en-uk Tue, 30 Oct 2007 15:37:29 GMT Copyright 2007 Times Newspapers Ltd. custserv@timesonline.co.uk http://www.timesonline.co.uk Sat, 07 Nov 2009 04:21:06 GMT Newspapers 144 21 http://www.timesonline.co.uk http://images.thetimes.co.uk/TGD/picture/0,,116979,00.gif Patrick McGuiness Wed, 04 Nov 2009 11:45:05 GMT 2009-11-05T03:42:24Z Bill Broun Fri, 06 Nov 2009 15:49:04 GMT 2009-11-06T03:58:46Z Paul Auster’s fifteenth novel may leave those who haven’t read his previous fourteen feeling oddly unqualified, for Invisible ideally demands a certain kind of reader: someone literary and intellectual; someone mesmerized by puzzles and Möbius strips; someone with an interest in all things Lacanian, a soupçon of Francophilia and a receptivity to High Postmodernism. Even if you don’t have these requirements, the novel offers delicate rewards, but appreciating them needs a patient willingness to inhabit what one character terms “the land of If”, a slippery world of contingency, of endless unanswerables, of missing and, yes, invisible authors of words and deeds. Paul Reitter Wed, 04 Nov 2009 13:03:22 GMT 2009-11-05T03:42:46Z Alex de Waal Wed, 04 Nov 2009 13:08:45 GMT 2009-11-05T03:58:43Z The hard-bought election in Afghanistan was a reality check for the United States and its allies, compelling them to look again at their promise of building a modern state in that country. After overthrowing the Taliban, Afghan exiles and their foreign backers assumed that they would put the aberration of the past thirty years behind them and resume the natural ascent towards democracy and development. Building a state was the key. The rule of law and institutions would replace the disorder of the past; reconstruction and prosperity would supplant the underground economy that had flourished during the years of war and misrule. Eight years on, it’s not happening. Concern over the military resurgence of the Taliban has obscured a bigger failure: Afghanistan is not sticking to the reconstruction script.