Faber Firsts The New York Trilogy By Paul Auster
Faber Firsts
The New York Trilogy by Paul Auster
The New York Trilogy by Paul Auster
In brief
First published in the UK 1987, The New York Trilogy
was originally published as three books: City of Glass
(1985) which sees a crime novelist being driven mad by
having to assume various identities as part of a real-
life case; Ghosts (1986), which sees a private eye named
Blue (trained by a man named Brown) taking on a case
from a client named White … which requires him to
spy on a man named Black, on Orange Street. And The
Locked Room (1986), which sees an author researching
the biography of his missing childhood friend – a
talented writer - in order to publish his writing, but
gradually taking the man’s identity himself. In each case,
the conventions of the traditional detective novel are
being overthrown. Auster uses the traditional narrative
structures of the detective novel to explore questions
of identity, reality and fat, rather than to simply solve
a case. Auster has created a series of detective stories
where it is the readers themselves who are the real
detectives: the ultimate post-modern page-turners.
Faber Book Club: The New York Trilogy by Paul Auster
Background
Such is the nature of The New York Trilogy that any notion of
‘guiding’ the reader plays into Paul Auster’s hands immediately.
Each of the three stories is exploring and experimenting with
the structure and traditions of the detective story, as well as
the roles of the author, protagonists and the reader. The literary
community has invested considerable effort in trying to find the
most appropriate identity for these uncategorizable stories: they
have been variously described as a ‘metaphysical mystery tour’,
‘a seamless little detective story’ and ‘exquisitely bleak literary
games’.
In essence, Auster’s protagonists in these stories are modern
approximations of the ‘heroes’ of the early twentieth century
novels of Raymond Chandler, Dashiell Hammett and Philip
Marlowe. Chance meetings and drunken coincidences, wealthy
feuding families in need of a private investigator and solitary
detectives all features. The bewildering bleakness of the modern
urban sprawl – be it Los Angeles or New York features is also a
key feature, as is the question of identity.
However, whereas classic detectives are always confident in their
environment and are ultimately successful with their case, Auster’s
protagonists are confused, not even real detectives and sometimes
going insane – and nothing is solved in The New York Trilogy. As
Auster himself has said in interview, ‘mystery novels give answers,
my work is about asking questions’. In this respect, his stories are
nothing like the classic novels he appears to be aping.
City of Glass sees a detective fiction writer and private
investigator who has published poetry, translations and critical
essays adopt a pseudonym and turn his hand to mystery novels.
Of course, much of this biography echoes that of Auster himself,
who is, with City of Glass, turning his hand to the detective novel.
To further add to the intricacies and post-modernism of the plot,
a character named Paul Auster appears in the story – but not as
the narrator.
Similarly, the title of the third story The Locked Room refers
to the sub-genre of detective fiction in which the crime
is committed under what appear to be utterly impossible
circumstances. Classically, it has taken place in a room that no
perpetrator could have got into or out of: a locked room. In this
instance, there is no actual locked room, but instead the book,
which is seemingly impossible for the protagonist to get out of.
Faber Book Club: The New York Trilogy by Paul Auster
For discussion
• The plots of Auster’s novels often resemble each other: there are interchangeable
private detectives and characters vanishing and changing their names, as part of
exploring the nature of identity. Do you think that this is done effectively in The New
York Trilogy?
• Auster’s novels are often written in the first person. Do you trust him as a narrator?
Do you think there is a difference between ‘Paul Auster: the author’, and the ‘Paul
Auster’ who appears in his work?
• Much of the plot in The New York trilogy hinges on fate, or coincidence, but Auster
has said in interview: ‘I really don’t know why critics call them ‘coincidences’. They’re
the mechanics of reality, and that’s what I’m interested in tracking. That’s how the
world works’. Do you agree with him?
• What are the differences between the New York that Auster writes about and the
New York that he lives in and exists today. Do you recognise the city in The New York
trilogy or do you think it could be anywhere?
• The characters in The New York trilogy are often interested in writing in order to
connect with others, but end up cutting themselves off more. Do you think that is
true of reading Auster’s work as well? Were you distracted while reading The New
York Trilogy?
• Having read these stories, do you think that Auster writes in order to enagage with
the world or in order to escape from it? And what is the reason that you read them:
to escape or engage?
• Many of the issues that the characters in The New York Trilogy are dealing with are
also those confronted by literary critics. Did you enjoy being involved in that through
Auster’s characters?
• Do you think that these stories work equally well as pot-boilers as they do explorations
of post-modern writing or existential novels? If not, which do you think is the
stronger element?
• The endings to the stories are ambiguous and open ended. Did you find this frustrating,
or did you enjoy being given the freedom to take on the stories in your own
imagination?
Faber Book Club: The New York Trilogy by Paul Auster
About the author
Paul Auster was born in New Jersey in 1947. After attending Colum-
bia High School and Columbia University he lived in France for four
years where he worked translating French literature. Since 1974 he
has published poems, essays, novels, screenplays and translations. His
debut work was a memoir entitled The Invention of Solitude, but it
was The New York Trilogy that brought him international acclaim
and attention. In 1995, Auster wrote and co-directed the films Smoke
(which won him the Independent Spirit Award for Best First Screen-
play) and Blue in the Face.
He lives in Brooklyn, New York and is married to the novelist Siri
Hustvedt. They have one daughter.
Resources
http://www.nagasaki-gaigo.ac.jp/ishikawa/amlit/a/auster21.htm
American literature on the web, Auster site
http://www.paulauster.co.uk/
Author’s fan website
Suggested further reading
Fiction
The Big Sleep - Raymond Chandler
Double Indemnity – James M Cain
The Maltese Falcom – Dashiell Hammett
Pale Fire – Vladimir Nabokov
Underworld - Don DeLillo
What I Loved - Siri Hustvedt
Infinite Jest - David Foster Wallace
Non-Fiction
Paul Auster (Contemporary American and Canadian Novelists) – Mark Brown
Beyond the Red Notebook: Essays on Paul Auster (Pennsylvania Studies in Contemporary American Fiction) -
Dennis Barone (Editor)
Faber Book Club: The New York Trilogy by Paul Auster
Other books by Paul Auster
Fiction
I n t h e C o u n t r y o f L a s t T h in g s ( 1 9 8 7 )
M o o n P a la c e ( 1 9 8 9 )
T h e M u s ic o f C h a n c e ( 1 9 9 0 )
L e v ia t h a n ( 1 9 9 2 )
M r . V e r t ig o ( 1 9 9 4 )
T im b u k t u ( 1 9 9 9 )
T h e B o o k o f I l u s io n s ( 2 0 0 2 )
O r a c le N ig h t ( 2 0 0 4 )
T h e B r o o k ly n F o l ie s ( 2 0 0 5 )
T r a v e ls in t h e S c r ip t o r iu m ( 2 0 0 7 )
M a n in t h e D a r k ( 2 0 0 8 )
P o e t r y
D is a p p e a r a n c e s : S e le c t e d P o e m s ( 1 9 8 8 )
S c r e e n p la y s
h e M u s ic o f C h a n c e ( 1 9 9 3 )
S m o k e ( 1 9 9 5 )
B lu e in t h e F a c e ( 1 9 9 5 )
L u lu o n t h e B r id g e ( 1 9 9 8 )
T h e I n n e r L if e o f M a r t in F r o s t ( 2 0 0 7 )
E s s a y s , m e m o i r s , a n d a u t o b i o g r a p h i e s
T h e I n v e n t io n o f S o li t u d e ( 1 9 8 2 )
T h e A r t o f H u n g e r ( 1 9 9 2 )
T h e R e d N o t e b o o k ( 1 9 9 5 )
H a n d t o M o u t h ( 1 9 9 7 )
E d i t e d c o l l e c t i o n s
T h e R a n d o m H o u s e B o o k o f T w e n t ie t h - C e n t u r y F r e n c h
P o e t r y ( 1 9 8 2 )
T r u e T a le s o f A m e r ic a n L if e ( F ir s t p u b li s h e d u n d e r t h e t it le I T h o u g
h t M y F a t h e r W a s G o d , a n d O t h e r T r u e T a le s f r o m N P R ‘s N a t io n a l
S t o r y P r o je c t ) ( 2 0 0 1 )
T r a n s l a t i o n s
“ T h e U n i n h a b i t e d : S e l e c t e d P o e m s o f A n d r e d u
B o u c h e t “ ( 1 9 7 6 )
L i f e / S i t u a t i o n s , b y J e a n - P a u l S a r t r e ,1 9 7 7 ( i n c o l l a b o r a t i o n w i t h L y
d i a D a v i s )
A T o m b f o r A n a t o l e , b y S t e p h a n e M a l l a r m È ( 1 9 8 3 )
Faber Book Club: The New York Trilogy by Paul Auster
