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smoke n' a cigar I see
Paul Auster’s “City of Glass” is like walking into a mystery story on acid, while already half-baked on pot. His random wanderings throughout New York City makes one as spun out and free associated as the character in the story. The identity of the reader becomes as altered as the identities encountered throughout the story. The breakdown of language launches the reader into a strange universe of detection in which neither the reader nor the character in the story know exactly what is happening. My main beef with this story is the fact that it tries to make sense by not making sense, and in trying to make sense of nonsense I came out with nothing solid. It’s the type of book that doesn’t give you anything and forces you to try and makes sense of a mystery with only half of the facts. I understand the style of writing and I appreciate the approach Paul Auster is taking, but this style ends up trying to be to postmodern. I mean I’m already living in the postmodern world so I don’t need an author to show me a postmodern story, I want him to tell me a postmodern story. The reader alone should be able to figure out whether its postmodern or not, and the random juggling of facts and ideas that have no premise in the story really got under my skin.
Now leaving “City of Glass” behind what I thought that the movies Paul Auster created told and didn’t show what its like to live life in the postmodern puzzle that is the timeframe we live in today. These movies also did a great job of taking tid bits of random peoples experiences living in New York City and applied them to a grander theme, and a more universal feeling. I really connected with the guys just babbling about random shit while smoking cigars in a dank cigar shop in the middle of Brooklyn. I found truth and meaning in these seemingly meaningless conversations and I think they painted a clear picture of existence in a certain place at a certain time in history. I also found it fascinating that as they were creating one movie they just decided to simultaneously create another movie with the same characters, yet just slightly altered. This to me is an authentic expression of what it means to be human and what life is truly like in this megalopolis of a city. Even a few minutes of these movies enabled me to envision what Paul Auster was trying to accomplish, and the film form of expression captured the “city of glass” way more than the actual book did. I feel that Paul Auster has quite an interesting perspective on reality that just about anyone can relate to, but for me the movies accomplished more than the book did.
our city of glass
While I at least partially agree with what you wrote, I tend to be less frustrated by "City of Glass" than most. I feel like it sort of takes all the types of random happenings, thoughts, connections that we encounter every day while living in Manhattan and puts a story to it. I feel that the whole book is somewhat like when you hear a new song for the first time and then all of a sudden it's everywhere - on a TV show, the radio, your friend is talking about it, etc. As soon as I decided to put Auster's book on my Colloquium book list, I saw a McDonald's commercial with some girl drinking sweet tea and reading Don Quixote, and when reviewing the film Amélie, noticed a part where she is compared to Don Quixote. I could go on and on about little things like this, but I've also always had this burden of noticing all the little connections around me. I feel like the book speaks to these types of experiences that make the universe mysterious and vast and at the same time, possibly quite individualized and ordered. I know that sounds like a contradiction, but I think it works well with one way of understanding New York. I also found a stronger connection with the book when I reread it this semester than when I read it in high school in LA. It definitely highlights many qualities of New York life - from diner dialogue to loneliness. But maybe I'm just getting too caught up in connections…or expecting too little.