The Keep is a sly novel. It creeps up on you. You read it thinking this is so Austeresque, and it is, but then a crack emerges in the narrative, a chink, and you go through the crack, which is like one of the arrow slits in the castle the protagonist, who isn’t really the protagonist, Danny, visits. Once you go through the crack you start to think that the novel is more Calvino than Auster, it’s got this strange depth to it which feels shallow but isn’t. Bit by bit the puzzle of The Keep starts to fall into place, the story within the story, which is then another story, and as this realisation breaks on you, the reader, it’s like being caught on the crest of a wave, which is going to break very soon, because the crest of a wave is the most ephemeral of creations, it barely even exists, and even as you ascend onto the crest, the wave is already breaking and you can see the shore which is the end of the novel, the silence that awaits once the last page has been read, but you, as a reader, are grateful for this moment that caught you by surprise, after you’d been paddling around, not going anywhere, to suddenly be lifted up, and the power and the glory of the ocean of narrative is fleetingly revealed, and it was all worth it, the writing, the surfing, the reading.
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