Quinn, Auster, Quinn-Auster, and Identity

The main character in City of Glass is a man named Quinn; an author of mystery novels who has a tragic past and leads a kind of non-life. His wife and kid have died, although that isn't super relevant to the plot, and he lives alone, preferring to be ignored and forgotten. He takes on the personality of his fictional detective character, called Work, and allows himself to sort of drift around in the city without interacting very much with anyone. He enjoys taking walks, and says "On his best walks, he was able to feel that he was nowhere. And this, finally, was all he ever asked of things: to be nowhere" (4). He goes on to discuss his lack of interest in leading a meaningful life. Interestingly, he mentions that he had once been more ambitious and had written plays, poems, etc., before giving up and writing mystery novels to make a living. This is the first indication to the reader that Quinn might be one of those characters designed to reflect the author in a more direct way than characters usually do, kind of like Philip Roth's Nathan Zuckerman. Auster makes this connection blatantly clear later when he introduces another character; a man calls Quinn in the middle of the night and mistakes him for Paul Auster the private eye. The narrator (Real life Auster? Fake Auster? No one? The novel is presented as a history almost, and several references are made that make it seem like a case report. The closest thing I can compare it to is the Series of Unfortunate Events...) has just described Quinn's alter-ego, his pseudonym William Wilson. So the reader is familiar with Quinn's ability to become other people, perhaps at the cost of really being himself. Quinn is sometimes Wilson, sometimes Work, really not ever Quinn, but he seems fine with that. Even from the first chapter or two it's pretty easy to see how important identity is as a theme for Auster the writer. His whole novel is about a man who lacks a real identity and so takes on others, but since that character is such a reflection of who Auster is, it's not hard to determine that the book is a sort of investigation of Auster himself. Anyway, someone calls and asks for Paul Auster the detective. In real life, Paul Auster the writer talks about this on an episode of Radiolab. Apparently someone called him once in the night asking for Quinn. In the novel, Quinn tells the caller they have the wrong number and regrets it, realizing that the call was intriguing and he would like to know what it had been about. He eventually decides to pretend to be Auster and talk to the man on the phone. This conversation leads to a meeting set for the next morning. This meeting is so that the man can tell "Auster" about some problem he's having, and as a P.I., Auster is supposed to solve it. Quinn agrees to meet but never intends to actually go. The next morning, though, he gets up, gets dressed, and takes a bus to the agreed upon address. It's almost surreal, because the narrator expresses the fact that Quinn never intends to go and then describes his thought process as he finds himself preparing to go anyway: "As time wore on, he found himself doing a good imitation of a man preparing to go out" (12). So Quinn is just sort of drifting around, doing things that seem appropriate, without giving them that much thought. Once he begins working as Paul Auster the detective, he discovers that the man he is following also seems to be drifting aimlessly. It turns out that the man has an aim, but then it turns out he doesn't... and then it turns out that he might. Which brings me to internet people. I looked the book up to see if I could find any essays about it to read before starting this project and there were a lot of mixed reviews for it. Some people were saying that they found it to be frustrating and hated the seeming lack of resolution. Other people were quick to defend the novella, but there seems to be a fairly large faction of readers who really disliked this trilogy. I think that's a shame because I at least really enjoy it. Some people also thought it was in poor taste to mention one's own name in a book and there was some talk of how it's inappropriate to write a novel about writing the novel that the novel is. I think that's kind of an unfair rule to hold people to. I mean any novel about itself would be better than The Cannibal Galaxy. Whatever.

Word Count: 769