Ve güzel bir kitabın ardından aklımı kurcalayan yine aynı soru; "NEDEN BEN BU KİTABI DAHA ÖNCE OKUMADIM!?"

Cam Kent Paul Auster'ın ilk romanı olarak geçiyor. Sanırım daha önce farklı bir isimle bir kitap daha çıkarmış fakat ona ün kazandıran kitap bu olmuş. Aynı zamanda New York Üçlemesi'nin de ilk kitabı.
Sanırım kitabı alalı 1.5 sene oluyor emin değilim. Ama bir türlü elim gitmiyordu. Bir kaç gün önce dedimki artık bu kitabı okumam gerek ve şu an kendimi yumruklamak istiyorum. Kitap baştan sona ağzımı açık bıraktı. Başta hiç bir şey anlamadığım için, ortalarda "vay bee ne güzel konu ne güzel yazmış adam" dediğim için ve sonunda da hiç bir şey anlamadığım için.

Beni tanıyanlar Murakami ile love/hate ilişkimiz olduğunu bilir ve kitabı okurken bir an dedim ki "bunu Murakami mi yazmış acaba?" Yazım tarzları ve olayı ele alışları o kadar çok benziyordu ki kitabı sevmemiş olsam da sırf bu yazım tarzı için yüksek puan verirdim ama kitabı sevdim. Hem de çok sevdim. Çünkü farklıydı. Beni ufak şeyleri düşünmeye ve onları aklımda tutmaya itti. Bana hiç beklemediğim şeyler verdi ve böyle bir kitapta asla görmek istemediğim bir sonla baş başa bıraktı. Benim için bu kitaptan nefret etmek ama aynı zamanda favorilere sokmak demek oluyor. Şu an oturup bütün Paul Auster kitaplarını okumak istiyorum o kadar çok sevdim ki hemen seriye de devam edeceğim bu gazla gün içerisinde bitireceğim gibi duruyor.

Kısaca konudan da bahsedeyim Quinn adlı bir adam var. Kendisi takma bir isimle polisiye romanları yazıyor ve geçimini böyle sağlıyor. Bir gün evine bir telefon geliyor ve dedektif Paul Auster'i istiyor. Quinn orada öyle birinin yaşamadığını söylediği halde aynı telefon bir kaç defa daha geliyor ve Quinn bu sefer Paul Auster rolünü üstlenip dedektif olarak arayan kişi ile görüşmeye gidiyor. Kendisini de yazıdğı romanlardaki gibi bir durumun içerisinde buluyor. Kitap polisiye gibi görünüyor fakat tam anlamıyla değil. Yani kitabı polisiye olarak okuyacaksınız okumayın çünkü hoşunuza gitmez. Daha çok farklı bir tat alma amacıyla okunmalı çünkü kitap bunu veriyor. Çok farklı şeylerden bahsediyor ve çok farklı şeyler gösteriyor. Sizi küçük şeylerin farkına varmaya itiyor. Eğer kısa bir süreliğine dünyadan kopup "ben şimdi ne okudum bilmiyorum ama harika bir şey okudum." demek istiyorsanız okuyabilirsiniz. Fakat yaşınız küçükse çok fazla zevk alacağınızı düşünmüyorum.

سه‌گانه نیویورک
جلد اول: شهر شیشه ای
اولین کتاب از سه‌گانه‌ی نیویورک جذاب شروع شد. یک‌ نویسنده‌ی داستانهای جنایی به نام کوئین که با اسم مستعار می‌نویسه و هیچکس اون رو نمی‌شناسه یک تماس دریافت می‌کنه که ازش کمک میخواد اما نه از اون، بلکه از یک کارآگاه خصوصی به نام پل استر. این اتفاق چند شب تکرار میشه تا اینکه کوئین تصمیم میگیره خودش رو به جای پل استر جا بزنه تا ببینه موضوع از چه قراره و آیا می‌تونه کمکی بکنه یا نه. در ادامه با مشخص شدن اینکه تلفن از کیه و چرا کمک میخواد داستان باز هم کشش خوبی داره اما انتهای داستان به نظرم آنچنان جذاب نیست و ضعیف‌ترین بخش کتابه. حالا نمیدونم دو کتاب دیگه هم به این داستان مربوط هست یا نه، بخونم ببینم چی میشه. توی این کتاب بحث مربوط به زبان و تحقیقات در مورد کتابی که یکی از شخصیت‌های کتاب نوشته برای من جالب بود.ه

I don't know what the book's title City of Glass refers to but whatever you do,
don't answer the phone!


(scene from The Maltese falcon, courtesy https://setscene.org/2016/05/11/welco...)

I'm not a noir expert but I'd definitely classify this novel, the first in Paul Auster's The New York Trilogy as noir. I found it unsettling, disturbing, mind boggling and ultimately, questioning what the heck happened here!!

You see these homeless people in large urban areas and wonder, how did they get to this stage? Why are they living like this, especially when there's resources available for them? Do they want to be helped? Or maybe they can't be helped, that they work under a different agenda than most normal people.

A case of mistaken identity resulting into a descent of madness:
(The Wrong Man courtesy of https://creepycatalog.com/film-noir-m...)

The search begins:
(photo courtesy of https://www.pinterest.com/mymodernmet/)

(image courtesy of https://owyheestarweimaranersnews.com...)

The Red Notebook:
(courtesy https://twitter.com/pulppaperheaven/s...)

(As an aside, more on The Red Notebook:
From Wikipedia: The Red Notebook is a story-in-a-story collection by Paul Auster. The book consists of four parts, all stories which had appeared previously: The Red Notebook (1995), Why Write? (1996), Accident Report (1999) and It Don't Mean a Thing (2000). They are true stories gathered from Auster's life as well as the lives of his friends and acquaintances and they have all one thing in common: the paradox of coincidence.)

I'll leave this review with high recommendations to fans of noir. This time, instead of watching an old black and white film, read this book.


(photo courtesy of https://shenandoahliterary.org/641/)

Where do I even begin? Where could I even begin?! First off, this novel is a masterpiece, although it is definitely not for everyone for many, many, many reasons. The writing is very meta and postmodern (that is sort of what this book, and the trilogy it belongs to, is known for), some sections, while not exactly difficult or hard to follow, are intentionally obscure and offbeat in an inaccessible way, and, despite this technically being a mystery novel, there is no conclusion to anything really, there is no real climax or big payoff. Just sadness. An ongoing undercurrent of melancholy runs through practically every word of the novel, but nowhere is it more present than in the brutally tragic final chapters that made me tear up in soft sorrow.

We witness a man's fall in a unique unconventional narrative involving all sorts of sad lost souls who may or may not even exist in the first place. Nothing is certain in Auster's New York, which is likely the result of Paul Auster's own love and respect for (and eventual friend/acquaintanceship with) the fantastically tragicomic master of the absurdist novel and play Samuel Beckett, whose shadow casts a clear influence upon many parts of the novel, particularly the twisted, funny, dark, depressing, and uncomfortably sexual "speech" by the obviously mentally deranged Peter Stillman, a man whose hyperintelligent father went mad and seems to be posing a great threat against him since his release from a mental institution. Within itself, that is obviously an odd premise for a mystery novel, but Auster takes it to heights of an even more bizarre and unpredictable nature as he includes himself as a character in the novel, randomly switches from third to first person at the very, very end, speaking from the point of view of a previously unknown character, and has his text directly reference and uniquely parallel Miguel de Cervantes' immortal masterpiece Don Quixote. It's a weird, wonderful, and weary twist on the traditional detective tale, and its vibrant energy runs on an elegant, emotional, sad, and blackly humorous eloquence few authors could ever dream of remotely capturing.

I picked City of Glass off the bookcase because I heard Paul Auster interviewed on Radiolab.  In the interview he described getting a phone call, after the novel was published, by a man asking for Quinn (the character in City of Glass who takes on the identity of Paul Auster).  It sounded like an intriguing novel, and I decided to give it a chance.

It's no secret that I'm not a Paul Auster fan.  At times, it seems like he is more interested in exploring identity, whether it is that of his characters or overtly himself, instead of telling a complete story.  Plot is sacrificed for style, and postmodernism and metafiction shape the writing.

The novel starts with Daniel Quinn receiving a phone call asking for Paul Auster, the detective.  Daniel Quinn is a writer whose wife and son died, which has caused him to distance himself from his friends and career.  Quinn writes under a pseudonym, William Wilson, about a detective named Max Work.  Quinn identifies with Max Work, but only through the separate identity of Wilson, his pseudonym.  Without Wilson, he would be unable to Work.  After getting the call again, Quinn takes on the case and becomes Paul Auster.

What layer does it add that Paul Auster has written himself into the novel?  I like it when Charlie Kaufman wrote himself into Adaptation, so why am I less thrilled when Auster does it?  Part of the reason is that it seems like Auster's motives seem less about fiction and story, and more about ego.  He does bring up interesting questions like what is the relationship between the writer and his characters?  In the end, that's what City of Glass is interested in exploring.  How we create language, how we tell stories, and who forms whom.  Do the characters in Auster's head define Auster, or does he define the characters?

The other point where I diverge with Auster is how I view the universe.  I don't believe in fate.  I don't believe in magical coincidences being anything other than the play of statistics.  I do believe in chance, but I don't put any extra importance on chance.  Someone could win the lottery and their life would change.  Is there special meaning in that, or is just that random events happen?  A world where events and possibilities are linked by something unseen is a much safer world, but it's one that ultimately is a false world, another fiction which has been created.

As City of Glass continues, the writer who is many people slowly disintegrates and loses himself in his own fiction.  He believes he is the detective and the case is real.  He trusts in the circumstances and doesn't check his facts.  Another key question is who is telling the story?  Actually, that's not a question, because we all know that Paul Auster is telling the story, but there's another narrator toward the end of the novel, a friend of Quinn's who speaks in the first person.  Here we add another layer in the identities of the author.

Lastly, Auster tries to mirror Don Quixote, which is fine, but he explains it all to the reader.  Why not let that be present, and if the reader notices the similarities then it adds texture to the story.  If the reader doesn't notice it, there's no harm done.  Instead, it's spooned into the reader's mouth through a few pages of clunky exposition.

Overall, I appreciate Auster's exploration of writing and the relationships between characters and the writer, but feel that some elements that drive a story our sacrificed for style and ego.

Casi desde el principio de la lectura de “Ciudad de cristal” percibí un cierto aire de familia que me estaba gustando mucho (estoy seguro de que Auster será mi nuevo redescubrimiento tras un tortuoso pasado juntos). Como esta sensación persistía, busqué en Google por si había más gente que hubiera sentido la misma cercanía literaria con Vila-Matas que yo estaba observando (y que después no noté tanto o no noté en absoluto en sus otras dos novelas que conforman la trilogía). Inmediatamente olvidé mi propósito pues lo que encontré fue sorprendente.

No solo Vila-Matas había descubierto a Auster con esta novela, no solo había escrito un ensayo titulado “No soy Paul Auster”, no solo mantiene con él una admiración mutua y una relación más o menos estrecha, sino que además parece ser que fue él quien le dio al autor americano el motivo para escribir esta novela.

En su “Cuaderno Rojo”, Auster cuenta que la idea de “Trilogía de Nueva York” surgió gracias a dos llamadas de teléfono equivocadas que recibió en dos días consecutivos. Parece ser, y esto pudiera ser solo una de esas maravillosas anécdotas que solo tienen el antipático defecto de no ser reales, que fue Vila-Matas, antes de conocer al autor, por quién por puro azar se hicieron esas llamadas después de que, confundiéndolo con Salinger, le persiguiera por Nueva York, tal y como el protagonista de la novela de Auster, un escritor llamado Quinn, hace con Peter Stillman.

n   “Nada era real excepto el azar.” n

Mi comentario a toda la trilogía se puede leer aquí.

Daniel Quinn lives by himself in New York, his wife and son are dead. He manages to just about avoid grief. One tactic is by writing mystery novels which he does under the pseudonym of William Wilson to avoid any attention.

On a succession of evenings, late at night, the phone rings. The caller asks for the private detective Paul Auster. Initially Quinn tells the caller that he has the wrong number but he is intrigued by the idea of acting as a detective and eventually agrees to meet the caller, assuming the identity of Auster. The caller, Peter Stillman, is a young man affected by his past and the abuse of a brutal father who shut him away for nine years. Peter believes that his father, recently released from detention in an asylum, will try to kill him. Quinn as Auster undertakes to protect him.

As the plot unfurls it becomes less of a mystery and more of a psychological abstract. The questions that feel important in the first part, does Quinn have the right man, what is the purpose of his morning walks, are no longer relevant. Soon, everything is in doubt, including the narration.
Those who stumble on this expecting another mystery novel will be disappointed, but those who seek innovation and experimentation within the genre, like myself, will be totally engrossed, and eager for the remaining two novels of the trilogy.

خیلی خوشخون و جذاب بود.پر از جمله های کوتیشن مانندی که دوسشون داشتم.استر همیشه نویسنده ی جذابی بوده که خوب بلده معما طرح کنه و تو رو دنبال خودش بکشونه.کمتر از یه روز و نیم طول کشید خوندنش اونم در شرایطی که 5 دقیقه یه بار یکی صدام میکرد یا مزاحم میشد.وگرنه کمترم طول میکشید.

Amerikanische Literatur findet sich in meiner Leseliste selten. Mit Paul Auster wollte ich einen Autor außerhalb der üblichen Lektüre entdecken. Das ist auf jeden Fall gelungen. Aber ob es Postmodernismus hätte sein müssen? Vielleicht war es der falsche Zeitpunkt, vielleicht die falsche Parallellektüre, aber die Geschichte um den Krimiautor Daniel Quinn, der sich in New York und der Geschichte verliert, hat mich kaum fesseln können. Zwar las es sich schnell, aber der Leser wurde immer wieder auf falsche Fährten gelockt, Handlungsstränge endeten abrupt, Rätsel häuften sich. Am Schluss blieb ein großes Fragezeichen. Ich kann mit vorstellen, dass man es gemeinsam mit anderen Interpretationswilligen mit viel mehr Gewinn lesen kann und habe durchaus die Spielereien mit Identität und der Suche nach einer Ursprache bemerkt, die mir auch gefielen, aber nicht genügend Motivation boten, weiterzudenken. Für einen New-York-Kenner mögen die genauen Beschreibungen der Wege durch die Stadt interessant sein, evtl. hätte man mit einem Stadtplan daraus ein Muster erkennen können, aber mir fehlte, wie schon erwähnt, der Antrieb dazu. Eventuell werde ich es später noch einmal mit Paul Auster versuchen.

I've read this before but didn't recall it being this good! A bit of a spoof or deconstruction of the hardboiled detective genre with a lot of literary references and an exploration of language. It's compared to Kafka in the description, but I felt it was more like something Borges would be interested in writing (if we have to compare every book to another writer). It also brought to mind Bored to Death, a writer unwittingly becomes a PI just for the sheer thrill of it.

The ending is a bit dull in my opinion and leaves more questions than answers, but it plays with the idea of a private language. But other than that I was pretty enthralled the whole time and it's as interesting to me as more traditional detective books I've read recently like The Big Sleep or The Maltese Falcon. But nothing gets me more excited than two characters talking about the in-universe fictional (diegetic) authorship of Don Quixote.

n  «La buena novela de misterio no tiene desperdicio, no hay ninguna frase, ninguna palabra que no sea significativa. E incluso cuando no es significativa, lo es en potencia, lo cual viene a ser lo mismo».n

Ciudad de cristal narra la historia de un solitario escritor de novelas de misterio que es contactado por equivocación para llevar a cabo un trabajo de detective, el cual aceptará a sabiendas del error y terminará convirtiéndose en su principal obsesión.

Paul Auster imprime, desde el inicio de la narración, un aura de misterio que envuelve al protagonista y su historia, poniendo en tela de juicio cualquier atisbo de lucidez que explique los acontecimientos que van sucediendo a lo largo de su investigación. Así, intercalando diálogos precisos con ingeniosas digresiones, el autor va jugando con el desarrollo de la trama, abriéndola a un sinfín de posibilidades y manteniendo la intriga hasta el final, donde termina cerrando el círculo con un desenlace sorpresivo pero muy bien logrado.

Este ha sido mi primer acercamiento a Paul Auster y me ha servido para confirmar el porqué es considerado un grandísimo escritor: conoce el terreno y lo utiliza a su antojo.

In my review of Paul Karasik and David Mazuchelli's graphic novel version of CITY OF GLASS, I wrote: "The graphic artists give it so much dimension that the text-only version seems (in my memory) to be no more than a screenplay to this version's fully-realized presentation."

My memory was wrong. I re-read the original and found it as multi-dimensional as the graphic novel version. Or perhaps the two versions together compounded the book into something greater. Or perhaps they cancelled each other out perfectly, leaving a space empty of language(s), and in its place a kind of pure expression.

This attempt to reconcile meaning (being) and absence (nothingness) is the center of this Auster novel (if not his entire body of work), in which a man (a novelist), mistaken for another man (a detective), becomes that man, and then disappears. His project, as novelist and detective, is to investigate the meaning of language, or the language of meaning.

The short potboiler is full of doublings and disappearances: two Peter Stillman characters; two Paul Austers, two DQ characters (Daniel Quinn and Don Quixote--and two Daniels, and two Don Quixotes!), two HDs (Henry Dark and Humpty Dumpty), two William Wilsons, two older men emerging from a train, two naps in the park, two meals of eggs, two conversations about books and theories of language, two red notebooks. A yo-yo (two yo's) that travels the same path twice, and then is gone.

Auster approaches Heisenberg, Berkeley, and other philosophers with a special perspective on language: how can we name something that changes? But if we don't name something, does it exist?

(p. 26) "It was as though Stillman's presence was a command to be silent."

(p. 122) "And if we cannot even name a common, everyday object that we hold in our hands, how can we expect to speak of things that truly concern us? Unless we can begin to embody the notion of change in the words we use, we will continue to be lost."

(p. 194) "Night and day were no more than relative terms; they did not refer to an absolute condition. At any given moment, it was always both. The only reason we did not know it was because we could not be in two places at the same time."

(p. 175) "His ambition was to eat as little as possible, and in this way stave off his hunger. In the best of all worlds, he might have been able to approach absolute zero, but he did not want to be overly ambitious in his present circumstances. Rather, he kept the total fast in his mind as an ideal, a state of perfection he could aspire to but never achieve."

These quotes illustrate the purpose but not the whole elegance and taut momentum of Auster's prose. It burns quick and pure, the narrative threads and characters combusting into the ether, while the essence of the city is revealed as through a clear pane.

What do we see through it? The remnants of that city: "things that truly concern us."

(p. 122): "The brokenness is everywhere… You only have to open your eyes to see it. The broken people, the broken things, the broken thoughts. The whole city is a junk heap."

Quinn himself becomes homeless to prove this point, until he too disappears. Before he does, he takes a walk around the city, mirroring the rambles that Peter Stillman (Sr.) took earlier in the novel.

While Stillman's walks (precisely described by Auster) traced the form of letters that spelled out TOWER OF BABEL, Quinn's walk (from page 162 - 172) is only one shape, which I traced on a map of Manhattan. I'd like to say that it clearly resembles something (like a question mark), but cannot. It could be a face, or a key. In the end I have decided that it is just a walk around the city--a meaningless and pure gesture that negates the words the novelist had written, and yet contains all possibility.

*

WHY I READ THIS BOOK: Originally I read this book (in the early 1990's) because my college pal Michael Ouweleen recommended it to me… I believe it came up in connection with Saul Bellow's HERZOG, but I can't recall why. I was visiting Michael in New York City, and the experience, and then the book, had a big effect on me. I devoured everything I could of Auster's, and continue reading his novels to this day. While I have enjoyed his work (unfortunately, with diminishing enthusiasm), nothing moved me like this first novel, with the possible equal of the novel The Music of Chance or his book of essays The Art of Hunger. Re-reading it now led directly from my recent experience with the graphic novel version.