Leviathan (Auster novel) building accidentally went off. According to the forensic reports that have just been published, the man was killed instantly. His body burst into dozens of small pieces, and fragments of his corpse were found as far as fifty feet away from the site of the explosion. —"Leviathan" Through his own investigations, the narrator attempts to answer questions as to who the man was who blew himself up, why he was found with a homemade bomb, and what circumstances brought him to a violent end. "Leviathan" is borrowed from the biblical sea monster that Thomas Hobbes used as a metaphor for
Leviathan (Auster novel) in the novel’s introduction. Ben, the novel’s central character meets Maria at the point where he begins to recreate his own life. The contrast is that while Calle/Maria parlayed her fictions into a career, Ben creates a life that finishes him. Stylistically, Auster proves his themes through circuitous multi-layered writing, reporting conflicting personal accounts to inscribe subjective kinds of truth. Auster references themes of coincidence and chance that began with the hero of his 1985 novel, "City of Glass" who believed that “nothing was real except chance”. In 2009, Audible.com produced an audio version of "Leviathan", narrated by Peter Ganim,