The New York Trilogy
Ratings27
Average rating3.9
15
Ratings27
Average rating3.9
The New York Trilogy is an astonishing and original book: three cleverly interconnected novels that exploit the elements of standard detective fiction and achieve a new genre that is all the more gripping for its starkness. In each story the search for clues leads to remarkable coincidences in the universe as the simple act of trailing a man ultimately becomes a startling investigation of what it means to be human. Auster's book is modern fiction at its finest: bold, arresting and unputdownable.
Series
3 primary booksNew York Trilogy is a 3-book series with 3 primary works first released in 1985 with contributions by Paul Auster and Maribel de Juan.
Reviews with the most likes.
This series of novellas is considered a postmodern take on the detective novel and uses conventions of the genre as their base. In all three stories, a solitary male character finds himself involved in a mystery that was artificially constructed to one degree or another by an antagonist that we know little about.
Each of these protagonists goes on a downward spiral and loses sight of himself, the purpose in his own life, and his relationships or goals. Quinn, the main character from “City of Glass” is the most sympathetic, maybe because before the start of his adventure he has already suffered tragedy. By the time the reader can see that his mystery has come to a deadend, he doesn't let go.
“Quinn no longer had any interest in himself. He wrote about the stars, the earth, his hopes for mankind. He felt that his words had been severed from him, that now they were part of the world at large, as real and specific as a stone, or a lake, or a flower.”
“It struck me that writing under another name might be something I would enjoy–to invent a secret identity for myself–and I wondered why I found this idea so attractive.”
“As the days go on, Blue realizes there is no end to the stories he can tell. For Black is no more than a kind of blankness, a hole in the texture of things, and one story can fill this hole as well as any other”
City of Glass: 3/5
Snug up in the dark
use this time to learn new words
don't let the screams out.
Ghosts: 2/5
Staring at a man
a man staring at a book
a book I'm reading.
The Locked Room: 4/5
Vulgar flattery
deep in his sloppy seconds
horned up for struggle.
The linguistic theory stuff in City of Glass reminded me of [b: Snow Crash 40651883 Snow Crash Neal Stephenson https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1530057753l/40651883.SX50.jpg 493634], which is always a good thing. Ghosts was a bit weaker, and felt like a variation of the same themes. But The Locked Room brought it around for me again, by bringing the more abstract ideas of the others into a more personal story.We become our obsessions, and if our obsession is another person, we risk losing our identity.
