencuri
buku dari toko demi menghabiskan waktu seorang pelacur. Perjuangannya menjadi novelis besar di
Paris dimentori oleh Vivian Scheiber, juga seorang penulis, teman ayah tirinya.
Kehidupan percintaan yang liar dan kisah biseksual di Paris dan New York.
Banyak hal menginspirasi
dari fiksi ini di antaranya: kalimat-kalimat yang bagus hingga semangat kerja
tokoh Archie yang tidak mengenal lelah dalam ambisi menjadi novelis hebat tanpa
kuliah, walau dalam ratusan halaman kurang nyaman, agak membosankan, terlalu
banyak melakukan pengulangan, ditulis sepanjang 981 halaman, terbitan Picador,
AS, 2017, terlalu melelahkan, sepertinya 400 halaman lebih tepat. Novel ini kurang
tepat bagi pembaca muda, banyak mengandung aktifitas seks vulgar. Memang,
penulis buku ini sangat cerdas, seolah ingin membuat teka-teka pada pembacanya.
Novel ini termasuk sulit
diringkas karena banyak sekali tokoh bermunculan dan lokasi cerita dan tahun
yang saling mengaduk, hingga terkadang membuat bingung, mengesampingkan semua
hal yang tidak nyaman dalam karya ini, banyak tulisan bermutu yang dapat
dipelajari, kebebasan seseorang mengungkapkan pemikiran, realistis penulis
dalam mengungkap gejolak dan kritik sosial. Buku ini saya terima sebagai hadiah
Natal dari seorang teman, terima kasih padanya. Sejujurnya, novel ini cukup menjenuhkan, bukan saja karena pengulangan akitifitas bejibun, karakter membingungkan, juga plotnya terlalu monoton, namun tentu saja, bagi penggemar drama sosial-realis
mungkin akan menyenangi fiksi ini.
Terjemahan
dalam Bahasa Indonesia 4321 (2017), Sebuah Novel Sosial-Realis dari Paul
Auster: ringkasan
Tepatnya tahun 1900, ketika
Isaac Rezkinoff tiba di Pulau Ellis, dan atas saran teman yang juga seorang
perantau Yahudi-Rusia, ia mengganti nama Amerika Rockefeller, namun saat
petugas menanyakan namanya ia lupa, dalam telinga petugas imigrasi ia telah
menyebut Ichabod Ferguson.
Hidup dalam kekurangan, kerap
berganti pekerjaan, pekerjaan-pekerjaan serabutan, Ike Ferguson pun akhirnya
menikahi Fanny. Gadis yang tidak jelas lahir di mana, dibesarkan di sebuah
panti asuhan sejak usia tiga tahun. Ia mendapatkan tiga putra, Louis (Lew),
Aaron (Arnold), dan Stanley (Sonny). Disebut ada juga putri Ferguson, anak
ke empat dan terakhir. Fanny terpaksa membenamkannya di dalam bathup sesaat
setelah dilahirkan, kemiskinan yang sangat ekstrim mendorongnya melakukan perbuatan sadis itu, suaminya tidak
mengetahuinya. Ia tengah berlayar di lautan, saat itu bekerja sebagai pelaut. Ike
Ferguson pun mati muda, mati tertembak saat menjaga malam pada
sebuah gudang. Fanny pun membawa ketiga putranya ke New Jersey dan meninggalkan
New York, atas ajakan saudara jauh suaminya.
Fanny membesarkan tiga putranya
dengan mencuci dan menjahit baju dan pekerjaan serabutan lainnya, saudara itu adalah
pemilik apartemen yang tinggal di lantai dasar, Fanny berjuang membayar kamar
di lantai paling atas. Ketiga anaknya turut membantunya, semua uang yang mereka
dapatkan diserahkan pada ibunya, pekerjaan selepas sekolah.
Saat Stanley bertemu Rose
Adler, gadis cantik itu membuatnya tidak bisa tidur, kedua abangnya Lew dan
Arnold telah memiliki anak, memang usia ke dua abang jauh lebih tua dari dirinya. Rose
dijodoh-jodohkan dengannya oleh seorang teman dari tempat dansa, selain tampan,
pendiam, Stanley lihai berdansa. Saat pertama kali bertemu dengan Stanley, Rose
masih berduka, belum mampu melupakan tunangannya, David Raskin. Kalau
saja, tidak ada perang, tunangannya itu tidak akan meninggal, mungkin mereka
sudah menikah. Rose pada usia dua puluhan dan Stanley di awal tiga puluhan ketik
mereka menjalin hubungan.
Tiga tahun pernikahan,
Archie lahir, dinamai Archie Isaac Ferguson. Nama Archie diambil dari nama
paman Rose yang tewas tertembak di Perang Korea, nama keduanya tentu nama
kakeknya. Archie kecil sering meminta adik, tapi hal itu tidak mungkin, ibunya
sendiri telah mengalami tiga kali miskram sebelum kelahirannya, dokter menganjurkan
agar ia tidak hamil lagi yang dapat mengancam nyawanya.
Archie kecil sampai-sampai
memiliki adik imajinasi bernama John yang ia ciptakan sendiri, tidak banyak
saudara dari ibunya. Adler hanya mempunyai dua putri, Mildred dan ibu Archie
Ferguson, Rose. Mildred seorang professor Sastra Inggris, menikah tetapi belum
juga memilki anak, ia sangat berharap memilki sepupu. Sementra sepupu dari
Ferguson sudah deawasa bahkan sepupu Alice telah menikah, sepupunya Andrew tertembak peluru di Perang Korea. Sementara Paman Arnod telah pindah ke California, orang yang
seharusnya dipenjara atas keterlibatannya
dalam perampokan toko miliknya dan dua saudaranya. Toko perabotan dan peralatan rumah tangga terbilang besar, dimiliki Lew, Arnold dan Stanley. Daripada di penjara Arnlod pun membawa anak istri ke
California.
Setelah kematian putranya,
Lew dan istri jatuh dalam kebiasaan minum yang akut. Pesta-pesta, minum-minum,
hingga narkoba. Kebiasaan minum Paman Lew semakin parah, bahkan konsumsi narkoba hingga
di tempat pekerjaan. Saat bekerja di toko, ia sering memarahi pembeli, dan
bicara dalam keadaan mabuk narkoba. Kebiasaan buruk berjudi dan taruhan
pertandingan softball, yang membuatnya telilit hutang. Sang rentenir telah
membengkakkan hutang hari demi hari, ia pun mencuri cek toko, sempat membuat
adiknya Stanley kewalahan mencari. Pada puncaknya, ia diancam algojo rentenir, dn mengancam
membutakan matanya dan menyakiti istri Millie dan putrinya Alice.
Stanley kembali ke toko
malam itu, dan ia tertidur di kantor, pembakar toko tidak mengetahui, saat ia memantik koreknya, ada orang di dalam kantor toko. Api dengan cepat melalap barang-barang di toko, termasuk memakan Stanley
hidup-hidup. Paman Lew telah di penjara, pembakar dan anak buah sang rentenir dan otak pembakar yakni rentenir, turut dikurung
Archie dan ibunya pindah ke
New York, memulai hidup di sana dan akhirnya
menikah lagi dengan putra bos ibunya. Ada empat Archie yang melalui hidup,
Archie menjadi anak agak nakal ketika ibunya menikah dengan Gilbert, Ada Archie
yang masih memiliki ayah di usia 16 tahun, ada pula Archie yang memiliki ayah
tiri Daniel, sehingga ia bersaudara tiri dengan si cantik Amy. Ada Archie yang
kuliah di Unversitas Columbia, ada pula di Univesitas Princeton, ada pula yang tidak
kuliah. Di akhir cerita Archie menjadi penulis hebat dan menuliskan novel 4321.
*****
19 Januari 2018
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