Last Few Pages

Okay so the book ends on page 130. On page 119, we find out that the case is over because Stillman is dead and anyway, the check bounced so Quinn has no money to continue. Auster tells him this. Is Auster telling the truth? Does that even matter? Stillman jumped off a bridge and died in the air. Did he? We don't really know. Quinn absorbs this. He can't decide how he feels. He returns to his apartment after several months living in the alley waiting for a Stillman who would never show. His apartment has been leased to a girl. He wonders later if it's the same girl from earlier in the book who was reading one of his novels on the train. He wonders if that would matter. (It wouldn't.) With nowhere else to go, he walks to the apartment Stillman had occupied and goes inside. It's empty, but he doesn't care. He falls asleep on the floor and when he wakes up there's a tray of food near him. He eats it, not questioning its origins. Of course the food was placed by Auster and the narrator (other Auster?). They talk about Quinn. Is Stillman really dead? I'm still wondering. Quinn has clearly lost his senses. He sits in the dark room all day, sleeping mostly. When he wakes up he writes in his notebook until it's dark out. Sometimes he eats. He's running out of pages in the book, and for some reason the reader gets the impression that this means Quinn is running out of time to live. "Little by little, Quinn was coming to an end" (128). So not that strange a feeling. He reflects on his life, his loves, and his existence. Will there be hope for him after all? "The last sentence of the red notebook reads: What will happen when there are no more pages in the red notebook" (129). The red notebook ends up in the possession of the narrator since Auster doesn't feel like keeping it. The narrator feels for Quinn but has no idea what happened to him. But at least now we know how the narrator knew so much about the case. Interestingly, the end of Quinn's perspective in the book reminds me of the end of Kafka's Metamorphosis. As Quinn lies in the darkened room, filling the last pages of the book, he remembers all the people's he's loved and those who loved him. He thinks of "the infinite kindnesses of the world" and regrets that he can't writer more about them. In fact it "pained him to know" that he could write no more. He wonders if he "could learn to speak instead, filling the darkness with his voice, speaking the words into the air, into the walls, into the city, even if the light never came back" (129). Gregor has similar thoughts as he dies. He remembers fondly his family, the beauty of the outdoors, and how nice things once were. He doesn't resent the people who wronged him, and neither does Quinn. It's kind of pretty and kind of sad.

Word Count: 517