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joanasunday's review against another edition
slow-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? N/A
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? No
- Diverse cast of characters? No
1.0
bexlrose's review against another edition
2.0
I feel very conflicted about this. I enjoyed the first story but not the 2nd or 3rd. I was hoping that the end was going to redeem it by being really clever but it didn't...although it probably was really clever, I just don't think it was all that. I'm gonna give it 2.5 stars because to me it was an average book with moments of brilliance but they all happened within the first story. It's a shame though because it seemed so me.
timlarsson's review against another edition
4.0
The first story was great, the second one was alright, and the last story wasn't good at all until the last fifth of the story. Everything started to make sense and the puzzle pieces fell into place, rendering the whole experience great.
kjellouise's review against another edition
dark
mysterious
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? No
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated
4.0
nico_hoho's review against another edition
challenging
dark
reflective
slow-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
3.0
timinbc's review against another edition
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 against another edition
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.