Paul Auster: The New York Trilogy - Book Report/Review Example

Name Institution Date Paul Auster: The New York Trilogy This essay is based on the book the New York Trilogy by Paul Auster. The essay describes the life of crime through the eyes of a detective and other characters that are narrated in three sections of the book. Paul Auster's New York Trilogy was first published in England in 1988.The book is categorized as detective fiction .Some have described Auster's stories as a mixture between the detective story and post modern writings (Auster 3) The Trilogy is a series of three loosely connected detective stories published collectively. Paul Auster uses the detective format of writing to address matters of recognition, attribute and discourse.The author’s writing is influenced by the innovative postmodern ideologies. Paul shows responsibility for social and moral aspects that go beyond metafiction. The New York Trilogy analyses how history evolved, and what it seems to be evolving into through the author. The structure and context of the classical, the 'hard-boiled', and the anti-detective novel, provides a predisposition to categorize the book as detective fiction (Auster 195). As stated above the trilogy circles around three narratives, the city of Glass, Ghosts and the locked room, the narratives are important in describing the life of a character who survives all odds to find his way through self-actualization. The way Paul Auster has divided the novel makes it flow in three different sections by dramatizing four fundamental concepts, these are the butterfly effect, the strange attractors, iteration and the emergence of chaos theory. City of Glass is the first story in the trilogy. The writer assumes the character of the detective. He takes on the role of an investigator who protects a man from his criminal father. The City of glass in this case is New York, apparently the only item that remains constant in the story. In the story, Paul assumes the character of the detective (Auster 196). Quinn takes the role as detective out of a mishap due to crossed telephone wires. The call from a mysterious caller is actually meant for Paul Auster the real detective in the story.Quin looses his identity by pretending to be Paul. It almost becomes difficult to tell apart the character and the author. All through the first section, the city of glass is told in third person. However, as the section nears to the end the final two pages come back to the first person, this is the place where the narrator returns from an African trip and calls his friend, who is also the writer of the novel Paul Auster. In eventually becomes obsessed with Quinn, the same person who is obsessed with Stillmans, he however has lost track of him and is not able to find Virginia Stillman. In this sense we see Auster and the narrator of the novel section visiting Virginia Stillmans apartment, this is the point where Auster finds Quinn’s red notebook and gives it to the narrator for safekeeping. It is at this point that the narrator confesses that he has been following the red note book for a great time, it is in fact the main theme of his story, and he has been able to keep it as explicit as it has been all through. At this point the reader realizes that the trilogy tends to dramatize the assertion that the self can be able to gain in knowledge through language due to the fact that, in strict sense, the self is the language that is being used. Ghosts which is volume two of the Trilogy is about a private detective called Blue, hired by a man named White to follow a man called Black who lives on Orange street. The author names his character after various colors, either out of boredom or a different way of creativity in character creation (Pinder 16). The section revolves around a detective by the name Blue who is hired by a white shadow Black. At this the narrator says that the location is unimportant, when he utters, ‘Let’s say Brooklyn heights, for the sake of argument. Some quiet, rarely traveled street not far from the bridge- orange street perhaps’ (Auster 1990, pp163). In this section, we see blue moving into the third floor of a four story brownstone to shadow Black, who lives in a third floor apartment opposite. Blue is a character in the book depicting a detective that is self-conscious about his social role. In the novel we see him reading True detective and Stranger than fiction with a lot of passion. This could be because of the uniqueness in character that his clients white seem to possess. At this, blue is meant to just remain in the room and continue writing reports and mailing them to White. It is a funny act, as he seems to write a report about someone who spends most of his time writing. At this, Blue feels like a slave who is locked in a singular place, meant to repeat the same thing he is doing over and over again. He feels like he is half alive and can only define his life through observing the life of other people. In this sense, he becomes so engrossed in the life of other people that he forgets about himself. Eventually when one goes through the story, one realizes that the stories he is writing are of no relevance to what he stands for. He ends up feeling like a nobody but a man who is just sitting alone in a room writing a book. At this point, he fights to get away from it. But then, how does he get out from the story he has been writing all through his time. The Locked Room is the volume three of a story of a writer who appears to lack the creativity to produce fiction. The main character is doubled with his former best friend Fanshawe. The protagonist, who is a failed author, becomes engrossed in looking for his friend (Fanshawe) who is a successful author. Fanshawe disappears and leaves his pregnant wife Sophie, his master piece poems, novels and theatre play scripts (Pinder 11). The locked room is narrated in first person and begins with the disappearance of Auster’s childhood friend Fanshawe. At this Auster is summoned by Sophie, who is Fanshawe’s wife where he comes to learn that Fanshawe has already named Auster executor of the works have taken him ages to come up with to the point that Fanshawe has been reported dead or disappeared. At this point he agrees to take up the assignment and quickly pulls strings to make sure that Fanshawe’s works have been published in a well-calculated time which will make sure that Auster’s work in the same sense is not harmed in any way (Auster, 1990). This risks Fanshawe’s literary fame while maintaining fortune for both Sophie and Auster who is the narrator in the novel. At this point we seen Sophie and Auster falling in love, moving in together. The riches that Sophie and Auster enjoy in this sense are derived from Fanshawe’s works. This seems to be going well until Auster gets a letter from Fanshawe which indicates that he is very thankful for his help and even goes ahead to claim that Fanshawe will never ever contact him again. Postmodern literature is characterized by reliance on fragmentation, paradox, and questionable narrators. This is a style which emerged in the post–World War II era. Postmodern works are a reaction against what is currently referred to as open-mindedness thinking and current approaches to literature (Richard 19). Postmodern works employ metafiction to undermine the writer's authority. These works question distinctions between high and low culture through the use of pastiche (the combination of subjects and genres not previously deemed fit for literature). Pastiche means to combine, or "paste" together, multiple elements. It is a representation of the philosophical aspect of postmodern society. Pastiche combines multiple genres to create a unique narrative. For example, William S. Burroughs uses science fiction, detective fiction and westerns; on the other hand, Margaret Atwood uses science fiction and fairy tales. Metafiction is making the artificial aspect of art or fiction manifest to the reader. It is fiction that discusses, analyzes and describes a work of fiction. Metafiction is often employed to undermine the authority of the author and advance a story in a unique way (Little 133). The hard-boiled genre is described as writing that relates to crime almost as it is in the real world. Chandler (a detective fiction writer) is considered as a master of the genre. This author is a perfect comparison to Paul Auster’s The New York Trilogy. The New York Trilogy shares some similar characteristics with Raymond Chandler’s detective works. For example, the stories all concern detective work and have white males as their principal character (Auster 196). Like Marlowe, in Chandler’s The Long Goodbye story, Daniel Quinn, the main character of City of Glass is a magnet for trouble; with a wrong telephone number drawing him into the investigation. Another observation is that, in City of Glass and The Long Goodbye the detectives are working for wealthy families, both involved in family feuds (Chandler 7).  Both Auster and Chandler present the detective as solitary individuals, living lonesome lives. In The Long Goodbye, Marlowe describes his lack of family and lonely life by saying "I was living that year in a house on Yucca Avenue." (Chandler; Raymond, The Long Goodbye, 1953) Auster’s detective also paints a solitary life. To emphasize his single life the book expresses "that he had once been married, had once been a father, and that both his wife and son were dead." (Auster; Paul, ‘City of Glass’ in The New York Trilogy, 1987) In Ghosts, Blue is expressed as a hardboiled detective, whose day to day activities reflect solitude (Little 150). The New York Trilogy is post-modern and a sequence from the modernly enticed literature of Chandler. There is an interconnection between the narratives, which brings out an element of some components of Auster’s work suggest that The New York Trilogy is not a traditionally hard-boiled novel (Pinder 12).  Moreover, while detective stories deal with the search for answers and unraveling of clues, in Auster’s work, one doesn’t comprehend the whole.  His calculations have no conclusive revelations. Detective fiction is concern with unraveling of truths drawn from a number of clues.Paradoxically; Auster’s writings are not near to solving any clues, which is a shift from the norm and reflection of the real world.  Therefore, The New York Trilogy is ironically fit in more than one category.  The New York Trilogy is detective fiction which creates a new form of fiction writing that has a mélange of post modern works and traditional genre of detective writing (Little 163). Works Cited Auster, Paul, ‘City of Glass’ in The New York Trilogy, (London: Faber and Faber, 1987) page 3 Auster, ‘Ghosts’ in The New York Trilogy, page 195-196 AUSTER, Paul. 1990. The New York Trilogy: City of Glass; Ghosts; The Locked Room (Contemporary American Fiction Series). Penguin Books; Reprint edition. Chandler, Raymond, The Long Goodbye, 1953 (London: Pan, 1979) page 7 Little, William G, ‘Nothing to Go On: Paul Auster’s ‘City of Glass’, Contemporary Literature (Vol. 38 No. 1, Spring 1997, pp 133-163) page 133 Pinder, David ‘Ghostly Footsteps: Voices, Memories and Walks in the City’ in Ecumene (January, 2001, Hodder Arnold Journals, Vol 8 No 1) pp 1-19. Richard Dyer (2004) Isaac Julien in Conversation in Wasafiri, Issue 43, 2004, p.29 Read More

In eventually becomes obsessed with Quinn, the same person who is obsessed with Stillmans, he however has lost track of him and is not able to find Virginia Stillman. In this sense we see Auster and the narrator of the novel section visiting Virginia Stillmans apartment, this is the point where Auster finds Quinn’s red notebook and gives it to the narrator for safekeeping. It is at this point that the narrator confesses that he has been following the red note book for a great time, it is in fact the main theme of his story, and he has been able to keep it as explicit as it has been all through.

At this point the reader realizes that the trilogy tends to dramatize the assertion that the self can be able to gain in knowledge through language due to the fact that, in strict sense, the self is the language that is being used. Ghosts which is volume two of the Trilogy is about a private detective called Blue, hired by a man named White to follow a man called Black who lives on Orange street. The author names his character after various colors, either out of boredom or a different way of creativity in character creation (Pinder 16).

The section revolves around a detective by the name Blue who is hired by a white shadow Black. At this the narrator says that the location is unimportant, when he utters, ‘Let’s say Brooklyn heights, for the sake of argument. Some quiet, rarely traveled street not far from the bridge- orange street perhaps’ (Auster 1990, pp163). In this section, we see blue moving into the third floor of a four story brownstone to shadow Black, who lives in a third floor apartment opposite. Blue is a character in the book depicting a detective that is self-conscious about his social role.

In the novel we see him reading True detective and Stranger than fiction with a lot of passion. This could be because of the uniqueness in character that his clients white seem to possess. At this, blue is meant to just remain in the room and continue writing reports and mailing them to White. It is a funny act, as he seems to write a report about someone who spends most of his time writing. At this, Blue feels like a slave who is locked in a singular place, meant to repeat the same thing he is doing over and over again.

He feels like he is half alive and can only define his life through observing the life of other people. In this sense, he becomes so engrossed in the life of other people that he forgets about himself. Eventually when one goes through the story, one realizes that the stories he is writing are of no relevance to what he stands for. He ends up feeling like a nobody but a man who is just sitting alone in a room writing a book. At this point, he fights to get away from it. But then, how does he get out from the story he has been writing all through his time.

The Locked Room is the volume three of a story of a writer who appears to lack the creativity to produce fiction. The main character is doubled with his former best friend Fanshawe. The protagonist, who is a failed author, becomes engrossed in looking for his friend (Fanshawe) who is a successful author. Fanshawe disappears and leaves his pregnant wife Sophie, his master piece poems, novels and theatre play scripts (Pinder 11). The locked room is narrated in first person and begins with the disappearance of Auster’s childhood friend Fanshawe.

At this Auster is summoned by Sophie, who is Fanshawe’s wife where he comes to learn that Fanshawe has already named Auster executor of the works have taken him ages to come up with to the point that Fanshawe has been reported dead or disappeared. At this point he agrees to take up the assignment and quickly pulls strings to make sure that Fanshawe’s works have been published in a well-calculated time which will make sure that Auster’s work in the same sense is not harmed in any way (Auster, 1990).

This risks Fanshawe’s literary fame while maintaining fortune for both Sophie and Auster who is the narrator in the novel.

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