The pen will never be able to move fast enough to write down every word discovered in the space of memory. Some things have been lost forever, other things will perhaps be remembered again, and still other things have been lost and found and lost again. There is no way to be sure of any this.

M. The common factor of both ideas is the question of the meaning of symbols for human beings. Paul Auster is heard reading from his books Hand to Mouth and The Red Notebook either as straight recitation integrated with other sounds as if in a radio play or passed through an electronically realized string resonator so that the low tones interact with those of a string ensemble.

Paul Benjamin Auster (born February 3 1947) is an American author whose writing blends absurdism existentialism crime fiction and the search for identity and personal meaning in works such as The New York Trilogy (1987) Moon Palace (1989) The Music of Chance (1990) The Book of Illusions (2002) and The Brooklyn Follies (2005).