It’s all very meta but is it a good read?

City of Glass- the first book in the trilogy- is loosely divided into three parts.
The opener reminds me of Haruki Murakami and is fairly lucid, albeit a detective story viewed through the looking glass.
The middle part is more Umberto Eco with lots of word play and literary references.
The final part I found less engaging as the plot disintegrates, becoming a rumination on the nature of being.
Many people have written essays on the book’s postmodern brilliance, since it was published in 1985.
However, I would have liked a really clever resolution that subverted established literary forms but also, importantly, provided a satisfying conclusion.
And now I need some light relief before diving into the next two books.

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3 people found this helpful

An original take on the detective story

I think that Paul Auster is probably a Marmite sort of writer. Personally, I love his books and this trilogy of stories, published in 1987 is almost an academic exercise. Certainly the second story is, whereby the characters have colour names and are given very little depth other than their position in the "story". Although these stories can certainly serve as basis for literary debate, they are, nevertheless, good readable stories with a beginning, middle and end. Essential for any story, really. The loose link between the stories is enjoyable.

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7 people found this helpful

Stylish, and superbly crafted.

Really great read, complex but not to challenging. The plots are delicately interwoven and can pleasantly catch you by surprise, a very accomplished trilogy. Will read more Paul Auster.

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Old school private investigation

I really like Paul Auster’s writing style - detail heavy and full of intricacies and nuance - and this book of three stories is no exception. The three tales are loosely connected which adds another dimension to the overall complexities. Unusual and highly engaging, I really enjoyed these old school private investigation stories.

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2 people found this helpful

Could have been a short story

Though the mood of the novels is well created, I found myself wishing the novel to be over when I was half way through. The same theme could have been explored in a shorter piece and by the third novel I found myself having little curiosity for the outcome, and wanting to speed up to finish so I can move on to a more interesting story.

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Delicious

A delightful read - clever, imaginative and beautifully written.

I agree with a previous reviewer who likened Auster to Marmite - you are seldom indifferent. Well, as my first Auster experience it took a couple of chapters but then it quickly became addictive! And it will require a second read to 'get' some of the nuances.

And... I rate books rather critically, and 5 stars are rarely given, the book has to be exceptional. So don't be put off by my rating it at only 4 stars; this is a 'nearly exceptional' book. And the narrator reads it beautifully - very sympathetic to the spirit and character of the novel.

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Twisted aspects of identity and truth claims

There are 3 novellas in this volume. They all involve twisted aspects of identity and truth.

The first, City of Glass, is the best. It is a rather bizarre work whose full plot should not be revealed. That the novel is intentionally interwoven with Cervantes’ Don Quixote, with it's surreal and performatively mad play of fictions further elaborates the joys of the text. It purports to be a detective tale but is reminiscent of Kafka, Borges, or Hesse’s Glass Bead Game in its portrayal of mirrored uncertainty and unfolding mystery, even madness. At the end, I laughed at the twisting jokiness of it. A good reason not to reveal the plot is that it only means what it does in the context of the journey of reading or listening to the novella itself. But a few elements can be highlighted. An author of detective fiction is commissioned to observe a suspect who may be planning to do harm. The origin of the method of commissioning oh something to a real life event that happened to the author, Auster. (We learn this in the interesting supplementary interview with him included in the package.) The source of the authorial voice is never disclosed although the true author becomes a fictioned (sic) character in the novel. The protagonist is a detective who takes on a persona and within that persona masks himself in various other characters. He spends forever observing someone who seems to be doing nothing much but what it is turns out to be the crux of the tale although how and why is never explained fully. The circumstances however may have something to do with events in the other novellas.

The third, The Locked Room, is intriguing but has an unconvincing moment that turns the novel . That said, people are always doing things they simply shouldn’t, things that should be utterly unconvincing. Life it is said can be a stranger than fiction. Mind you, this deus ex machina event is only one of a series of highly unconventional behaviours leavened by the ongoing ordinary. A not very successful writer is commissioned by an assumed dead man to inspect his writings and if they are any good arrange their publication. The missing man’s ‘widowed’ wife and his mother play play key roles in the unfolding and unravelling story.

Ghost, the middle yarn — for these are intellectually adroit yarns I think — also concerns a detective commissioned to observe a suspect. The characters are called Black, Blue, Brown, and White and the action takes place on Orange Street. What is truth?

All the novellas engage with themes of identity and the nature of reality and fiction.
The ‘detective’ is a parable for the search for truth we all doge or dive into. Madness is an ever present outcome, but what is sanity? The novels are born in the era immediately following the developing awareness of reflexive consciousness, contextual response, cybernetic self-regulation and R.D. Laing’s sanity in an insane society. But this intellectual verve is conveyed in a straightforward and down-to-earth narrative. The Audible voice reflects this. The narrator is an Audible regular, a New York voice with direct diction. I listened on slightly quickened tempo.

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Wonderful!

Why has no one else reviewed this; it is really wonderful, both Paul Auster's writing and Joe Barrett's reading - I found it totally absorbing and enchanting.

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4 people found this helpful

Brilliant

Auster at his best, particularly the third story of the trilogy. Surreal and yet spun with everyday realism. His descriptive powers are sharp and the narrator here is very good.

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Simply remarkable

This is probably one of the hardest text to read, yet it is superbly done as an audio book! Paul Auster's brilliant writing is coming alive thanks to this fantastic rendition.
Well done, thank you!

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4 people found this helpful