Paul Auster: True & Peculiar Story

Paul Auster is one of my favorite writers because his writings are strange, compelling and inspiring. In his book of Collected Prose,published in 2005, several true and strange stories are included. Here is one I'd like to share. It is number 8.

Three summers ago, a letter turned up in my mailbox. It came in a white oblong envelope and was addressed to someone whose name was unfamiliar to me: Robert M. Morgan of Seattle, Washington. Various post office markings were stamped across the front: Undeliverable, Unable to Forward, Return to Writer. Mr. Morgan's name had been crossed out with a pen, and beside it someone had written Not at this address. Drawn in the same blue ink, an arrow pointed to the uppet-left-hand corner of the envelope, accompanied by the words Return to Sender. Assuming that the post office had mad a mistake, I checked the upper-left-hand corner to see who the sender was. There, to my absolute bewilderment, I discoverd my own name and my own address. Not only that, but this information was printed on a custom-made address label (one of those labels you can order in packs of two hundred from advertisements on matchbook covers). The spelling of my name was correct, the address was my address----and yet the fact was (and still is) that I have never owned or ordered a set of printed lables in my life.

Inside, there was a single-spaced typwritten letter that began: "Dear Robet, In response to your letter dated July 15, 1989, I can only say that, like other authors, I often receive letters concerning my work." Then, in a bombastic, pretentious style, riddled with quotations from French philosphers and oozing with a tone of conceit and self-satisfaction, the letter-writer went on to praise "Robert" for the ideas he had developed about one of my novels in a college course on the contemporary novel. It was a contemptible letter, the kind of letter I would never dream of writing to anyone, and yet it was signed with my name. The handwriting did not resemble mine, but that was small comfort. Someone was out there tyring to impersonate me, and as far as I know he still is.

One friend suggestd that this was an example of "mail art." Knowing that the letter could not be delivered to Robert Morgan (since there ws no such person), the author of the letter was actually addressing his remarks to me. But that would imply an unwarranted faith in the U.S. Postal Service, and I doubt that someone who would go to the trouble of ordering address labels in my name and then sitting down to write an arrogant, high-flown letter would leave anything to chance. Or would he? Perhaps the smart alecks of this world believe tht everything will always go their way.

I have scant hope of ever getting to the bottom of this little mystery. The prankster did a good job of covering his tracks, and he has not been heard of since. What puzzles me about my own behavior is that I have not thrown away the letter even though it continues to give me chills every time I look at it. A sensible man would have tossded the thing in the garbage. Instead, for reasons I do not understand, I have kept it on my work table for the past three years, allowing it to become a permanent fixture among my pens and notebooks and erasers. Perhaps I keep it there as a monument to my own folly. Perhaps it is a way to remind myself that I know nothing, that the world I live in will go on escaping me forever.