THE LOCKED ROOM, published originally in 1986 as a standalone book, is the third work in THE NEW YORK TRILOGY. The other two works in the series (whicTHE LOCKED ROOM, published originally in 1986 as a standalone book, is the third work in THE NEW YORK TRILOGY. The other two works in the series (which also started out as standalone novels) are CITY OF GLASS and GHOSTS. All three are thematically connected, with occasional hint that some of the characters run through each book. I read these books as they appeared in THE NEW YORK TRILOGY. I am not certain if the texts differ in the separate editions, but it does strike me that only toward the end of THE LOCKED ROOM does the narrator state explicitly that what he's telling the reader is the basis for three books. He even mentions the titles CITY OF GLASS and GHOSTS. Whether Paul Auster planned, from the start, to connect these books is something scholars will know, but I encourage people to read the separate editions to see if the texts differ from those in THE NEW YORK TRILOGY. My ultimate point is that I don't think anything crucial would be lost if these books were or were not intentionally connected. Auster's general theme throughout these three books is the isolated soul hiding from other isolated souls. The blending of identities is portrayed as a fact of life. In THE LOCKED ROOM, one man's luck is almost entirely dependent on another's loss, the twist being that the unfortunate man almost wills good fortune on the other. This is the most realistic book in the trilogy. Many real life accounts by friends of literary artists share its tone. The achiever shows great promise, leaves enticing evidence of literary genius and then disappears, offering people scattered clues as to a life lived at extremes. One thinks of the poet Delmore Schwartz (whom Bellow fictionalized in the Pulitzer Prize-winning novel HUMBOLDT'S GIFT), or Arthur Rimbaud, who gave up writing before he was out of his teens, only to become an imperialist dog. Auster sets a story of literary dilemma against a background of intrigue. THE LOCKED ROOM is a clear-eyed study of those who find themselves in charge of someone's unpublished works. There is a dilemma most people in charge of such treasure troves experience. Surely, Roberto Bolaño's literary executors must have wondered, once or twice, if the posthumous work they're about to unleash would have been published if he were alive. Like Stephen King, Auster bolsters his realistic vision with extraordinary occurrences. But Auster is not a sensationalist. The haunted people who populate THE NEW YORK TRILOGY can't look at you and cause you to fly up into the air. But the coincidences in their lives reinforce a sense of damnation. However, Auster's tone is not despairing. I think his characters hope to God they aren't damned. I'm rooting for them....more
I've termed GHOSTS a novel, but that's because it is a stand-alone book. At 96 pages, it is really a novella. When I review THE NEW YORK TRILOGY, of wI've termed GHOSTS a novel, but that's because it is a stand-alone book. At 96 pages, it is really a novella. When I review THE NEW YORK TRILOGY, of which "Ghosts" is the middle story, I will call it a novella. In any case, it's much more of a sustained narrative than the first part, "City Of Glass," and I think, then, that page numbers alone don't make this a novella and "City Of Glass" a novel. They are stylistically different. "Ghosts" is definitely a novella in the Jamesian sense. It could be recited from a stage with a short intermission and it would be singularly powerful. It is the story of a hired snoop being snooped on and, while filled with Auster's patented literary Escherisms, it also has the sense of forboding which makes Auster's world the sphere of the damned. Just as "City Of Glass" referred to Cervantes, "Ghosts" puts Thoreau, Emerson, Whitman, Hawthorne and Melville in the caravan careening around a New York of the lost....more
This short novel is the first of the installments in Paul Auster's THE NEW YORK TRILOGY. This installment first appeared in 1985. I'll refer you to GoThis short novel is the first of the installments in Paul Auster's THE NEW YORK TRILOGY. This installment first appeared in 1985. I'll refer you to Goodreads' thumbnail description if you'd like to get a sense of the premise. My view is CITY OF GLASS is Noir. It bears comparison to the works of Kafka, Nathanael West, Knut Hamsun and Dashiell Hammett. The prose is very formal. Auster's peers died around the time he was born. A reader of this book must be patient because it is an exploration of what it is to be an outsider. Which reminds me: Camus. It is set in a part of New York weirdly familiar to me. I spent from birth to five in the same neighborhood. Some have said this doesn't strike them as a book really starring New York. I say it does star New York. I imprinted there. ...more
THE NEW YORK TRILOGY contains three short works by Paul Auster: "City Of Glass" (written from 1981 to 1982), "Ghosts" (written in 1983), and "The LockTHE NEW YORK TRILOGY contains three short works by Paul Auster: "City Of Glass" (written from 1981 to 1982), "Ghosts" (written in 1983), and "The Locked Room" (written in 1984.) "City Of Glass" was published as a standalone book in 1985, and "Ghosts" and "The Locked Room" were published, each by itself, in 1986. Then Penguin started publishing them in 1987. They were finally published in one volume in 1990. The edition I have, with an introduction by Luc Sante, came out in 2006. I don't know when Penguin put Art Spiegelman's wonderful cover art on it, but the flap - Yes! This paperback has flaps! - mentions Paul Auster's novel 4321, which came out in 2017, so it's obvious the TRILOGY has had at least two covers. This book was given to me by friends a month ago. I have always been meaning to read something by Paul Auster. This edition of this book is the best place to start. I did cheat: I went to my library and borrowed a memoir by Paul Auster called THE RED NOTEBOOK. It gave me a good notion of the history of THE NEW YORK TRILOGY's publication. Auster had to shop "City Of Glass" around for some time. Note the three-year lapse between the completion of the book and the publication date. Then note the steamroller effect. His independent publisher, Sun & Moon, published all three books by 1986. Penguin, as major as a publisher gets, puts all three out between 1987 and 1988 and then puts them in one volume in 1990. The copyright page of my copy says it has been reprinted thirty times. (To be specific, it has a line which reads "27 29 30 28." If I've interpreted those numbers wrong, I will still say that Paul Auster is a writer as such. I've known what he looks like since the eighties. I've read articles he's written. I've seen him on PBS; heard him on NPR and have generally sensed he is a highly respected author.) But not until now, at the age of sixty-one, have I ever read a single book of his. Strictly in terms of tone, THE NEW YORK TRILOGY is sturdy. Auster's cadence is more mid-century than present day. Even for someone writing in the early to mid-eighties, he has an unusually direct way with a sentence. If I'd had to guess, I'd have said this book was put together no later than 1958. I think the events in it go no later than 1977 or so, but I don't think it even mentions world events. There is nothing in here, except the mention of what year it is, every now and then, to indicate a world where Vietnam, Woodstock or Watergate have occurred. It seems mid-century because its surface resemblance is to Noir stories, which were so popular before 1960 and which rarely made reference to world events. The writers THE NEW YORK TRILOGY specifically refers to tend to be the major American writers of the nineteenth century, with Mark Twain left out. Hemingway once said American literature begins with Mark Twain. Auster refers to Hawthorne, Whitman, Melville and Emerson, all dead a good sixty years before Auster's stylistic models wrote. He writes like Nathanael West, Camus and Dashiell Hammett. The question running through my mind as I read was whether or not the various doppelgängers haunting each other reflected a pattern. The answer, I think, is "No." Although there is at least one stunt (involving street directions which spell a phrase) and a few literary references which reward those in the know (one example being the moment a character says to another character, "Call me Redburn") the plot never requires the reader to notice these things. The fact that the walk one character takes actually spells a word is not underscored by Auster. I suspected a word or shape was being indicated by turns the character made, but I never felt Auster demanded I puzzle it out. I only learned it was, indeed, a spelling, when I read a review which gave away what was spelled.) I got the reference when a character said "Call me Redburn" because I've read all of Herman Melville. Melville wrote a book called REDBURN and the first line of his epic novel MOBY-DICK is "Call me Ishmael." Just before the character says "Call me Redburn" there is a passage about a sailor walking along a deck in a snowstorm. The passage itself reminded me of a passage in one of Melville's novels. THEN, Auster's character says "Call me Redburn." There is no plot point dependent on this. A reader who knows nothing of Melville can read this part and simply think it's part of the story. The reader may wonder who Redburn is, but, since people in this book take up pseudonyms, the larger point, that the world is made of people hiding behind various identities, is made. Auster's specific references are not meant as obstacles to the telling of these three loosely connected stories. The larger theme is one of people deliberately isolating themselves and being perceived by others who, themselves, would rather not be seen. The three stories have some interconnected characters, but Auster is not testing the reader. He himself crops up here and there, but he doesn't break the fourth wall. The fact that one character from one story turns up in the other does not mean that we're supposed to solve something. I ventire to say that these books were not intended to form a trilogy. It happened that Paul Auster put a few characters from each book into the other books, but only toward the end of the third book does the narrator hint that there is a commonality between the books. Kurt Vonnegut used to put characters from his novels into his other novels, but he usually did it with satirical fanfare. While there is a larger reason for Auster to cause a character from one book to appear in another, they appear offstage. It is an unusually subdued funhouse running through these books. The characters are haunted by sins of omission. Briefly, "City Of Glass" describes someone undergoing a process of dissipation, "Ghosts" shows two people inspire paranoia in each other, and "The Locked Room" is about a person who so identifies with someone else that when he gains what he thought the other person would get, he becomes very distracted. Drink lots of coffee....more
This is the first Paul Auster book I've read. I've been aware of him for decades. Certainly, I've read a review or two he's written and I've seen him This is the first Paul Auster book I've read. I've been aware of him for decades. Certainly, I've read a review or two he's written and I've seen him on panel discussions on TV. I have always MEANT to read him. About two weeks ago, friends gave me a copy of THE NEW YORK TRILOGY, in a Penguin Classics Deluxe Edition with a cover by Art Spiegelman. That is a handsome book. On my way home from work tonight I stopped at the library, as I often do, oasis that it is, and I thought that, since the book I'd been given was at home, I'd spend an hour or so reading the copy I expected the library to have. As luck would have it, someone had checked it out. I didn't want to read other fiction by Auster, because THE NEW YORK TRILOGY was going to be my first exposure to his fiction. I wanted to go right to it without cheating. But it occurred to me that, surely Paul Auster has put out some nonfiction. I looked up the library's collection and found the book I'm reviewing now, which I read in the space of fifty minutes or so. It is short, to the point, and its chief merit is the grace of its uncomplicated prose. The them of the connected essays is coincidence. I do not get the sense that Paul Auster is superstitious, but the beauty of the coincidences he describes is undeniable. It is not celebratory, but it highlights the feeling one gets when the first thing one thinks of at certain junctures is coincidence. A lucky coin which CAN'T be the same coin turns up at a lucky moment, for example. There is one tragic event in this book. Auster neither dwells on it nor brushes it off. It feeds the larger coincidence of his life, luck playing an ambiguous hand. It helped make him what a writer needs to be: An observer. There are a few other examples of ill luck, which while awful for the people he talks about, probably were not tragic. The one tragedy in the book, described in spare, clear sentences, is the central moment of the story. I did notice one glaring typo about three-quarters through, where a word ended in "ing" when it shouldn't have. Other than that, though, this is an attractive volume, as most New Directions books are. I believe it is designed to be read in one sitting. I didn't even have to check it out. This bodes well for when I read my next book, the gift from my friends, THE NEW YORK TRILOGY. ...more
Loading...
