City of Glass

Paul Auster's first step into The New York Trilogy is City of Glass, a labyrinthian setting for an even more entangled story.

“(...) and although in many ways Quinn continued to exist, he no longer existed for anyone but himself”

It all started with a phone call. The first step for a famous mystery novel writer to become a detective in his own imagination. Following leads that take him only deeper into his fantasy. Paul Auster's first part of The New York Trilogy exposes the idea of movement as imperative. Reading City of Glass (1985) we are reminded of Baudelaire’s flâneur, where the city pushes its way into the eyes of the traveler.

The novel explores the mystery genre, a space that literature critics have usually brushed aside. Our main character is a marginal fellow himself and has suffered personal experiences that have left him wandering a “posthumous life”. Without friends and family, he walks aimlessly trying to solve a mystery. In doing so, he takes the name of his creator, Paul Auster, and plays also with the identities of his main character, Max Work, his “private-eye narrator”. In this way, writer and detective are interchangeably weaved into the narrative.

With New York as the stage, the city becomes the perfect playground to wander aimlessly and get lost, not only throughout the streets but also internally. Always on the go, Quinn learns how to act like a real detective instead of living the experience through books and films. His obsession progresses until it absorbs him.

“Quinn was used to wandering. His excursions through the city had taught him to understand the connectedness of inner and outer. Using aimless motion as a technique of reversal, on his best days he could bring the outside in and thus usurp the sovereignty of inwardness. By flooding himself with externals, by drowning himself out of himself, he had managed to exert some small degree of control over his fits of despair. Wandering, therefore, was a kind of mindlessness”.

Walking for Quinn means to distract himself with what lies outside and “escape the obligation to think”, to think about his tragic past or what he is pursuing exactly. By focusing on the details, everything can be a part of something greater, a key to unravelling the mysterious plot ahead. By lifting the weight of having to reflect on his own actions, he frees himself of any rational structures and decides to descend into madness.

Paul Auster has created a novel that stands the test of time for its innovation, intrigue, and its capability of designing a game requiring plenty of wit to play. The characters he has created get lost inside the illusions of the city and their own minds, like a glass maze. Impenetrable.