New York, New York (The New York Trilogy - Paul Auster)

Member Name: Deany

Product:	The New York Trilogy - Paul Auster
Date:	11/07/01 (1283 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Engrossing stories, Good introduction to Auster's work

Disadvantages: May not be what the reader is expecting

The “New York Trilogy“ is an excellent introduction to the work of Paul Auster. As the name suggests, the book is a collection of three short stories set in New York, each of which has some form of detective work as the central element. However, anybody expecting a trio of tales along the lines of Agatha Christie is in for a large shock.

The first story in the book – “City of Glass” – introduces many of the themes that run through all of Auster’s work. A man, Quinn, is awoken one night by a phone call from someone who believes he is a detective named Paul Auster of the Auster Detective Agency. However, as with many of Auster’s central characters Quinn is not a detective, but an author. He initially shrugs off the call as a wrong number, but when the caller rings back the following night Quinn’s interest begins to grow and he finds himself caught up in a baffling case which sees him spending week after week covertly observing the movements of one man.

The way that Auster plays with the names of his characters so that they echo and, at times, even are his own name is one of the elements that lead the reader to realise that these are not standard detective stories. By making the central character of this first story an author who is first mistaken for and then later pretends to be a detective called Paul Auster, Auster is letting the reader know that he is writing a highly personal story about what it means to be a writer. At one point Quinn even tracks down the fictional Paul Auster (who is also a writer and not a detective) and they strike up a conversation about writing.

This emphasis on writing and language is enforced as the case develops. Quinn spends a large portion of his time in the library researching the Tower of Babel and his meeting with Paul Auster is spent discussing Don Quixote. This in turn provides another signal to the reader, that of the self-deluded Quixote fighting a
gainst the invisible monsters that are nothing more than windmills in reality. As the story progresses the boundaries between reality and delusion begin to blur and by the end of the tale Quinn becomes a form of modern Quixote.

When I finished this first tale I was left with a mixture of admiration, bewilderment and a feeling of being cheated. The story is so well written that it is impossible not to admire what Auster has written, but at the same time it confounded my expectations to such an extent that I felt as if I had somehow been tricked. The detective case builds up to a level where there seems to be a solution on the horizon and then it is almost abandoned as the tale goes off on a tangent. There is no “the butler did it” style ending; the reader is left unsure as to what exactly has happened. Quinn fades out of the story and the unseen narrator is left to provide his own explanation of events.

After learning my lesson from the first story in the book, I approached the second – “Ghosts” – in a different frame of mind. Again, this begins as a standard detective story and then proceeds to break from the norm. The blurb on the back of my edition provides as good a description of the plot as any I can think of, so I will let it speak for itself – “Blue, a student of Brown, has been hired by white to spy on Black. From a window of a rented room on Orange Street, Blue keeps watch on his subject, who is across the street, staring out of his window”.

This story continues one of the central themes of the first, namely the covert observation of a man. However, this idea is developed further here. Blue is hired to observe and nothing more. There is no case to solve as such. The bulk of the story is taken up by Blue’s day to day observations and, although to a certain extent repetitive, Auster manages to keep the reader’s interest through the many innovations that he brings to
the genre.

Again, writing is a central theme, as well as the theme of identity. It is significant that the characters are not named. Through his obsessive journal entries of Black’s every movement Blue is attempting to grow to understand him. He is using writing as a means of uncovering an identity. Every main character in all three of the stories in the trilogy keeps a notebook or is engaged in a writing activity in order to understand someone better. As the reader makes his way through the book he begins to realise that the detective stories are not necessarily to do with the search for a criminal, but the search of the characters for their own true self. And by bringing so much of his own life into the stories Auster shows that he is using them as a way to explore his own identity as well.

The final story – “The Locked Room” – is once again based around a writer turned detective. In this case the central character begins to investigate the disappearance of a good friend, Fanshawe, and is slowly drawn into his life as he begins to document it. As the story develops the narrator moves in with Fanshawe’s wife, marries her and looks after his child – at the same time as he discovers that Fanshawe is not dead, but very much alive. He also discovers that his actions have been exactly what Fanshawe wanted to happen and eventually a meeting between the two is orchestrated.

This story brings together the threads running throughout the whole trilogy. References to the first two stories and characters in them are made, showing that this is not a collection of hermetically sealed writings but rather a work to be read as a whole. This is the only story in the book to be written in the first person and as such the search for identity appears even more profound here. The detective work to track down and understand who Fanshawe was and what his motives were (it goes without saying that Fanshawe is also a write
r) once again show Auster’s own search for identity. This theme is also explored in greater detail in the novel “Leviathan” which shows the narrator’s attempt to chronicle the life of a friend (also an author) who has recently been killed when a bomb he was making exploded.

All in all, the “New York Trilogy” is an excellent read. Those readers expecting a collection of “traditional” detective stories may find themselves disappointed, but for those with a more open approach to literature the collection of stories is ultimately rewarding and most definitely thought-provoking. The stories themselves are quite short and the language they are written in makes them a pleasure to read. Although some of the literary references (Cervantes, Milton, Poe etc.) may not be known to the general reader the stories can be understood without them and Auster takes time to explain the points he is making through discussions within the narrative. The “New York Trilogy” provides a great starting point for those wanting to get to know the works of one of the most inventive and interesting authors writing at the moment.

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