SOURCE: “His Master's Voice,” in Los Angeles Times Book Review, June 27, 1999, p. 2.

In the following review, Levi offers positive assessment of Timbuktu.

On the cover of Paul Auster's latest novel, Timbuktu, half the face of a dog peers out at the prospective buyer, daring him or her to take it home. The face is blurry, the focus as indistinct as the pedigree—a mutt of a photo. A book about a dog, it seems to say. And yet, there are dog books and there are dog books—hearty canines from Jack London, over-bred varieties like Millie's Book: As Dictated to Barbara Bush and kennels full of child-friendly puppies, from Eric Hill's Spot to Sheila Burnford's classic The Incredible Journey. Some of the finest writers in the English language have paper-trained their dogs, from Virginia Woolf with her story of Elizabeth Barrett's “Flush” to John Berger and his “King...