“Order and adventure”: The political in Paul Auster's 4321

Abstract

Paul Auster's 4321 is on the surface organized around a multiplication of one's life story. This essay argues that the kind of textual multiplication developed in the novel can also be linked with an essential need to express the depth and breadth of the political. Looking at three forms of expression—journalism, film, and poetry—it analyzes their functions in creating openings into a public realm departing from normative conceptions of collectivity and identification, which then leads to a rethinking of the common through the multiplicities of experience.