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timinbc's review
1.0
What I really dislike is a book that looks as if it's going to tell you a story, but doesn't. This is one of those. Once upon a time there was a dog named Rex, except his name wasn't really Rex, it was Gozo, and he wasn't a dog. Gozo went to do something, met a guy who actually was a Rex, messed up the something, and decided to hang out with Rex instead. The end. That's the first story.
I skipped the other two.
I'm sure one could write paragraphs of words like deconstruction, reversal, Derrida, lit'rature, examination. But I wouldn't want to read them either.
I skipped the other two.
I'm sure one could write paragraphs of words like deconstruction, reversal, Derrida, lit'rature, examination. But I wouldn't want to read them either.
frdb's review against another edition
challenging
dark
emotional
mysterious
reflective
slow-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? No
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated
4.0
daja57's review against another edition
This book contains three novellas. They are connected.
City of Glass
Quinn, who writes mystery novels under the pen name William Wilson starring a private eye called max Work, receives a series of late night phone calls asking for help from "Paul Auster ... of the Auster Detective Agency".
The first couple of chapters, in which the identity issues of the protagonist are discussed in short, matter-of-fact sentences, felt very Kafkaesque. The research into the Tower of babel was very reminiscent of Jorge Luis Borges, as is the thesis about whether a child brought up without language will speak the language of God. A doppelganger makes an early appearance.
The middle of the story seems to be the relatively straightforward story about a 'detective' following a man whose seemingly random wanderings through New York might have a pattern ... or has that been imposed from outside? Then, towards the end, the themes of identity, and the Kafkaesque and Borgesian atmospheres return before the enigmatic ending.
There's also a link with Don Quixote, about which the author Auster is writing (a piece querying the authorship of Don Quixote).
Ghosts
All the characters have colour names. Private investigator Blue (trained by Brown) is hired by White to watch Black, which he does, for months ... But all is not as it seems.
The Locked Room
A hack writer's best-friend-growing-up disappears, leaving three novels and other works. The novelist's wife commissions the hack writer to get them published. They're successful. The hack writer begins to prepare a biography; this task becomes a quest to find the missing man.
The three books explore identity. The plots are light-years away from standard PI-genre plots. There's a lot of confusion. It's very Kafka and some Borges but I'm not sure how much I understood it.
City of Glass
Quinn, who writes mystery novels under the pen name William Wilson starring a private eye called max Work, receives a series of late night phone calls asking for help from "Paul Auster ... of the Auster Detective Agency".
The first couple of chapters, in which the identity issues of the protagonist are discussed in short, matter-of-fact sentences, felt very Kafkaesque. The research into the Tower of babel was very reminiscent of Jorge Luis Borges, as is the thesis about whether a child brought up without language will speak the language of God. A doppelganger makes an early appearance.
The middle of the story seems to be the relatively straightforward story about a 'detective' following a man whose seemingly random wanderings through New York might have a pattern ... or has that been imposed from outside? Then, towards the end, the themes of identity, and the Kafkaesque and Borgesian atmospheres return before the enigmatic ending.
There's also a link with Don Quixote, about which the author Auster is writing (a piece querying the authorship of Don Quixote).
Ghosts
All the characters have colour names. Private investigator Blue (trained by Brown) is hired by White to watch Black, which he does, for months ... But all is not as it seems.
The Locked Room
A hack writer's best-friend-growing-up disappears, leaving three novels and other works. The novelist's wife commissions the hack writer to get them published. They're successful. The hack writer begins to prepare a biography; this task becomes a quest to find the missing man.
The three books explore identity. The plots are light-years away from standard PI-genre plots. There's a lot of confusion. It's very Kafka and some Borges but I'm not sure how much I understood it.
thisisthelion's review
1.0
This is my disappointment of the year. I though these were detective stories, and in a way they are, but a very tenuous way. I found them to be more like a philosophic study of humans but too abstract to actually appeal to me. There was a lot of unanswered questions about the characters or how it all ties together and frankly, by one third of the book I was already uninterested and reading it just to get it over with.
julieds's review against another edition
dark
mysterious
slow-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
5.0
astravedi's review against another edition
4.0
بول أوستر مبهر.
تتداخل الحيوات بعنف وسلاسة. المُطَارِد والمطارَد يصيران كيانًا واحدًا، لا حقيقة واضحة في خضم هذا كله إلا الضياع.
تتداخل الحيوات بعنف وسلاسة. المُطَارِد والمطارَد يصيران كيانًا واحدًا، لا حقيقة واضحة في خضم هذا كله إلا الضياع.
johnclough's review
adventurous
challenging
dark
mysterious
reflective
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? No
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
3.5
bennyandthejets420's review
dark
mysterious
reflective
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
3.75
The controlling idea of the relationship between author and character and detective and suspect is cool and Auster can generate and keep suspense up over the 3 linked stories' length, but I found myself getting a little exasperated with Auster's cool as a cucumber minimalist prose. Sure it's very readable but I kept wanting it to freak out a little bit more or if the dreams some of the characters got were more fantastical. A lot of it feels like an algebraic equation in which Auster has perfectly balanced all of the terms. Everything reoccurs. As Quinn says in City of Glass, "a plentitude in which nothing is wasted." Even if those links and reoccurring bits don't exactly link up, there's a sense of a kind of grand narrative logic governing the whole thing but it seems like the kind of controlling idea Auster has worked out (that of observation leading to imitation and that of looking leading to speculation) really only ends one way: the author turning into the character and the detective becoming the suspect. Sure there are couple of variations throughout but not much. The metafictional elements are nice and I enjoyed reading it but the minimalism of the prose tried my patience a bit.
I could see myself enjoying this a lot more if I wasn't already a fan of metafiction and the references to Don Quixote made me smile.
I could see myself enjoying this a lot more if I wasn't already a fan of metafiction and the references to Don Quixote made me smile.
finny's review against another edition
emotional
mysterious
tense
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
4.0
Dei tre romanzi che compongono il libro, "Città di Vetro" è quello che ho preferito. Anche per via di quella svolta metanarrativa che mi piace sempre in un libro.
Segue poi "La Stanza Chiusa" e infine "Fantasmi". Quest'ultimo parte bene con tutti i personaggi con i nomi di un colore, si perde nel mezzo e ha un'altra conclusione shock.
Segue poi "La Stanza Chiusa" e infine "Fantasmi". Quest'ultimo parte bene con tutti i personaggi con i nomi di un colore, si perde nel mezzo e ha un'altra conclusione shock.
tigerjack's review against another edition
challenging
dark
mysterious
reflective
tense
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
5.0