Multiple Realities and Alternate Lives: Navigating Conflicting Scenarios in Paul Auster’s 4 3 2 1, Philip Roth’s The Counterlife, and Kate Atkinson’s Life After Life

Abstract

Paul Auster’s latest novel, 4 3 2 1, is one among a number of recent works of fiction presenting multiple alternate versions of a character’s life. It can, therefore, be placed in productive dialogue with two similar, though different in many respects, contemporary novels exploring plural counterfactual realities, namely Philip Roth’s The Counterlife (1986) and Kate Atkinson’s Life After Life (2013). By projecting complex ontologies in which the distinction between actual and non-actual events is often blurred, these texts investigate the inextricable link between truth and imagination, and factuality and possibility, characterizing a life story. Thus, a great part of their appeal lies in their evocation, by “unnatural” means, of a most “natural” and deeply human experience, namely the impression that life cannot be reduced to a single, linear, and consistent course of events. At the same time, all three novels inevitably represent cognitive challenges for readers striving to navigate their impossible textual universes, as their juxtaposition of incompatible scenarios jars both with our real-world experience and with general readerly expectations for a coherent narrative development. By combining a cognitive approach with concepts drawn from possible worlds theory and unnatural narratology, this thesis aims to highlight the complexities of a reader’s journey through the multiple worlds of Auster’s 4 3 2 1, Roth’s The Counterlife, and Atkinson’s Life After Life.