Ghent University

Faculty of Arts and Philosophy

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Supervisor:

Dr. Andrew King

English Literature Dpt.

2008-2009

ROZA LAMBRECHTS

Verhandeling voorgelegd aan de faculteit Letteren en

Wijsbegeerte voor het verkrijgen van de graad van

Master in de Taal- en Letterkunde: Engels

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

I am greatly indebted to Dr. Andrew King for his dedicated supervision of this dissertation.

His constructive criticism has helped me to focus and develop my research in a more

concrete direction. Every comment and moment of feedback has served this work to reach

the state, in which it lies before you.

Also, I would like to thank Dr. Melissa De Bruyker for helping me with “Das Unheimliche” and

retrieving a bibliographic reference, that I feared to be untraceable.

A special mention for Timo and Dieter, for proofreading this work.

Finally, thanks to my parents, and my friends Wim, Simon, Dieter, Iris and Sofie, for their

support and distractions.

CONTENTS

• INTRODUCTION 1

• CHAPTER ONE: BAKHTIN AND THE CHRONOTOPE 5

1 General Overview 5

2 Bakhtinian concepts in The New York Trilogy: relevance and function 13

• CHAPTER TWO: AUSTERIAN DETECTIVE FICTION 17

1 Genre conventions of traditional detective fiction 17

2 Role and function of traditional features in The New York Trilogy 21

Cyclical pattern

Eccentricity of the characters

Observation and rationality

Narration

• CHAPTER THREE: DOPPELGANGERS AND IDENTITY: THE UNCANNY AND THE OTHER 29

1 The Uncanny – Sigmund Freud 29

2 Workings of the Uncanny in The New York Trilogy 32

3 Jacques Lacan: the mirror stage and the Other 33

4 Self versus Other 35

City Of Glass

Ghosts

The Locked Room

• CHAPTER FOUR: QUEST FOR IDENTITY 44

1 Structure of the Quest 44

Stasis before mysterious event

Mysterious event

Complication of mystery (+peripeteia)

Climax and unraveling of the mystery

Lack of resolution

2 Time and space in The New York Trilogy: an Austerian chronotope 48

• WORKS CITED 51

1

INTRODUCTION

―WHEREVER I AM NOT IS THE PLACE WHERE I AM MYSELF.‖

PAUL AUSTER. CITY OF GLASS

This statement, written down by Quinn in the first story of Paul Auster‘s The New York

Trilogy, incorporates the existential problem that holds all the main characters of this novel in

its grip. They do not feel like themselves, they are at loss. Also, the structure of this sentence

foregrounds the connection between self and place. Therefore, it would seem to suggest

that, in order to truly get to know oneself, one must embark on a quintessential quest for

identity. This is exactly what the characters of Auster‘s stories try to accomplish.

The New York Trilogy was first published in 1987 as a whole, though before this

moment the three stories, City of Glass, Ghosts and The Locked Room, had been published

separately already. At first, the stories appear to be rather straightforward detective stories,

but a closer inspection learns that ―thematically Auster‘s trilogy is a meditation on the

problematic of self-identity, in which ‗textual‘ sense of the self undermines our

commonsense, essentialist notions of selfhood.‖ (Alford, Space 615) This problematic of self-

identity becomes even more complicated, as the stories introduce multiple doubles. These

doubles further undermine any form of a stable sense of self, as ―[d]oubles proliferate

repeatedly not to disseminate the notion of subjectivity, but rather to underscore the notion

that these characters each reflect different ontological dimensions of the self. (Dimovitz 625)

Many different dimensions of the self complicate not only the development of plot, but also

the search for answers the ―detectives‖ embark upon. It is not wonder, then, that amongst all

these complications the protagonists seem to have lost their notions of selfhood and are

confronted with doppelgangers. Despite their attempts to escape the existentialist maze their

lives have become, they find themselves to become more and more stuck in nothingness.

In this dissertation, I will try to reconstruct the complex quest for identity in each

story. In order to gain insight into the structure, different steps in the process need to be

identified. The use of a quest is generally associated with the genre of the epic, the

picaresque and adventure novels. How can the use of the term ―quest‖ be justified then? I will

argue that the theories of Mikhail M. Bakhtin support the use of a quest in other genres as

2

well. He introduces a way of looking at literature that allows the identification of specific

elements of one genre and explains how these can be applied in other genres as well.

Through his development of the chronotope this mingling of features can be easily

reconstructed and traced. What is the chronotope and how does it function? How is this

concept connected to the quest? Moreover, questions also arise about the detective genre.

What are the typical characteristics of this genre? Why is The New York Trilogy not a

straightforward detective story? Also, what is the relevance of the notion of selfhood? What

role do the many confusing doppelgangers play? What is their function? I intend to answer

these questions in four chapters. In what follows I will give an outline of each chapter.

The first chapter focuses on the theories of Mikhail M. Bakthin, as posited in his The

Dialogic Imagination. Bakhtin is a Russian literary critic, usually associated with the school of

Russian Formalism. Because of his controversial ideas, Bakhtin was arrested in 1929 and sent

to live in exile Kazakhstan, where he remained until 1936. It was there that a lot of his work

was composed. During Soviet reign Bakhtin‘s theories did not reach a wide audience. It was

not until the 1980s that his theories became popular in the West and have gained critical

acclaim ever since.

From The Dialogic Imagination, I will discuss one essay, entitled ―Forms of Time And Of The

Chronotope In The Novel‖, in which Bakhtin introduces his concept of the chronotope. The

word chronotope, derived from Greek chronos + topos, literally means ―time-space‖. For

Bakhtin, these concepts are inextricably linked to one another and, what is more, it is the

chronotope that defines genre conventions. He then moves on to chronologically discuss

different forms of chronotopes in literary history. I will try to discern exactly what concepts

and novelties Bakhtin introduces in this essay. By shedding light on the essay in its totality I

hope to establish a broad understanding of his theories, which, in turn, I will link to Auster‘s

Trilogy. What concepts introduced by this Russian critic can be of relevance for the three

stories under investigation here? How do Bakhtinian concepts function in these stories?

In order to answer these questions, I first will discern what aspects the essay deals with and

explain them in their contexts. Then, I will move on to identify the relevant elements for

Auster‘s fiction and explain how they function within The New York Trilogy.

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The second chapter deals with the genre of detective fiction. As, according to

Bakhtinian concepts, chronotope defines genre conventions, I deem it worthy to look at these

conventions in more detail. Even though the features of ―typical‖ detective fiction remain

contested, I will attempt to discern a few elements worthy of discussion. In order to so, I turn

to an essay by W.H. Auden, entitled ―The Guilty Vicarage‖. This work is one of the key texts

often cited in discussions of this genre. Auden establishes a parallel between Aristotle‘s

theory on the structure of ancient tragedy and the structure of the detective story, which is of

particular interest to this research. Next to this link, three other features will be discussed in

greater detail. Also, as Auster‘s Trilogy is not an example of traditional (British) detective

fiction, but rather of the American hardboiled tradition, a brief discussion of a specific feature

of the hardboiled is included. However, taking into account the postmodern tradition, in

which Auster‘s stories came into existence, it is not my intention to analyze his works as

examples of traditional detective fiction. Therefore, I will identify traditional elements and

discuss how Auster turns these right on their heads. In An Art of Desire: Reading Paul Auster,

Bernd Herzogenrath writes that Auster ―subverts the genre from within‖ and in doing so,

―[uses] traditional conventions.‖ (Herzogenrath 2)

A third chapter is concerned with the use of the doppelganger, in combination with

the concepts of ―The Uncanny‖ and the Other. In this part, I will discuss the effect the

doppelganger has on the quest for identity. In order to do so, an overview of Sigmund

Freud‘s concept of ―The Uncanny‖ is of the essence. Next, the relevance of this essay for The

New York Trilogy is established. The discussion then moves to an explanation of the term,

―the Other‖ in light of Lacanian theories on the mirror stage. Herzogenrath deems the use of

Lacan worthy indeed, as ―Lacanian psychoanalysis […] goes from the assumption of a

fundamentally split subject and thus comes up with a model of subjectivity that grounds itself

on a constitutive lack rather than a wholeness.‖ (Herzogenrath 6) In the final part of this

chapter previous insights are combined as the polarity between self and other is discussed in

greater detail for each story. The question central to this part of the research is what function

the doppelganger and the other have in the quest and what the results are of the

confrontation between the protagonist and his double.

The last part of this dissertation is an attempt to combine all insights to reconstruct

the quest for identity more specifically in each story. The (modified) pattern of detective

4

fiction returns as the backdrop for the structure of the quest. Also, the bakhtinian

interconnectedness of time and space plays an important role for this quest. Both aspects will

be inspected in greater detail. What function do time and space have in The New York

Trilogy? How does their interconnectedness contribute to the quest? How does all of this

relate to the role of the Other and the double?

As such, with these four chapters I aim to answer the questions that arise when

reading Paul Auster‘s The New York Trilogy as being quintessentially a quest for identity.

5

CHAPTER ONE: BAKHTIN AND THE CHRONOTOPE

―There is also M. M. Bakhtin, the Russian critic and literary philosopher. During the German invasion of

Russia in World War II, he smoked the only copy of one of his manuscripts, a book-length study of

German fiction that had taken him years to write. One by one, he took the pages from his manuscript

and used the paper to roll his cigarettes, each day smoking a little more of the book until it was gone.‖

(NYT 255)

This citation is an anecdote recounted by the nameless narrator in The Locked Room,

the final story of The New York Trilogy. This same narrator, at the very end of the story, is

described as doing the exact same thing Bakhtin has done: ―One by one, I tore the pages

from the notebook, crumpled them in my hand, and dropped them into a trash bin on the

platform.‖ (NYT 314) It should come as no surprise that Auster, master of intertextuality, is

familiar with the Russian scholar, Mikhail Bakhtin. The link between Bakhtin‘s life and Auster‘s

work is established not only in the recounting of this anecdote, but also in the recurrent

image of tearing up a manuscript, page by page. Because of this connection, the proposed

application of Bakhtin‘s literary theory to Auster‘s writing would seem to make sense and

could certainly prove to be of interest. The question I would like to answer in this chapter is

―How can the literary theory of Mikhail Bakhtin shed light on Paul Auster‘s The New York

Trilogy?‖ What concepts has Bakhtin introduced that can be helpful for reading Auster? How

does his theory contribute to the focal points — identity, the quest and the Other — of this

research?

In order to answer these questions, I will discuss the influence of Bakhtinian theory on Auster.

But first, I will give an outline of the main principles of one of his studies in his The Dialogic

Imagination; what concepts it introduces. Following this, then, I will discuss how these aspects

are relevant for The New York Trilogy.

1. GENERAL OVERVIEW

During the 1930s Mikhail M. Bakhtin wrote The Dialogic Imagination. This work

consists of four longish essays, dealing with specific elements and features of the novel and

19th century literature. Bakhtinian concepts have influenced the twentieth-century scholar to

a great extent. Not only have his concepts of polyphony or the chronotope gained recognition

in literary criticism, but also his more general way of looking at literature dialogically has

been of interest. However, it may be perceived as somewhat curious that Bakhtin is so

6

popular among modernists and postmodernists, while he himself never actually discussed

modernist works. Stacy Burton recognizes this paradox in her article entitled ―Paradoxical

Relations: Bakhtin and Modernism‖, writing that ―Bakhtin simply did not write in detail about

any aspect of twentieth-century literature […]‖ (Burton 520) She calls attention to what seems

to be Bakhtin‘s unresponsiveness to twentieth-century literature: ―From the point of view of

Western literary theory and criticism at the century‘s end, this unresponsiveness is ironic, for

in the last twenty years Bakhtin‘s theories have proved popular among critics of modernist

and postmodernist literatures.‖ (Burton 520) Burton comments on this irony, yet she does not

view it as a fundamental problem. She stresses Bakhtin‘s ―historical limits‖ and ―the richness

of his theories for reading modernism as a contradictory boundary phenomenon, a moment

preoccupied at once with identity and otherness, authority and heteroglossia.‖ (Burton 536)

The emphasis here lies on the richness of Bakhtin‘s theories and how well they seem fit the

modernist vantage point. And, what is of interest to this research, these also fit the themes of

Auster‘s novels.

In his essay, ―Forms of Time And Of The Chronotope In The Novel‖, published in his

The Dialogic Imagination, Bakhtin introduces the concept of the chronotope in literature. The

chronotope literally means ―time space‖, and Bakhtin defines it as the ―intrinsic

connectedness of temporal and spatial relationships that are artistically expressed in

literature.‖ And which ―expresses the inseparability of space and time […]‖ (Bakhtin 84) It has

a ―intrinsic generic significance‖, and consequently Bakhtin states that ―it is precisely the

chronotope that defines genre and generic distinctions […]‖ (Bakhtin 84-85) With regard to

Auster‘s (mocking) use of the genre conventions of the detective novel, this intrinsic

connection of chronotope and genre is of great significance.

As already mentioned above, space plays a pivotal part in Auster‘s novels. Bakhtin

writes that ―space becomes charged and responsive to the movements of time, plot and

history.‖ in the same way that ―[t]ime, as it were, thickens, takes on flesh, becomes artistically

visible […]‖(Bakhtin 84) This interconnectedness of time and space obviously is of great

importance to the notion of the ―quest‖, as well. As has become clear from the introduction,

the quest is the main element of the novels discussed in this dissertation. A quest, according

7

to the Cambridge Online Dictionary, is ―a long search for something that is difficult to find‖1.

In this definition the link between time (long) and space (search) is inherently present,

foregrounding the chronotope as a noteworthy aspect of The New York Trilogy.

The above statement can be interpreted in such general terms that it can be applied to just

about any type of fiction, therefore, a more detailed discussion of the chronotope will aim to

illustrate its particular usefulness for understanding Auster. Indeed, in The Dialogic

Imagination, Bakhtin moves from a general overview of the concept of the chronotope to a

chronological overview of different genres and their chronotopes. He starts with the ―Greek

Romance‖, a genre in which he distinguishes three basic types, each with their own novelistic

chronotope. Bakhtin writes: ―These three types turned out to be extraordinarily productive

and flexible, and to a large degree determined the development of the adventure novel up to

the mid-eighteenth century.‖ (Bakhtin 86) He claims that a detailed analysis of the three types

is necessary in order to make sense of the European variants of these types and the influence

they have had on the European novelistic tradition. The first type is what Bakhtin calls the

―adventure novel of ordeal‖ and it is most notably characterized by ―adventure-time‖. This

―adventure-time‖ lacks ―biological or maturational duration‖ (Bakhtin 90), which means that

the poles of plot are fixed and the adventure that unfolds between them does not change the

lives of the heroes: ―there is a sharp hiatus between two moments of biographical time [= the

poles of plot], a hiatus that leaves no trace in the life of the heroes or their personalities.‖

(Bakhtin 90) What then, if not historical or biographical time, drives this adventure-time?

What force lies behind it? Bakhtin claims it is chance that shapes this form of time, that ―[it] is

entirely composed of contingency […]‖ (Bakhtin 94) In the earliest forms of the Greek

Romance, these contingencies are the result of supernatural interferences; in later forms a

novelistic villain can take on this role. Bakhtin describes the later development of this

―adventure-time‖: ―Whenever Greek adventure-time appears in the subsequent development

of the European novel, initiative is handed over to chance, which controls meetings and

failures to meet—either as an impersonal, anonymous force in the novel, or as fate, […]‖

(Bakhtin 95)

Next, Bakhtin describes one of the main motifs of these early novelistic types, the motif of

meeting. This motif is of considerable importance, as it ―is one of the most universal motifs‖

1 From http://dictionary.cambridge.org

8

and ―it is difficult to find a work where this motif is completely absent […]‖ (Bakhtin 98). In his

essay, Bakhtin then continues to discuss the role of space in adventure-time. Adventure-time,

he states, is ―characterized by a technical, abstract connection between space and time, by the

reversibility of moments in a temporal sequence, and by their interchangeability in space.‖

(Bakhtin 100) This means that spaces in the Greek Romance are not fixed, the action takes

place in a geographical space but this is not a determining factor to the plot, ―what happens

in Babylon could just as well happen in Egypt or Byzantium, and vice versa.‖ (Bakhtin 100)

Another vital aspect of this type of novel, is the unchanged identity of the hero. During his

adventurous journey the main character does not undergo any psychological changes.

Bakhtin summarizes this first type as the ―most abstract of all chronotopes‖, as well as ―the

most static‖ and claims that ―[i]n it there is no potential for evolution […]‖ (Bakhtin 110) Thus,

these ancient novelistic types are ―a mere affirmation of the identity between what had been

at the beginning and what is at the end. Adventure-time leaves no trace.‖ (Bakhtin 110)

He then moves on to the second type, called the ―adventure novel of everyday life‖,

which is characterized by ―the mix of adventure-time and everyday time […]‖ (Bakhtin 111)

However, Bakhtin stresses that this type is not simply a blend of two forms of time: ―Both

adventure- and everyday time change their essential forms in this combination, as they are

subject to the conditions of the completely new chronotope [that is] created […]‖ (Bakhtin

111) In contrast to the ―adventure novel of ordeal‖ this type focuses on ―the course of the

hero‘s […] life in its critical moments‖, which ―makes up the plot of the novel.‖ (Bakhtin 111) In

what follows, he distinguishes two features that define a special everyday time. First, there is

the context of a metamorphosis and secondly, ―that the course of his [= the protagonist‘s] life

must correspond to an actual course of travel […]‖ Bakhtin 111) Nonetheless, this does not

mean that such a novel only portrays biological time, it rather, as Bakhtin argues, shows us

moments of crisis in a person‘s life, ―[b]ut these moments shape the definitive image of the

man, his essence, as well as the nature of his entire subsequent life.‖ (Bakhtin 116) As in the

first type, in this second Greek form chance plays an important part. Yet, this form of chance

is different in the sense that the hero ―attracts the power of chance to himself.‖ (Bakhtin 117)

That means that the adventure sequence is organized ―not by chance [itself], but by the hero

himself and by the nature of his personality.‖ (Bakhtin 117) Thus the links between the

adventure sequences are changed, they become more active. This, in turn, creates ―a series of

9

adventures that the hero undergoes‖ but it ―does not result in a simple affirmation of his

identity, but rather in the construction of a new image of the hero […]‖ (Bakhtin 117) This

construction is a remarkable aspect of the novel and is connected to the motif of the

metamorphosis. ―[T]he way it [= this novelistic type] fuses the course of an individual‘s life (at

its major turning points) with his actual spatial course or road‖ is, according to Bakhtin, ―[t]he

most characteristic thing‖ and it explains how everyday time can be merged with adventure-

time. (Bakhtin 120)

The third and final type is the (ancient) biographical novel, by which Bakhtin does not

mean a ―novel‖ in the modern sense of the term. Nevertheless, these ―series of

autobiographical and biographical forms‖ that were ―worked out in ancient times […] had a

profound influence not only one the development of European biography, but also on the

development of the European novel as a whole.‖ (130) However, since these types are of little

relevance here, I will omit Bakhtin‘s discussion of them.

Chronologically following the Greek romance is the ―chivalric romance‖. On many

levels, the chivalric romance resembles the ―adventure novel of ordeal‖, the first type of Greek

romances. Bakhtin writes: ―A testing of the identity of heroes (and things)—basically, their

fidelity in love and faithfulness to the demands of the chivalric code—plays the same

organizing role.‖ (151) This later genre is also characterized by adventure-time that ―contains

a mixture of chance, fate, the gods and so forth.‖ (152) However, a completely new feature

arises in the chivalric romance. Adventure-time, according to Bakhtin, ―emerges only at points

of rupture […] in normal, real-life ‗law-abiding‘ temporal sequences, where these laws (of

whatever sort) are suddenly violated […]‖ (152) However, this ―suddenly‖ is not out of the

ordinary for the hero, it ―is normalized, as it were, […]; it becomes something generally

applicable.‖ (152) Whereas the hero of the Greek romance, strives to ―escape from the game

of fate and to return to ordinary, normal life […]‖, the hero of the later chivalric romance,

―plunges headfirst into adventures as if they were his native element […]‖ (152) This type of

hero, who organizes his life and sense of self by the chivalric code, ―can live only in this world

of miraculous chance, for only it preserves his identity […]‖ (152) Another innovative feature

of the chivalric romance are the many ―heroic deeds [that] are performed by which the

heroes glorify themselves, and glorify others […]‖ (153) These differences between the two

romances is what makes the chivalric romance resemble the genre of the epic adventure.

10

Also, Bakhtin argues, in the chivalric romance there is a ―subjective playing with time‖ which is

expressed by ―an emotional and lyrical stretching and compression of it […]‖ that is unseen in

Greek or Roman forms. (155) A final aspect that Bakhtin discusses in his overview of the

novelistic genres of the Middle Ages, are three types that originated in low folkloric forms.

These three ―prominent types,‖ the rogue, the clown and the fool, were ―enormously

significant for the later development of the European novel.‖ (158) As Bakhtin writes, these

three figures, though not new inventions of their time—for they already figured prominently

in the literary forms of antiquity—, ―create around themselves their own special little world,

their own chronotope.‖ (159) Their shared and most distinct feature is their ―right to be

‗other‘ in this world […]‖ (159), which is an aspect that echoes the role of metamorphosis in

the ancient Greek types. These characters ―reflect private life and make it public […]‖ (161)

thus aiding in the novel‘s ―struggle against conventionality […]‖ (162) which aimed at

upturning conventions, trying to portray life in all its ugliness and beauty and, in a sense,

paved the way for realism.

Bakhtin then moves on to his extensive discussion of the Rabelaisian chronotope. He

argues that Rabelais‘ novels are characterized by ―a special connection between a man and all

his actions, between every event of his life and the spatial-temporal world.‖ (167) He suggests

that Rabelais‘ work breathes a ―passion for spatial and temporal equivalence‖ which leads to

its ideal to ―purge the spatial and temporal world of those remnants of a transcendent world

view still present in it […]‖, in order to recreate ―an adequate world able to provide a new

chronotope for a new, whole and harmonious man […]‖ (168) Bakthin claims that these works

are organized in seven different series, intersecting one another, each with their ―own specific

logic […] [and] own dominants.‖ (170) He then continues to give extensive examples. What

then is the function of these series for Bakhtin‘s research of the Rabelaisian chronotope? He

writes that ―[a]ll the series selected […] above serve in Rabelais to destroy the old picture of

the world […], and to create a new picture, at whose center we have a whole man, both body

and soul.‖ (205) This new picture is a drastic change of ―[t]he elements themselves that make

up the whole image, motif or plot—as well as the artistic and ideological functions of the

entire matrix taken as a whole at various stages of development […]‖ (205) The relevance of

this is that, according to Bakhtin, ―[b]eneath this matrix, which serves as the exterior index,

there is hidden a specific form for experiencing time and a specific relationship between time

11

and the spatial world, that is, there is hidden a specific chronotope.‖ (205) This chronotope is

the expression of a new world view, in which time becomes a creative force, rather than a

destructive means. Therefore, ―[a] new chrontope was needed, that would permit one to link

real life (history) to the real earth‖ which would enable the opposition of ―a creative and

generative time, a time measured by creative acts‖ to eschatology. (206) Bakhtin identifies the

fundamentals of a ―creating time‖ as ―present in the images and motifs of folklore.‖ (206) He

then continues to discuss the folkloric bases of the Rabelaisian chronotope and the 7

distinctive features of this new form of time. He begins with the collective nature of time,

―that is, it [=time] is differentiated and measured only by the events of collective life […]‖

(206) This means that the focus on the individual and his personal progression is not yet of

any relevance. Secondly, Bakhtin identifies the role of labor as another feature. This new form

of time is the time of labor and ―time is measured by labor events‖ which means that ―[t]his

sense of time works itself out in a collective battle of labor against nature.‖ (207) Thirdly, it is

also the time of productive growth. It is a positive conception of time, in that ―[t]he passage

of time does not destroy or diminish but rather multiplies and increases the quantity […]‖

(207) Moreover, it also ―marks not only a quantitative but also a qualitative growth […]‖ (207)

A fourth feature of this form of time is that it is a time ―maximally tensed towards the future.‖

(207) Bakhtin writes that, ―[a]ll labor processes are aimed forward.‖ (207) In addition, this form

of time is ―profoundly spatial and concrete.‖ (208) Bakhtin clarifies this: ―It is not separated

from the earth or from nature. It, as well as the entire life of the human being, is all on the

surface.‖ (208) Which, in turn, makes it ―unified in an unmediated way.‖ (208) This is the sixth

feature of the new form of time, according to Bakhtin, though ―this imminent unity becomes

apparent only in the light of later perceptions of time in literature […]‖ (208) All these features

above, are categorized by Bakhtin as being ―positive features of folkloric time.‖ (209)The final

feature, however, is perceived as negative. It is extensively marked by a cyclicity, ―that limits

the force and ideological productivity of this time.‖ (209-210) This means that ―[t]ime‘s

forward impulse is limited by the cycle.‖ (210) This, in turn, causes a restriction of growth, for

it ―does not achieve an authentic ‗becoming.‘‖ (210) Finally, Bakhtin also stresses that in the

work of Rabelais ―all members of the matrix (all members of the complex) are equally valid.‖

(211) Every event in these novels is attributed the same weight, be it food and drink or birth

and death. However, as society changes, the matrix changes: it becomes

―compartmentalized‖, as Bakhtin writes. This fragmentation is caused by the growing

12

development of class society. Consequently, ―ideological spheres are increasingly

differentiated, the internal disintegration […] of each element of the matrix becomes more

and more intense […], they become predominantly a personal and everyday affair […]‖ (213)

This can be seen in ―ideologies and literature,‖ where ―the elements of the matrix are

scattered throughout various genres, styles and tones.‖ (213) Similarly, the form of time

changes as well. Bakhtin coins this as such: ―Out of the common time of collective life emerge

separate individual life-sequences, individual fates.‖ (214) This overview of the new concept

of time concludes Bakhtin‘s discussion of the Rabelaisian chronotope.

In the final chapter Bakhtin discusses the idyllic chronotope in the novel. He identifies

the different types and variants of the idyll, but rather than focusing on the differences, he

points out the common aspects of the idyll. These aspects which they have in common, ―all

determined by their general relationship to the immanent unity of folkloric time.‖ (225) This is

expressed in the intrinsic connection of time and space: ―Idyllic life and its events are

inseparable from […] [their] concrete, spatial corner of the world.‖ (225) The idyll is thus

characterized by the creation of a little world, separated from other places, which is home to

several generations, all living together peacefully. What is more, ―[t]he unity of the life of

generations […] in an idyll is in most instances primarily defined by the unity of place […]‖

(225) This unity of place translates itself in a ―blurring of all the temporal boundaries‖, which

―also contributes in an essential way to the creation of the cyclic rhythmicalness of time so

characteristic of the idyll.‖ (225) Another aspect, shared by all variants of the idyll, is the

limitation of its subject matter to ―only a few of life‘s basic realities.‖ (225) Bakhtin identifies

these basic realities as: love, death, birth, marriage, food and drink, labor and stages of

growth. However, in contrast to what we see in Rabelais‘ work, here these ―basic life-realities

are present […] not on their naked realistic aspect […] but in a softened and to a certain

extent sublimated form.‖ (226) The last shared aspect of the idyllic form is ―the conjoining of

human life with the life of nature […]‖ (226) The language of both is intertwined and highly

metaphorical. Bakhtin then discusses the presence of these aspects in the different types of

idylls. What interests him the most, however, is the role the idyll has played in the

development of the novel. This influence, according to Bakhtin, takes on flesh in five different

directions. He identifies the influence of ―the idyll, idyllic time and idyllic matrices on the

provincial novel‖; ―the destruction of the idyll, as in the Bildungsroman of Goethe […]‖, ―its

13

[=the idyll] influence on the Sentimental novel of the Rousseauan type‖; ―its influence on the

family novel and the novel of generations‖; and as a last direction, ―its influence on novels

belonging to certain other categories […].‖ In short, Bakhtin recognizes the chronotope of the

idyll in many related, as well as completely unrelated, forms and then moves on to a separate

discussion of these forms (which I will omit here, for the sake of relevancy).

In his concluding remarks, Bakhtin makes a few final interesting observations, which

can also be seen as relevant to Auster‘s work. He touches briefly upon the workings of the

chronotope of encounter and the chronotope of the road. Both are linked in the sense that

―[t]he road is a particularly good place for random encounters.‖ (243) This is because ―[o]n

the road spatial and temporal series defining human fates and lives combine with one

another in distinctive ways, even as they become more complex and more concrete by the

collapse of social distances.‖ (243) Time and space function as follows: ―Time, as it were, fuses

together with space and flows in it (forming the road); this is the source of the rich

metaphorical expansion of the image of the road as a course: ‗the course of life‘ […]‖ This

―course of life‖ is linked to the role of the quest in Auster‘s work.

In the end, Bakhtin asks what the significance is of all these chronotopes. He answers his own

question by stressing their importance for narrative, he claims that chronotopes ―are the

organizing centers for the fundamental narrative events of the novel.‖ (250) For him, ―the

chronotope , functioning as the primary means for materializing time in space, emerges as a

center for concretizing representation, as a force giving body to the entire novel.‖ (250)

2. BAKHTINIAN CONCEPTS IN THE NEW YORK TRILOGY: RELEVANCE AND FUNCTION

The question now arises how this lengthy discussion of Bakhtin‘s work is relevant to

the quest for identity, as well as other elements in Auster‘s work. First of all, as already

mentioned above, chronotopes define a specific genre. The importance of genre plays a vital

part in this discussion, since Auster deliberately mocks the genre conventions of detective

fiction. This adaptation of genre conventions by Auster is not a new experiment, as suggested

by Alison Russell in an article entitled ―Deconstructing The New-York Trilogy: Paul Auster‘s

Anti-Detective Fiction‖. It belongs to a parodic postmodern approach to the detective story,

14

as introduced by Pynchon and Nabokov2. These literary experiments are called ―anti-detective

fiction‖3 and deliberately (ab)use the traditional conventions of the genre. This aspect will be

discussed later on more extensively, when we discuss detective fiction as such. Significantly,

Russell writes: ―The detective story‘s highly stylized patterns are derivative of the Romance, an

extremely conventional literary genre.‖ (Russell 71) These conventions are exactly what is

discussed by Bakhtin and there are some noteworthy elements in his discussion of the Greek

romance that are also applicable to The New York Trilogy. For example, Russell identifies the

element of a ―solitary quest‖ (Russell 83) as a similarity between detective fiction and the

Romance. Bakhtin has also commented on the role of a quest in his analysis of the adventure

novel of everyday life. The hero‘s life course corresponds to an actual course of travel. This is

specifically the case in The Locked Room, when the protagonist wanders around Paris in the

final part of the story. Actual travels to a great extent make up the course of his and

Fanshawe‘s life. The element of travel incorporates another aspect, the motif of meeting,

which Bakhtin discusses in connection to the adventure novel of ordeal. As already

mentioned, according to Bakhtin it is nearly impossible to find a novel in which this motif is

completely absent. However, for Auster‘s novels, the motif of meeting is more than just

present. It is actively used by Auster to shape the protagonist‘s travels, as well as to gain

insight into what is happening around them, or to themselves even. Meetings between the

main characters and their doubles make up an important part of the protagonists‘ quest for

answers. An example that illustrates best what impact the meeting can have, is the meeting

between Daniel Quinn and the character named Paul Auster in City of Glass, though Quinn

only realizes this at the end of their meeting. The life the character Auster lives, is exactly the

life he too would want to lead. Quinn feels ―as though Auster were taunting him with the

things he had lost, and he responded with envy and rage, a lacerating self-pity.‖ (NYT 101)

However, that is not and will never be his life, as he is being kicked around by the ancient

force of chance. The role of chance, considered by Bakhtin the force that drives adventure

time, is an important element in Auster‘s novels. Characters are thrown into adventures by

mere coincidence, as it were. The first story, City of Glass, starts with a seemingly random

event: ―It was a wrong number that started it […]‖ (NYT 3) Thus, action is triggered by chance,

by mere randomness. For Blue, in Ghosts, it is the same: ―Blue goes to his office every day

2 The works Alison Russell mentions are The Crying of Lot 49 (Pynchon) and Pale Fire (Nabokov)

3 Russell borrows this term from Stefano Tani‘s The Doomed Detective

15

and sits at his desk, waiting for something to happen. For a long time nothing does, and then

a man named White walks through the door and that is how it begins.‖ (NYT 137) In the last

story, action is also governed by the unexpected, by things happening suddenly: ―Out of

nowhere, Fanshawe had suddenly reappeared in my life.‖ (NYT 202, emphasis added) It would

seem that the heroes of the stories do not seek adventure themselves, adventure is just

something that happens to them, as is the case with the heroes of the ancient adventure

novel of ordeal.

Another feature of the adventure novel of everyday time is important for The New

York Trilogy. This is the element of metamorphosis, which is one of the most ancient motifs in

literature. It is the perfect means for portraying the ‗Other‘ in fiction and may be considered a

strategy to incorporate a person or thing at the margins of society into the body of the story.

Bakhtin‘s example is The Golden Ass by Apuleius, in which the hero turns into an ass. This

eventually, after a long journey, turns out to change his life for the better. As a beast of

burden, he stands on the periphery, looking in. Since people are unaware that he is actually

human, it is the perfect opportunity for him to eavesdrop and spy on the private lives of

others. Closely linked to this aspect, as already mentioned, are the figures of the rogue, the

clown and the fool. As they create their own little worlds, they attempt to make private life

public. A figure often deployed by Auster, linked to the rogue, the fool and the clown, is that

of the homeless bum, living on the streets. In Auster‘s fiction they are all rather stereotypical

in their appearance, living on street corners, often seen talking to themselves. They star in

most of his works, not only in the Trilogy. In Moon Palace for example, the homeless bum,

adrift in the world, forms an important motif. Moreover, these homeless figures represent the

‗Other‘ very well, as they live their lives (private) on the streets (public). They are the obvious

in-between, intertwining the private with the public spheres. Another figure that can be

associated with the Other, though not mentioned by Bakhtin, is the double or doppelganger.

The double is equally important for the intertwinement of public and private sphere and it is

also a figure that expresses living as an in-between. The New York Trilogy is spiked with these

doubles. They play an essential part in the quest for identity, which will be discussed later on.

They act as a complement to the detective-protagonist, creating a mirroring effect to what

the detective is trying to do. All of this will be discussed more fully when looking at the Other

in these stories. What is more, making private life public is exactly what a detective is

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supposed to do. He is always on the outside looking in, trying to uncover what is supposed

to stay hidden. Therefore, the element of disguise plays a key-role as well. Bakhtin mentions

the role of disguise when discussing metamorphosis. Disguise and metamorphosis mean to

achieve a similar effect, combining what is actually familiar with what is hidden. All the

protagonists of The Trilogy use the trick of disguise, both literally and figuratively, in their

quest for answers.

It has become clear, then, that the concept of the chronotope can shed light on the

workings of Auster‘s stories. The interconnectedness of time and space is relevant for the

quest for solutions, which is a vital element of the character‘s development. Also, certain

aspects of ancient novelistic types discussed by Bakhtin are still relevant for modern works of

fiction. There are more similarities between these stories and ancient adventure novels than

one would expect. Going back to these old forms of fiction can uncover the basic workings of

a story, so as to blow away the thick layer of postmodern dust, which can cloud our

understanding.

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CHAPTER TWO: AUSTERIAN DETECTIVE FICTION

1. GENRE CONVENTIONS OF TRADITIONAL DETECTIVE FICTION

As The New York Trilogy is based upon the genre conventions of the detective novel,

it is necessary to provide a short overview of the structure of the detective genre. It is not my

intention to classify Auster‘s work as an example of traditional detective fiction. The novel

belongs to the realm of the postmodern and should be analyzed as such. Nonetheless, as

Kathleen Belin Owen writes: ―A postmodern detective story cannot evade the context of the

detective genre it is ‗post‘ to, but the postmodern detective story seeks not to evade or

eliminate echoes of its genre‘s traditions; rather, it embraces the traditional, then turns it right

on its head.‖ (Delamater & Prigozy 73) In order to test this claim, I will attempt to uncover in

which ways Auster might turn the traditional ―right on its head‖.

Owen identifies some traditional features in the postmodern detective story: ―The

postmodern detective novel, despite some assertions that it possesses a ‗lack of center‘ and a

‗nonsolution‘ (Tani 40), does initially ground itself in the typical detective genre declarations

of a mystery, a detective, an epistemological search (though the solution is ontological, for in

postmodernism the ‗rational‘ explanation about states of being cannot be assumed), and a

goal of resolution.‖ (Delamater & Prigozy 74) As such, she identifies four main elements of

postmodern detective fiction. The elements of detective fiction, however, remain open to

debate. In order to provide a broad overview, it is of importance to identify the most

common elements of traditional detective fiction. In an internet article on teaching (classic)

detective fiction, Pamela M. Price-Anisman identifies the genre as follows:

―[T]he genre is skeletal. What hangs on the outside makes each work unique; the inside

process, however, follows a fairly consistent pattern. The construction of most mystery and

detective novels revolves around four basic elements. The author begins with the statement of

the problem (the crime). Next, he must create, invent, or produce the information (clues)

during an inquiry that leads to a solution of the problem. Then, the author completes the

investigation at the point where the investigator declares that he or she knows the answer.

More often than not, the novel will continue into a final phase: proving the accuracy of the

declared solution to the reader through a careful explanation of the evidence.‖ (Price-Anisman,

web resource Yale.edu)

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Apparently, Price-Anisman also discerns four basic elements but names them as:

1) statement of the problem; 2) creation of clues, during an inquiry that leads up to a

solution; 3) declaration of the solution; 4) verification of the accuracy of the solution by

explaining the evidence.

Key to her analysis, as to many writers on detective fiction, is The Guilty Vicarage, an

essay by W.H Auden, and Auden‘s connection of the features of detective fiction to Aristotle‘s

theory of Greek tragedy. This would appear to create a paradox, in the sense that a tragedy

ends badly and most detective fiction tends to end with an air of contentment after righting

what was wrong. However, it must be noted that Aristotle‘s theory has a universalising

element to it, which allows for it to be applied to a great variety of literary productions.

Martin Priestman discusses this link between Aristotle‘s theory and detective fiction, justifying

it through a claim that Sophocles‘ play Oedipus the King has an unusually important role in

our culture for two reasons. The first is that ―it was the main model on which Aristotle based

the generalisations of The Poetics, the founding work of Western literary theory‖ ; the second

is because ―it is the reference point for Freud‘s theory of the Oedipus complex, and hence a

cornerstone of psychoanalysis.‖ (Priestman 16) He also remarks that ―it [= the play] also has a

strong formal resemblance to a detective story‖ (Priestman 16) It is this formal resemblance

that Auden uses to explain the conventional pattern of the detective story. He identifies six,

rather than four, steps in the pattern, in analogy to the pattern of a Greek tragedy. To him,

the pattern is as follows:

Peaceful state before the murder → Murder → False clues, secondary murder, etc. → Solution

→ Arrest of the murderer → Peaceful state after arrest.

This is in analogy to the pattern laid out by Aristotle:

False innocence → Revelation of presence of guilt → False location of guilt → Location of real

guilt → Catharsis → True innocence.

Price-Anisman describes this return to a peaceful state as follows: ―After the solution has

been stated, the detective can then calmly recreate the crime logically and efficiently for the

eager reader turned participant. Emotionally and intellectually, the audience is finally

satisfied.‖ (Price-Anisman, web resource Yale.edu) This satisfaction is also present for the

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characters themselves, since ―[t]he job of the detective is to restore the state of grace in

which the aesthetic and the ethical are as one.‖ (Auden, online) The ethical and the aesthetic

are as one, when a society finds itself a state of grace, in which ―there is no need of the law,

no contradiction between the aesthetic individual and the ethical universal […]‖ (Auden,

online) This state of grace finds its origin in a ritual, as Auden describes. A ritual, explains

Auden, ―is a sign of harmony between the aesthetic and the ethical in which body and mind,

individual will and general laws, are not in conflict.‖ (Auden, online) He underlines the

necessity of this ritual, in combination with a closed society. Thus, with the restoration of this

state of grace, the pattern of a detective story forms a clear cyclical movement. Also, Auden

remarks: ―Greek tragedy and the detective story have one characteristic in common, in which

they both differ from modern tragedy, namely, the characters are not changed in or by their

actions […] Time and space are therefore simply the when and where […]‖ (Auden, online)

It is clear then, that detective fiction is made up of a step-by-step cyclical construct,

beginning with a state of peace and returning to that state. This echoes the conditions lined

out by Bakhtin for the Greek romance, as well as the typical structure of an adventure epic. In

these two novelistic types, the hero‘s peaceful state is disrupted, there is a disturbance of the

ethical, and the hero is thrown into one adventure after another in attempt to restore the

state of grace. At end, however, he succeeds and everything returns to its prior state,

including the hero, who turns out unchanged by all that has happened.

Auden also comments on the characters. He defines them as ‗unchanged‘ by their

actions, by the plot of the story. However, this does not mean that the characters are

supposed to be bland, on the contrary ―[t]he characters of a detective story should, […], be

eccentric (aesthetically interesting individuals) […]‖ (Auden, online) One of these eccentric

figures is the detective himself. Timothy R. Prchal writes in Theory and Practice of Classic

Detective Fiction that ―[d]etective characters serve as […] exemplary object in their enviable

ability to solve mysteries and to maintain morality when everybody around them fail.‖

(Delamater & Prigozy 30) In the end, he says, ―detectives offer characteristics to redefine and

fortify ego-ideals in highly individualized ways.‖ (Delamater & Prigozy 30) This can serve as

an explanation for the success of popular eccentrics, such as Sherlock Holmes and Hercule

Poirot. Owen‘s first observation also focuses on the aspect of eccentricity, as ―one of the

obvious traits‖ (Delamater & Prigozy 75). Secondly, she claims that a feature which all

20

detectives share, is a ―guiding principle of observation.‖ (Delamater & Prigozy 76) The actual

content of such a principle can vary from one detective to the other, but what all of them

share is ―a belief that, no matter how bizarre or under what impossible circumstances the

crime was committed, one can arrive at the solution by rational explanation.‖ (Delamater &

Prigozy 77) All of the traditional detectives rely on rationality, despite what their outer

oddball appearance may convey to bystanders. This creates a contrast, as specified in the

third observation, ―between each sleuth‘s outer appearance, demeanor, or method and his

inner abilities.‖ (77) This contrast is connected to the role of disguise, in the sense that

detectives tend to disguise themselves, though more often figuratively than literally. Finally,

Owen comments on the role of the narrator. She writes that ―[a] reliable (often first-person)

narrator who will provide all the details as he or she sees them constitutes another important

part of the detective story formula.‖ (78) Such a reliable narrator recounting the events would

imply then, that ―a ‗proper‘ detective story [should consist] of the detective arriving at the

solution before the reader with a greater understanding than the reader could have had.‖ (78)

This is an important aspect of detective fiction, the moment of insight , the moment in which

the reader solves the puzzle together with the detective.

To conclude, let us take a brief look at the American hardboiled tradition, to which

Auster‘s detective fiction is definitely indebted the most. An important feature of the

hardboiled is the figure of the solitary detective, the private eye. This figure has a vital role for

the tradition. Martin Priestman explains it as follows: ―the specialisation of the private eye‘s

work [enables a limitation to] […] one perspective, from this one point of view, the complex

life outside looks simpler and clearer.‖ (Priestman 170) Next, he identifies an important

difference with the English tradition, in that ―[i]t is not, as in the English whodunnit, that a

microcosmic society has been carefully sealed off from a larger one […] but that a sprawling

and threatening world is made manageable by being seen in terms of a deliberately limited

range of issues.‖ (Priestman 170) At the same time, this generates the exact opposite

situation. As Priestman claims, ―if the limitation of the private eye‘s perspective constitutes a

necessary means of keeping this world under control, it has often also provided a highly

effective means of evoking a world where such control seems impossible.‖ (Priestman 170) As

such, the clash between the constant threat of the outside world and the attempts of the

private eye to keep it in check is one of the typical features of the hardboiled tradition. This

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creates an air of existential insecurity, accompanied by a gloomy atmosphere. Moreover, as

Priestman explains, there is an ―anti-liberalism at present [= 1990] very current in the United

States, whereby the ills of an increasingly acquisitive society are no longer accounted for in

terms of its structure but of inherent human evil.‖ (Priestman 178) He adds that ―[a]gainst this

background the hardboiled quest to make sense of a largely senseless world by

understanding its connections comes to seem heroically outdated.‖ (Priestman 178) This

paves the way for fiction not unlike that of Paul Auster. Priestman reads Auster‘s Trilogy as

―not only [declaring] that the world outside makes no sense but also that […] there is no

world out there to make sense of.‖ (Priestman 178)

We have now reached an overview of the main principles and features of the classic

and hardboiled detective traditions. However, it should not surprise any astute reader that

Paul Auster‘s detective fiction is of a different kind still. Which of these typical features are

relevant for his The New York Trilogy and which of these are (conspicuously) absent or

completely turned around?

2. ROLE AND FUNCTION OF TRADITIONAL FEATURES IN THE NEW YORK TRILOGY

CYCLICAL PATTERN

It is clear that a return to a peaceful state before the murder/crime is out of the

question for Auster‘s detectives. These stories do not have a cyclical structure and the

detectives do not manage to restore the state of grace. In fact, it would seem that the

narrative omits any form of resolution or ends before a solution can be reached, leaving

Auden‘s classical pattern unfinished. In City of Glass, for example, the story starts rather

ominously, though there is an air of simplicity and stasis: ―Much later, when he was able to

think about the things that had happened to him, he would conclude that nothing was real

except chance. But that was much later. In the beginning, there was simply the event and its

consequences.‖ (NYT 3) The beginning is as plain and simple as that. The story starts off with

a short and basic introduction of the protagonist, Daniel Quinn. The narrator stresses Quinn‘s

routine existence, which exemplifies a reassuring repetition. However, by the end of the story

this element has completely vanished. The story does not end in a return to this reassuring

pattern. Though the ending is left open, it seems to deny the notion of ‗ending‘ or resolution.

When the narrator and Auster visit the Stillman‘s apartment, the scene ends like this: ―Then

22

we left and walked out into the snow. The city was entirely white now, and the snow kept

falling, as though it would never end. As for Quinn, it is impossible for me to say where he is

now.‖ (NYT 133) This image of the snow that keeps falling, ―as though it would never end‖ is

connected to Quinn‘s fate. It suggests the impossibility of ending, of achieving a clear

resolution. The denial seems to be in contrast with classical pattern of detective fiction.

What pattern can be identified in these stories then? In order to answer this question,

it could prove of interest to return to Aristotle‘s theory on the structure of the Greek tragedy.

Auden reconstructed this theory in terms of a bipolarity ‗guilt‘ vs. ‗innocence‘. When we, in

turn, look at the structure stripped bare of any interpretation, its build-up is as follows:

Incentive moment → Complication → Climax → Dénouement → Resolution. Two other

important elements of Aristotle‘s theory are the peripeteia (reversal of intention) and the

anagnorisis (Recognition). Barbara F. McManus writes that ―a peripeteia occurs when a

character produces an effect opposite to that which he intended to produce, while an

anagnorisis ‗is a change from ignorance to knowledge‘ […]‖ (McManus, web resource cnr.edu)

The presence of a peripeteia would seem plausible, however, whether or not there is a

moment of anagnorisis in any of the stories is debatable. The next valuable step is to adapt,

rather than adopt, this scheme and that of Auden to make it fit more specifically to The New

York Trilogy. We could construct a pattern as follows:

Stasis before mysterious event → Mysterious event → Complication of the mystery → Climax

→ Unraveling of mystery → Lack of resolution.

The peripeteia would take place during the ‗Complication of the mystery‘, the presence of

which heightens the tragic feel of the protagonists‘ lurking fate. What is significant in this

pattern, however, is the actual absence of a mystery. Auster‘s detectives are set on a quest

solve a crime that has not occurred, or will never occur. Both Quinn and Blue are stuck with a

non-case. This lack of an actual crime drives them both to start looking inwards, as will be

discussed later. These protagonists are, in fact, attempting to answer a question that has not

been posed. Yet, the story is set up in such a way, that for the detective and the reader, it

feels as if there is a mystery to solve. Both observations are equally important: the absence of

the crime becomes a ―presence through absence.‖ This means that the absence becomes a

presence, exactly because of its absence. In the sense that, if we were to look at nothing at all

23

for a long period of time and let it consume all our activities, it would become something

precisely because of its nothingness. In that respect, it is difficult to make Auster‘s detective

fiction adhere to a fixed, traditional pattern. Though, The New York Trilogy does not deny a

pattern per se, the stories are characterized by significant deviations from any traditional

pattern.

ECCENTRICITY OF THE CHARACTERS

The eccentric characters are a main feature of any detective story. It is what compels

the reader to identify with the detective and what keeps them interested. The stereotypical

detective has his quirks and oddities and generally his looks underline this. It is interesting

then, that Auster‘s detectives are nothing like this at all. Daniel Quinn, the ―detective‖ in City

of Glass, is not even described in terms of appearance. His description consists of a listing of

plain facts about him and his life. In the case of Blue, in Ghosts, the description is even more

stripped bare of any detail. The story starts almost in medias res with just a simple

introduction: ―First of all there is Blue.‖ (NYT 137) This is supposed to say it all and we get few

other details of Blue‘s appearance or his interests. The final story, The Locked Room, is

somewhat different. As this story is the least detective-like, its protagonist is not at all like the

generic detectives of the two previous stories. This narrative offers a lot more insight into the

protagonist‘s personal thoughts and feelings. Nonetheless, to claim that any of Auster‘s

―detectives‖ are similar to a traditional British eccentric detective like Hercule Poirot, would be

untrue. It seems that these characters are in essence plain and not eccentric at all, however

quirky their lives may seem. In fact, both Quinn and Blue fit into the American hardboiled

tradition, focusing on the private-eye, as discussed above. In that respect, Auster sticks to the

tradition, as he stresses their feelings of being lost in a hostile world. However, instead of

making the world more manageable by limiting their perspective, they only create more

chaos for themselves. During their investigations they discover their inner selves and loose all

means of making sense of themselves.

OBSERVATION AND RATIONALITY

By means of deduction, as is the case for Sherlock Holmes, or a method involving

attentive observation, the detective gains knowledge about the case. Also, no matter what

24

method is used, all the traditional detectives tend to rely on rationality. Let us now look at to

what extent these elements are relevant for The New York Trilogy.

First of all, the principle of observation plays the main role in the detective‘s methods. In City

of Glass, observation figures in its most literal form. Quinn follows Stillman, sr. around and

observes him meticulously. He feels that ―he could do no more than observe, [and] write

down what he saw in the red notebook, […]‖ (NYT 59) Blue, in Ghosts, also observes his

subject of investigation and writes down his observations in reports. Thus, both detectives

share the strategy of observation, but in addition to that they also share a sense of boredom,

of inactivity. Quinn can ―do no more than observe‖ and starts to feel stuck in a monotonous

routine. In Ghosts it says that ―Blue watches Black, and little of anything happens.‖ (NYT 144-

145) Both need secondary activities to keep them occupied. Also, for Quinn and Blue

observation leads to confrontation.

Most importantly, however, it should be noted that Auster‘s detectives gain little to

no knowledge about their cases. Despite their careful and precise work of observation, they

do not seem to uncover any useful information. If anything, it leaves them even more

confused and clueless than before. This is an important feature of Auster‘s anti-detective

fiction. In Detective Fiction and Literature, Martin Priestman writes that ―the commitment of

the private-eye-like hero to his case is repeatedly made to overshoot any chance of his

making sense of it, in ways which demonstrate the existential absurdity of all such tasks and

commitments.‖ (Priestman 178) It becomes clear then, that notwithstanding all their efforts,

the heroes are not going to acquire any insights into their cases by the conventional tactic of

observation.

Secondly, it should not come as a surprise that, in this dominant atmosphere of

―existential absurdity‖, the role of rationality is limited. Auster‘s detectives cannot rely on

rationality in the way the traditional detectives do. Rather, it would seem that, as the case

evolves, the concept of rationality itself is questioned. The longer Quinn and Blue observe

and conduct research, the more confused and completely at loss they become. This growing

confusion and the lack of progress results in a rise of their existential insecurity: ―Until now,

Blue has not had much chance for sitting still, and this new idleness has left him at something

25

of a loss. For the first time in his life, he finds that he has been thrown back on himself […]‖

(NYT 145) For Quinn, the same occurs as he is following Stillman, sr.:

―There remained the problem of how to occupy his thoughts as he followed the old man.

Quinn was used to wandering. His excursions through the city had taught him to understand

the connectedness of inner and outer. […] 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 some a kind of mindlessness. But following Stillman

was not wandering.‖ (NYT 61)

Quinn finds himself flooded with thoughts, whereas previously, his wandering about the city

was a means to avoid his ―fits of despair‖, caused by over-thinking life. Both Blue and Quinn

are used to a state of mindlessness and the confrontation with idleness triggers an

unwelcome inwardness. It would seem that it is exactly this traditional feature of observation

and rationality that Auster abuses and uses ironically. By trying to uncover the truth his

detectives only raise more questions.

CONTRAST AND DISGUISE

The fourth feature of traditional detective fiction concentrates on the contrast

between appearance, demeanor and inner abilities of the figure of the detective. Closely

linked to this is role of disguise. The feature of the eccentric detective has already been

discussed above and it has become clear that this aspect is relatively (and conspicuously)

absent. However, the use of disguise is very important in the first two stories of The New York

Trilogy.

In Ghosts, Blue uses a disguise to take his investigation to a higher level. Completely

disguised as ―a wise fool, a saint of penury living in the margins of society‖, (NYT 173) he

approaches Black and tries to engage him in conversation, to uncover his role in the case.

This method of investigation features the use of disguise in a very literal sense. In the first

story, City of Glass, a real form of masquerade is less present. The use of a disguise should be

interpreted more figuratively. Quinn does not put on a costume to confront Stillman, sr. He

does not need to, since Stillman does not seem to recognize Quinn on their second meeting:

―Then, looking up from his menu, he studied Quinn‘s face in an abstract sort of way. He

apparently did not recognize him from the day before.‖ (NYT 79) And even on their third

meeting, Stillman does not remember Quinn: ―Then he sat down next to the old man and

said hello. Incredibly, Stillman did not recognize him. This was the third time Quinn had

26

presented himself, and each time it was as though Quinn had been someone else.‖ (NYT 83)

Quinn manages to disguise himself during the second and third meeting, simply by taking on

another name. He claims to be Henry Dark on the second meeting, and ―the other Peter

Stillman‖ during their third and final meeting (NYT 84). This taking on of a different name,

functions as yet another mask. Quinn feels free, he does not fear recognition as he hides

behind this mask, which conceals his true self. The truest form of disguise occurs when Quinn

begins his surveillance of the Stillman‘s apartment. He spends months living on the streets

and in the end he seems to have become a different person:

―He thought that he had spotted a stranger in the mirror, and in that first moment he turned

around sharply to see who it was. But there was no one near him. Then he turned back to

examine the mirror more carefully. Feature by feature, he studied the face in front of him and

slowly began to notice that this person bore a certain resemblance to the man he had always

thought of as himself. […] He had turned into a bum. […] It had been no more than a matter of

months, and in that time he had become someone else.‖ (NYT 120-121)

Quinn has become a different person, to such an extent even, that he does not even

recognize himself anymore. In his transformation Quinn has transgressed the boundary

between the self and the other, the one the disguise is supposed to create. However,

underneath he is still the same person, his changed appearance is only temporary. He resides

in a sort of in-between state, between the self, his disguise and the Other. The relevance of

this in-between state will be discussed more fully later on, focusing on the Other and the

double.

It has become clear then, that Quinn and Blue, both use a disguise, or a form of

disguise, as an attempt to gain insights into the subjects of their investigative work. However,

these confrontations leave them ever more baffled than before, as was the case with the act

of observation. Blue does not seem to get any answers from Black, only more questions. Also,

for Quinn, hiding behind a different name does not seem to get him very far. He gets stuck in

the case and completely loses himself in his transformation, lingering in a limbo-like place

between what he has become and who he wanted to impersonate and who he used to be.

NARRATION

The final feature, identified by Kathleen Belin Owen, is the use of a reliable first-person

narrator, recounting the events chronologically and earnestly, inserting all the details needed

to solve the mystery. Consequently, this narrator reaches the solution before the reader does

27

and shows an understanding of what has happened in a way that the reader never could.

In The New York Trilogy however, a reliable first-person narrator is out of the question. Both

the first and the second story are narrated in the third person, with the distinct exception of

the end of City of Glass, which introduces the reader to a first person he never heard of

before. The final story, The Locked Room, is the only story with a real first-person narrator,

but conspicuously this story also seems to fit the conventions of the detective genre the least

of all three. Most importantly, however, is that neither the third-person narrators nor the

first-person narrator arrive at a solution before the reader does. All the narrators are equally

at loss to make sense of the occurring events. If anything, they seem to deny the existence of

a clear resolution.

In City of Glass, the final passage, narrated in the first-person, suggests that the true

story will never be known: ―As for Quinn, it is impossible for me to say where he is now. […]

The red notebook, of course, is only half the story, as any sensitive reader will understand.‖

(NYT 133) By the end of the story, the narrator knows just as little as the reader does. Auster

clearly shows that there is no information to withhold from the reader, there is only text. This

is a clear denial of the convention of traditional detective fiction, in which writer and reader

engage in a game of withholding and concealing information, until finally a solution is

reached. In all three stories of The New York Trilogy, the endings are left open, there is no

definitive knowledge to be found there.

From this overview we can conclude that Auster‘s The New York Trilogy indeed

adheres to most conventions of traditional detective fiction, yet, in the atmosphere of

postmodernism, turns these upside down. Owen, in her discussion of the postmodern

detective novel, writes that ―[p]ostmodernism also transforms the detection process of the

story, a process by which the detective novel traditionally had entangled the reader in the

confusion of determining the solution, had exhibited the detective‘s prowess as he begins to

make his discoveries, and promised the satisfaction of the solution finally revealed, with its

consequent restoration of world order.‖ (Delamater & Prigozy 81-82) The promised

satisfaction, the restoration of world order and especially the confirmation of detective‘s

28

prowess are conspicuously absent. What is more, the process of detection is turned into an

operation, in which all the clues seem to cancel each other out as clues.

29

CHAPTER THREE: DOPPELGANGERS AND IDENTITY: THE UNCANNY AND THE OTHER

In order to understand the working of the Other in Auster‘s Trilogy, it would be best

to first shed light on a few theoretical approaches to the concepts of the doppelganger and

the Other. What role does the Other and the doppelganger, play for the protagonists? How

does the confrontation with a double affect their identity, the sense of self? In what follows, I

will first explore Sigmund Freud‘s concept of ―The Uncanny‖ and try to determine its

relevance to The New York Trilogy. Adding to this discussion, and particularly to the analysis

of the double, is the theory of Jacques Lacan on the Other and the mirror stage. After

outlining these theories, I will discuss their relevance to the use of the doppelganger in each

story.

1. THE UNCANNY – SIGMUND FREUD

In 1919 the psychoanalyst Sigmund Freud wrote ―Das Unheimliche‖4, an influential

essay in which he focused on the phenomenon of the ―uncanny‖, applied to psychoanalysis

as well as literature. This phenomenon is a complex concept, based on the internal

contradiction in meaning of the German word ‗unheimlich‘ (‗uncanny‘) and its opposite

‗heimlich‘. Freud writes: ―Das deutsche Wort ‗unheimlich‘ ist offenbar der Gegensatz zu

heimlich, vertraut, und der Schluß liegt nahe, es sei etwas eben darum schreckhaft, weil es

nicht bekannt und vertraut ist.‖5 (Freud 244) Next, Freud discusses this contradictory aspect in

greater detail. A long citation from a dictionary leads him to conclude ―daß das Wörtchen

heimlich unter den mehrfachen Nuancen seiner Bedeutung auch eine zeigt, in der es mit

seinem Gegensatz unheimlich zusammenfällt.‖6 (Freud 248) On the one hand ‗heimlich‘

means ‗familiar, belonging to the house‘ and on the other hand it can also be used in the

context of something that is to be kept hidden, of something secret. The word ‗unheimlich‘

then, can be used to indicate the opposite of the first meaning, i.e. the opposite of something

familiar, whereas it cannot be used as the opposite of the second meaning. Freud thus

4 Translations can be found online, in an English version of Freud‘s essay: http://www-

rohan.sdsu.edu/~amtower/uncanny.html. The translations cited below stem from this version, though

some of them have been somewhat adapted, whenever I found it to be necessary. 5 ―The German word 'unheimlich 'is obviously the opposite of 'homely' (heimlich) the opposite of

‗familiar‘ (vertraut); and the conclusion readily comes to mind, that what is 'uncanny' is frightening

actually and precisely because it is not known and familiar.‖ 6 ―that the word heimlich in its multiplicity of nuances of meaning, also incorporates one particular

meaning, in which it coincides with its opposite, unheimlich.‖

30

underlines that the word ‗heimlich‘ belongs to two very different semantic fields, ―dem des

Vertrauten, Behaglichen und dem des Versteckten, Verborgengehaltenen.‖7 (Freud 248) This

paradox adds to the complex nature of the experience of the uncanny. This experience can be

defined as a sort of scary, unexpected moment of recognition of something that is

supposedly unfamiliar. This means that the uncanny is actually ―nichts Neues oder Fremdes,

sondern etwas dem Seelenleben von alters her Vertrautes, das ihm nur durch den Prozeß der

Verdrängung entfremdet worden ist.‖8 (Freud 264) The unfamiliar is unexpectedly recognized

as being familiar. Freud then corners some moments in which the uncanny experience can

take place. He quotes E. Jentsch, who claims that the ―Zweifel an der Beseelung eines

anscheinend lebendigen Wesens und umgekehrt darüber, ob ein lebloser Gegenstand nicht

etwas beseelt sei‖9 (as cited in Freud 250) an ideal circumstance creates for the experience of

the uncanny to take place. For Jentsch this doubt about inanimate objects that could be alive,

is connected to the literary motifs of wax figures, realistic dolls and automatons. Freud, like

Jentsch, then connects this phenomenon to the realm of the literary. He discusses the

presence of the uncanny in The Sandman, a work by the German author E.T.A. Hoffmann,

who Freud dubs the ―Meister des Unheimlichen in der Dichtung.‖10 (257) The figure of the

doll Olimpia in this story, corresponds to the observations of Jentsch about dolls and wax

figures. Though Freud acknowledges this as a typical example of an uncanny experience, he

adds to this another observation that, according to him, creates an even more significant

instance of the uncanny. He finds this in the motif of the sandman, incorporating the fear of

losing one‘s eyesight, which Freud connects to the protagonist‘s repressed childhood trauma

of castration. It cannot go unnoticed that this example of the uncanny has nothing to do with

an intellectual insecurity about the aliveness, that surrounds the doll Olimpia. This presence

of a living doll Freud connects to a childish wish for toys and specifically dolls to come to life.

He writes: ―Die Quelle des unheimlichen Gefühls wäre also hier nicht eine Kinderangst,

sondern ein Kinderwunsch […]‖11 (257) In the combination of these two observations, he

7 ―that of the familiar, the comfortable and that of the unknown, the hidden.‖

8 "[this uncanny is in reality] nothing new or alien, but something which is familiar and old-established

in the mind and which has become alienated from it only through the process of repression.‖ 9 Doubt about the soul of an apparently alive creature and the other way around, doubt whether or

not an inanimate object could be alive‖ 10

―master of the uncanny in literature‖ 11

―Thus the source of the uncanny feeling here is not a childhood fear, but a childhood wish […]‖ (my

translation)

31

recognizes a paradox, in the sense that both the childhood fear and the childhood wish are

sources for the uncanny. In an attempt to solve this, Freud then starts to discuss another

motif in the Hoffmann text, which is of great importance to the focal point of this

dissertation. This motif is that of the doppelganger. Freud discusses the phenomenon of the

doppelganger and identifies it as:

―das Auftreten von Personen, die wegen ihrer gleichen Erscheinung für identisch gehalten

werden müssen, die Steigerung dieses Verhältnisses durch Überspringen seelischer Vorgänge

von einer dieser Personen auf die andere […], so daß der eine das Wissen, Fühlen und Erleben

des anderen mitbesitzt, die Identifizierung mit einer anderen Person, so daß man an seinem

Ich irre wird oder das fremde Ich an die Stelle des eigenen versetzt, also Ich-Verdopplung, Ich-

Teilung, Ich-Vertauschung – und endlich die beständige Wiederkehr des Gleichen, die

Wiederholung der nämlichen Gesichtszüge, Charaktere, Schiksale, verbrecherischen Taten, ja

der Namen durch mehrere aufeinanderfolgenden Generationen.‖12

(257)

In this lengthy citation a lot of these observations about the double are applicable to The

New York Trilogy as well, but we will return to this in what follows below.

Then Freud returns to his interpretation of the paradox, inherent to the uncanny, as a

return of ―was im Verborgenen hätte bleiben‖13, i.e. the repressed (264). Freud writes that, in

fact, ―[d]ie Vorsilbe ―un‖ an diesem Worte [=unheimlich] ist aber die Marke der

Verdrängung.‖14 (267) The act of repressing what ought to remain hidden, is what causes the

doubling of the self. The doppelganger is the personification of the uncanny. The double

causes the repressed to inevitably bubble to the surface, rupture the self and becomes the

source of an uncanny feeling for the characters in the book, and possibly for the reader as

well.

Next, Freud differentiates between the uncanny in literature, and the uncanny in

psychoanalysis. He writes: ―Das Unheimliche der Fiktion – der Phantasie, der Dichtung –

verdient in der Tat eine gesonderte Betrachtung. Es ist vor allem weit reichhaltiger als das

12

―The appearance of characters who are to be considered identical because they look alike. This

relation is accentuated by mental processes leaping from one of these characters to another — by

what we should call telepathy —, so that the one possesses knowledge, feelings and experience in

common with the other. Or it is marked by the fact that the subject identifies himself with someone

else, so that he is in doubt as to which his self is, or substitutes the extraneous self for his own. In other

words, there is a doubling, dividing and interchanging of the self. And finally there is the constant

recurrence of the same thing — the repetition of the same features or character-traits or vicissitudes,

of the same crimes, or even the same names through several consecutive generations.‖ 13

―What was supposed to stay hidden‖ 14

―The prefix ―un‖ in this word [=uncanny] is actually the mark of repression‖

32

Unheimliche des Erlebens, es umfaßt dieses in seiner Gänze und dann noch anderes, was

unter den Bedingungen des Erlebens nicht vorkommt.‖15 (271) Freud discerns a contradiction

here, in the sense that a lot of things that would be uncanny in real life are not uncanny in

literature, much in the same way that literature has possibilities for the uncanny that are

absent in real life. Despite this observation, the effect of the uncanny is not diminished in any

way, because, according to Freud, the author succeeds in tricking the readers to respond to

fiction similarly as to real life experience. I have now outlined the basic principles of the

uncanny, as identified by Freud. Now we will take a look at how this theory affects Auster‘s

writings.

2. WORKINGS OF THE UNCANNY IN THE NEW YORK TRILOGY

Roberta Rubenstein, in an essay focusing on doubling and what she dubs ―the

postmodern uncanny‖ in The New York Trilogy, writes that ―Freud‘s essay on the uncanny can

be understood as an influential ‗intertext‘‖, because ―Auster‘s trilogy pivots on

psychodynamic processes and images central to Freud‘s construction of the psyche and, in

particular, of the uncanny: repetition and doubling.‖ (Rubenstein 246) According to

Rubenstein, this doubling can also be found on an structural level. She claims that ―Auster‘s

interlocking, overlapping tales‖ are all interconnected, in the sense that ―each thematically

mirrors, narratively ‗doubles‘ […] the other versions.‖ (Rubenstein 246) Much in the same that

―the central character seeks, discovers, swaps places with, disappears into , or struggles

physically with an antagonist who is in fact his double.‖ (246) This summing up of situations

echoes Freud‘s description of the doppelganger cited above. In all three stories doubles

figure prominently and at times characters seem to merge into other characters, adding to

the overall sense of confusion and the interlocking effect. Steven E. Alford confirms this

insight in his essay entitled Mirrors of Madness:

―The names and interrelations of the narrators of the three books of The New York Trilogy are

complex and paradoxical. Characters' names are twinned, characters are revealed to be

imaginary beings invented by other characters, characters appear in one book, only to

15

―The uncanny in fiction – in fantasy, in literature – in fact deserves a separate discussion. First and

foremost, it is more frequent than the uncanny in daily experience, it incorporates this in its totality

and then also other experiences, which under the precepts of daily life never occur.‖

33

maintain their name, but switch to another identity, in another book, and so forth. This makes

for not only complexity, but outright contradiction.‖ (Alford, Web resource nova.edu)

Auster‘s protagonists are haunted and constantly revisited by doubles who represent what

they try to repress. These doubles figure as mirrors to the main characters. While attempting

to discover as much as possible about their adversaries, they only uncover their own

insecurities, instabilities and imperfections.

However, this observation could seem to be too limited. I would argue that in The

New York Trilogy the role of the double is also closely linked to the motif of metamorphosis

and the ancient novelistic types of the rogue, the fool and the clown. As we have seen

previously, Bakhtin identifies the element of metamorphosis as a pivotal point in the

adventure novel of everyday life. It has already become clear that certain aspects of this

ancient novelistic type are also relevant for Auster‘s fiction. The role of metamorphosis is one

of these aspects. The purpose of the doubles in these stories is not simply to hold up a mirror

to the main characters. In fact, the presence of these doppelgangers seems to instigate an

actual change in the protagonists. This change brings about a state that opens up a whole

new level of being for Quinn, Blue and the nameless narrator in the last story.

Moreover, the double can be linked to the types of the rogue, the fool and the clown in the

sense that they represent the ―other‖ in society. I will argue, that the double in fact represents

the repressed ―other‖. In order to understand how this works exactly, let us take a look at the

doubles and the metamorphosis in each story in greater detail. But first, I will try to explain

what is meant by ―the Other‖, where this concept comes from and how it is relevant for The

New York Trilogy.

3. JACQUES LACAN: THE MIRROR STAGE AND THE OTHER

The concept of ―the other‖ as introduced above, is derived from the theoretical frame

developed by another influential psychoanalyst, — and disciple of Freud — Jacques Lacan.

He introduced a study on what he dubs ―the mirror stage‖. Sean Homer has written a clearly

structured overview of Lacan‘s theories and he explains the different steps of the mirror

stage. The first step occurs ―[b]etween the ages of six and 18 months [when] the infant begins

to recognize his/her image in the mirror (this does not mean a literal mirror but rather any

reflective surface, for example the mother‘s face) and this is usually accompanied by

pleasure.‖ (Homer 24) This recognition leads the child to realize that he or she is, in fact, an

34

independent being: ―[d]uring the mirror stage, then, the child for the first time becomes

aware, through seeing its image in the mirror, that his/her body has a total form.‖ (Homer 24)

This awareness is heightened, even, by the infant‘s insight that he/she ―can also govern the

movements of this image through the movements of its own body and thus experience

pleasure.‖ (Homer 24-25) However, though this may feel as an achievement for the child, it

also causes frustration, since the new experience ―of completeness and mastery, […], is in

contrast to the child‘s experience of its own body, over which it does not yet have full motor

control.‖ (25) In that sense, there is a discrepancy between the infant‘s experience of the own

body as being fragmented and the image it sees in the mirror, which ―provides him/her with

a sense of unification and wholeness.‖ (25) Sean Homer describes this as follows: ―The mirror

image, therefore, anticipates the mastery of the infant‘s own body and stands in contrast to

the feelings of fragmentation the infant experiences.‖ (25) Moreover, during this step, the

child ―identifies with this mirror image.‖ (25) This creates another contrast, however, since ―[a]t

the same time, […], the image is alienating in the sense that it becomes confused with the

self‖ as ―[t]he image actually comes to take the place of the self.‖ (25) The mirror image,

therefore, incorporates and brings about two extremes: alienation and identification.

Consequently, ―the sense of a unified self is acquired at the price of this self being an-other,

that is, our mirror image.‖ (25) All these internal contrasts lead to an important internal

conflict, as Homer explains: ―[a]ccording to Lacan, from the moment the image of unity is

posited in opposition to the experience of fragmentation, the subject is established as a rival

to itself.‖ (26, emphasis added) It is this conflict and this rivalry that is of importance to the

doubles in Auster‘s trilogy. Homer describes this conflict in greater detail:

―A conflict is produced between the infant‘s fragmented sense of self and the imaginary

autonomy out of which the ego is born. The same rivalry established between the subject and

him/herself is also established between the subject and others. […] To exist one has to be

recognized by an-other. But this means that our image, which is equal to ourselves, is

mediated by the gaze of the other. The other, then, becomes the guarantor of ourselves. We

are at once dependent on the other as the guarantor or our own existence and a bitter rival to

that same other.‖ (26)

Curiously, this idea lies at the core of the second story, Ghosts. It is exactly this experience

that Black describes to Blue, during their final meeting. Both of them need the gaze of the

other, according to Black. He describes this as follows: ―He needs my eye looking at him. He

needs me to prove he‘s alive.‖ (NYT 184) However, this very conflict is of equal importance to

the entire trilogy. What is more, it is important to note that ―[t]he imaginary, […], is not a

35

developmental phase – it is not something that one goes through and grows out of – but

remains at the core of our experience.‖ (Homer 31) The mirror stage, then, forms the basis of

how we both experience ourselves and relate to others. In conclusion, there is an internal

conflict that lies at the core of our being. This conflict, in turn, initiates a rivalry between the

self and the other, i.e. our mirror image and also between ourselves and others in this world.

Auster‘s characters and doubles function in light of a mix of these theories. They

incorporate the uncanny experience, as well as the rivalry with the other. It is the combination

of these aspects that initiates a metamorphosis in the characters. Let us now look at this in

greater detail and I will attempt to explain how this metamorphosis functions for the

protagonists and the doubles in The New York Trilogy.

4. SELF VERSUS OTHER

CITY OF GLASS

In the first story, City of Glass, there are many instances in which doppelgangers

appear. First of all, there is the confusion of identities between Daniel Quinn, his ―authorial

double‖ William Wilson, his fictional double Max Work and ‗Paul Auster‘, the role Quinn takes

on for himself (Rubenstein 249). However, all of these doubles are his own creations, the

figments of his own imagination. Quinn explains this as follows:

―Over the years, Work had become very close to Quinn. Whereas William Wilson remained an

abstract figure for him, Work had increasingly come to life. In the triad of selves that Quinn

had become, Wilson served as a kind of ventriloquist. Quinn himself was the dummy, and

Work was the animated voice that gave purpose to the enterprise. […] And little by little, Work

had become a presence in Quinn‘s life, his interior brother, his comrade in solitude.‖ (NYT 6)

Quinn feels comfortable in his own created ―triad of selves‖, however, things get a little

disrupted when another role or identity for Quinn props up. It does not take him long to

decide that he is going to act as if he is ‗Paul Auster‘: ―He knew what he was going to do, and

now that the time had come, he did it. ‗Speaking,‘ he said. ‗This is Auster speaking.‘‖ (NYT 11)

Despite his initial decision to take on this role, he remains doubtful about accepting the

consequences of this: ―it did not occur to him that he was going to show up for his

appointment. Even that locution, his appointment, seemed odd to him. It wasn‘t his

appointment, it was Paul Auster‘s.‖ (NYT 12) Reluctantly and difficultly, Quinn seems to

accept his new role, and ―as time wore on he found himself doing a good imitation of a man

36

preparing to go out.‖ (12) This imitation of others has apparently always been a part of his

life: ―Back in the old days, eighteen, twenty years ago, when I had no money and friends

would give me things to wear. J‘s old overcoat in college, for example. And the strange sense

I would have of climbing into his skin.‖ (40, emphasis added) This suggests that Quinn has

always felt compelled to ―climb into other people‘s skin‖ and inhabit their lives16, and also he

tends ―to feel out of place in his own skin.‖ (9) Quinn seems able to choose a role for himself,

to create another identity. The problem of choice and the complete unfixed nature of identity

is made clear when Quinn first sees Stillman, Sr. at the train station. After he has spotted

Stillman, Sr. and, for a moment, surveys the crowd around him he notices another Stillman,

Sr.: ―Directly behind Stillman, heaving into view just inches behind his right shoulder, another

man stopped, took a lighter out of his pocket, and lit a cigarette. His face was the exact twin

of Stillman‘s. […] The second Stillman had a prosperous air about him,. He was dressed in an

expensive blue suit; his shoes were shined; his white hair was combed; and in his eyes there

was the shrewd look of a man of the world.‖ (55-56) As both men set off in a different

direction, Quinn is forced to make a choice between them. He recognizes the impossibility of

this position and feels that there is ―nothing he could do now that would not be a mistake‖,

because ―[w]hatever choice he made – and he had to make a choice – would be arbitrary, a

submission to chance.‖ (56) This moment of making such a difficult decision illustrates a

subjectivity of identity. Quinn labels the first man the correct Stillman, Sr. and that is that.

Actually, there is no clue in the story that Quinn has made the right choice. In this way, he

creates another role to be played, an identity that the man has to live up to, just like he does

for himself.

Of course, all these roles that he plays are constructs that he himself has made, they

are voluntary acts of doubling the self. Moreover, it would seem that these voluntary acts do

not initiate a change in Quinn, they are not catalysts of a metamorphosis. They are what he

knows, they make him feel comfortable and reassured. His creation, Max Work, is exactly

16

This image can also be found in Auster‘s Moon Palace, as the protagonist Marco Stanley Fogg, in

college, dresses in his uncle‘s suit: ―I felt at home in it, and since for all practical purposes I had no

other home, I continued to wear it every day […] It functioned as a protective membrane, a second skin

that shielded me from the blows of life.‖ (MP 14-15) For Fogg wearing his uncle clothes functions as a

second skin, and it even feels homely. Interestingly, this motif of clothes defining identity also props up

in The Blindfold, a novel by Auster‘s wife, Siri Hustvedt. The main character, Iris, feels and behaves like

a different person when she wears a man‘s suit. She, like Quinn and Fogg, climbs into someone else‘s

skin.

37

what he is not, ―aggressive, quick-tongued, at home in whatever spot he happened to find

himself‖, and for Quinn ―it reassure[s] him to pretend to be Work as he was writing his books,

to know that he had it in him to be Work if he ever chose to be, even if only in his mind.‖(9) It

is when Quinn takes on the role of ‗Paul Auster‘ that changes start to occur, for ‗Auster‘ is not

an identity he has created himself. It appears to be more difficult for him to try to become

‗Paul Auster‘ than Max Work, for example. He uses this new and unknown identity in his

difficult pursuit of Peter Stillman, it becomes his tactic: ―He was Paul Auster now, and with

each step he took he tried to fit more comfortably into the strictures of that transformation.

Auster was no more than a name to him, a husk without content. To be Auster meant being a

man with no interior, a man with no thoughts.‖ (61) He ―tries to fit more comfortably‖ into his

new role as the detective ‗Paul Auster‘. Significantly, Quinn is completely disillusioned when

he finally meets the ‗real‘ Auster, who turns out to be like a ―mirror of desire‖. He is leading

the life that Quinn himself wants or at least wanted to lead but never could. Roberta

Rubenstein writes: ―When Quinn meets ‗Paul Auster‘ in person, he feels that Auster‘s happy

family life ‗taunt[s] him with the things he had lost‘ (121) and fantasizes swapping places with

him.‖ (Rubenstein 247) Therefore, after their meeting, Quinn ―had nothing, he knew nothing,

he knew that he knew nothing.‖ (104) ‗Paul Auster‘ is one role he cannot take up or fulfill.

There is, however, a role he can fulfill but, nevertheless, has not chosen for himself. It

is exactly this involuntary doubling that prompts changes in Quinn, that causes a life-altering

transformation or metamorphosis. The metamorphosis is brought about by the doubling

between Quinn and Peter Stillman, Jr.. Roberta Rubenstein explains it as ―a mirror-reversed

trajectory‖ that Quinn enacts, he ―becomes more and more of an automaton, regressing to

childhood and becoming unreal.‖ (249) The more ―progress‖ Quinn makes in his case, the

more he starts to become a double of Peter Stillman, Jr., though traveling in a reversed order.

In her essay, Rubenstein phrases it as such: ―By the narrative‘s end, he [=Quinn] has ‗become‘

the automaton/son […] sequestered in a solitary room, where ‗darkness had begun to win out

over light‘ (155), ‗time continued to diminish‘ (156) and food arrives from an unidentified

source.‖ (Rubenstein 251) This involuntary doubling initiates a metamorphosis, in which

Quinn transforms from self to other, without ever reaching a state of harmony between these

two extremes. Their presence creates an opposition between the self and the other, much in

38

the same way as the double can be seen as the personification of the repressed, the uncanny,

of the other side of the self.

There is one moment, however, in which Quinn voluntarily adopts the identity of the

younger Peter Stillman. This occurs when he is engaging the older Stillman in a series of

conversations, in order to get some answers from him, for the investigation. This has an

important effect on the rest of Quinn‘s ―research‖, which will be discussed later on.

Conspicuously, Stillman is already introduced as an Other in the first sentence of the

novel: ―It was a wrong number that started it, the telephone ringing three times in the dead

of the night, and the voice on the other end asking for someone he was not.‖ (NYT 3,

emphasis added) As William Little has noted as well, for he dubs this phone call ―the call of

the Other‖ (Little 155)

For Auster‘s protagonists, the quest to unite the self and the other is rendered futile.

Though Quinn transforms into a homeless bum living on the streets, turning into the other,

he no longer recognizes himself and as such, he has lost his self. Other and self seem to

cancel each other out. This appearance of a stereotypical homeless bum is actually an

interesting motif in Auster‘s fiction, not only in The New York Trilogy but also in other works

(Moon Palace for example). As Bakhtin discerns, in the adventure novel of everyday life, the

role of metamorphosis is also to ―reflect private life and make it public.‖ The homeless type is

an ideal personification of the private life turned public, as they live their lives on the streets.

In a way, they turn what is unheimlich (un-homely) into something heimlich (homely).

Especially Quinn‘s state at the end of the story, can be seen as a good example of this. When

juxtaposing Quinn‘s life in the beginning of the story with his situation near the end of the

novel, it becomes clear how extreme his metamorphosis actually is. Quinn is described to us

in the beginning of the story as follows: ―He read many books, he looked at paintings, he

went to the movies. In the summer he watched baseball on television; in the winter he went

to the opera.‖ (3) Also, he seems to be a typical homely type and, as he plans to go out, he

―cleared the table of the breakfast dishes, tossed the newspaper on the couch, went into the

bathroom, showered, shaved, went on to the bedroom wrapped in two towels, opened the

closet, and picked out his clothes for the day.‖(12) Quinn seems normal enough and engages

in lots of cultural activities, he is the average educated person. At the end of the story,

39

however, he has no time for these activities and has become a creature driven by the most

basic needs: food, sleep and shelter. For each of these he finds creative solutions, yet, it is

clear that his environment now dominates his existence. He is increasingly preoccupied with

nature, more specifically with the sky: ―He spent many hours looking up at the sky.‖ (118)

Quinn starts studying the sky and its clouds in great detail. Nature takes hold of him as ―[o]ne

by one all weathers passed over his head, from sunshine to storms, from gloom to radiance‖

(119), whereas before he was a man of culture. His transformation into the other has

prompted Quinn to discover a more instinct-driven state of being. His repressed prehistoric,

animalistic drives now seem to resurface. What is more, for Quinn it has even gotten to the

point that he does not even care about this metamorphosis anymore: ―It had been no more

than a matter of months, and in that time he had become someone else. He tried to

remember himself as he had been before, but he found it difficult. He looked at this new

Quinn and shrugged. It did not really matter. He had been one thing before, and now he was

another.‖ (121)

Quinn‘s transformation is probably the most drastic one in the entire novel. For the

nameless protagonist of The Locked Room and Blue in Ghosts their doppelgangers

nonetheless bring about significant changes as well.

GHOSTS

The second story could initially be read as a sort of generic detective story, as Alison

Russell writes: ―the text is stripped down to a generic level‖ (Russell 77) As such, the story is

rendered to its most basic principles: a detective, an adversary and the search for an answer.

Despite what could be mistaken for a purposeful lack of depth, Blue is a dynamic character

and the confrontation with a doppelganger instigates important changes for him. In the

beginning, Blue‘s life is simple enough. He does not come across as an overly complicated

type. However, when confronted with this rather dull case, Blue already starts to feel different:

―For the first time in his life, he finds that he has been thrown back on himself, with nothing to

grab hold of, nothing to distinguish one moment from the next. He has never given much

thought to the world inside him, and though he always knew it was there, it has remained an

unknown quantity, unexplored and therefore dark, even to himself.‖ (145)

And, after many hours and days of observing Black, he starts to realize that ―in spying out at

Black across the street, it is as though [he] were looking into a mirror, and instead of merely

40

watching another, he finds that he is also watching himself.‖ (146) Also, adding to this,

Roberta Rubenstein writes, ―Blue recognizes his uncanny connection to Black, feeling that ‗he

has seen Black before, but he can‘t remember where […]‘‖ (Rubenstein 253) It is clear then

that Black represents the repressed other part of Blue‘s self. However, for Blue, recognition of

this fact comes only belatedly. In the beginning ―Blue‘s state of mind can best be described

as one of ambivalence and conflict.‖ (158) This conflict is caused by the constant switching

between two states: ―[t]here are moments when he feels so completely in harmony with

Black, so naturally at one with the other man, that to anticipate what Black is going to do, […],

he need merely look into himself. […] How he knows this remains something of a mystery to

him, but the fact is that he is never wrong, and when the feeling comes over him, he is

beyond all doubt and hesitation.‖ (158) Despite these instances of harmony, there are also

bad periods when ―he [=Blue] feels totally removed from Black, cut off from him in a way that

is so stark and absolute that he begins to lose sense of who he is.‖ (158) Apparently, he needs

Black in order to feel whole, to feel like himself, for without Black he loses ―sense of who he

is.‖ Slowly Blue and Black become closely intertwined and, like for Quinn, in the end there is a

metamorphosis and it becomes unclear which one is Black and which one is Blue. Blue has

punctured the surface of the self and crossed over to the other. Even so, Blue‘s attempt to be

united, going to Black ―in friendship‖ (194), fails and it becomes clear for him that they

cannot co-exist, as Black says:

―I don‘t need you anymore, Blue.

It might not be so easy to get rid of me, you know. You got me into this, and now you‘re stuck

with me.

No, Blue, you‘re wrong. Everything is over now.

Stop the doubletalk.

It‘s finished. The whole thing is played out. There‘s nothing more to be done.‖ (195)

As a result, Blue becomes so angry that he knocks Black out cold, in an attempt to ―annihilate

him‖ (Rubenstein 254). Roberta Rubenstein identifies this moment as the result of ―the

characteristic event that distinguishes most double-stories: the principal character belatedly

experiences the uncanny recognition that his double is actually his ‗other‘ self.‖ (Rubenstein

254) In the end, there remains a significant confusion between Black and Blue, as Blue

―cannot discern whether the sound of breath is ‗coming from Black or himself‘ (231).‖

(Rubenstein 254)

41

Nonetheless, it is quite clear that, despite Blue‘s momentous feelings of harmony with

Black, they cannot remain in unity. This lack of a lasting harmony between them, the fact that

they can never remain as one, is underlined in their names: functioning as a pair, they are

Black and Blue, they are damaged and seemingly cannot heal. This is not the only association

that can be made with regard to Auster‘s use of colors. Eric Berlatsky, in his essay on identity

and race in Ghosts, links the symbolism behind these colors to America‘s history of slavery

and racism. Obviously, these particular insights are of little relevance here. Yet, what is of

interest is his observation on the apparent connection between Blue and Black. He writes

that, ―it becomes clear that there is ‗another‘ Blue, the Blue within, which has always been

there but has remained ‗unexplored.‘‖ (Berlatsky 120) Moreover, as Berlatsky argues, ―it is not

surprising that at the center of Blue‘s mysterious self we find a ―Black‖-ness.‖ (Berlatsky 120)

In short, Berlatsky, while focusing on race, argues that ―[b]eneath the surface of the self/other

dichotomy enacted by Black and Blue is the racial dichotomy of black and white.‖ (Berlatsky

121)

To conclude, it has become clear that Blue‘s metamorphosis is not overly pronounced,

yet, by the end of the story his life has been altered for good. The struggle between self and

other is of greater significance in this story and this illustrates very well how the

doppelganger functions, how the change from self to other is brought about. Also, the total

confusion of self and other is a key theme, a theme that also features explicitly in the final

story, The Locked Room.

THE LOCKED ROOM

In this story, there is a clear doubling of the protagonist and his former best friend,

Fanshawe. The mirroring effect of the double is taken one step farther here, in the sense that

there is a complex confusion of selves between the protagonist and Fanshawe. Since his early

childhood, the protagonist has felt very close to his friend. However, as the protagonist

describes there was always a sort of distance between them: ―I see now that I also held back

from Fanshawe, that a part of me always resisted him.‖ (NYT 211) This resistance echoes the

act of repression, which causes the uncanny experience. Moreover, the narrator feels that he

can never truly get to know Fanshawe. That, even though he ―knew him better than anyone

42

else […]‖ (NYT 211), he also senses the distance between them, and whilst trying to be just

like him, he also understands ―that you could never really know him.‖ (212) In that respect, for

the narrator Fanshawe incorporates both what is known, the familiar or ‗das Heimliche‘ and

what is not known, the unfamiliar. Roberta Rubenstein also remarks that, when the narrator is

recalling his childhood, he ―reveals that many emotional landmarks of his maturation were

influenced by his relationship with Fanshawe, […]‖ (Rubenstein 255) She dubs Fanshawe the

narrator‘s ―uncanny double‖ (256) and describes that ―the narrator inserts himself into

Fanshawe‘s place in the world by courting his wife and eventually appropriating other

relationships from the absent man‘s life, including those with his mother and his child.‖ (256)

By seemingly taking over Fanshawe‘s life, the confusion of selves between the both of them is

fully realized. However, this movement towards total assimilation of their lives is halted after

the protagonist receives a letter and learns that Fanshawe is, in fact, not dead. His former

friend is in hiding, feeling that ―hiding was the best and kindest thing I have ever done.‖ (NYT

239) Though Fanshawe wants the narrator to take over his role as husband and father, the

letter leaves the narrator shaken and he becomes obsessed with Fanshawe‘s life. He

convinces himself that he is trying to recreate his friend‘s steps since the moment they

parted, in order to write a biography. However, in the end he discovers that he ―was haunted,

perhaps [he] was even possessed‖ as he ―did not once stop thinking about Fanshawe‖ (NYT

244) It would seem that his true attempt is to completely eliminate Fanshawe by retracing his

past and walking in his footsteps. As it turns out, his attempts fail, despite an extensive

blending of their selves. Fanshawe, as the narrator‘s mirror image, apparently cannot be

controlled and this causes frustration. The narrator wants a form of unity between them, he

wants his image, the other, to take the place of his self. Yet, this turns out to be impossible

and he resolves to annihilate Fanshawe. This can be seen as an echo of the situation of Blue

and Black in Ghosts, in the sense that both cannot exist separately, even though unity or

harmony between them can never be reached. For the narrator and Fanshawe this is no

different. They seemingly cannot co-exist and Fanshawe even threatens to kill the narrator if

he were to come looking for him, underlining the supposed danger of their ‗unison‘: ―if by

some miracle you manage to track me down, I will kill you.‖ (NYT 239) The internal conflict of

the narrator and his repressed other eventually leads to a confrontation, which, in turn,

results in an ambiguous state for the main character, similar to the ―ending‖ of the two

previous stories. With this ending, it is even less clear what lies ahead for the main character.

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When he reads Fanshawe‘s final story in the red notebook, this peculiar experience echoes

the situation between both men: ―All the words were familiar to me, and yet they seemed to

have been put together strangely, as though their final purpose was to cancel each other

out.‖ (NYT 313) For the narrator, Fanshawe is familiar yet strange, and even though they

belong together, they also ―cancel each other out‖, as such underlining the rivalry between

the self and the other.

From all of this we can conclude, that the double has an important function in

Auster‘s fiction. They are the personification of the internal conflict between the self and the

―other‖, as specified by Jacques Lacan. This conflict leads to a confrontation of the main

character and their doppelganger, which causes an uncanny experience . The doubles

represent the return of what is being repressed, as well as the clash of both identification and

alienation with an-other.

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CHAPTER FOUR: QUEST FOR IDENTITY

To conclude, I will combine previous insights, the structure of detective fiction, the

interconnectedness of time and space and the confrontation between the self and the other,

in order to shed light on the quest for identity. All of these elements function together, all

contribute to the existential quest, central to The New York Trilogy.

1. STRUCTURE OF THE QUEST

First, let us return to the structure of Auster‘s detective fiction, as laid out in chapter

two, and reconstruct the steps for each story:

Stasis before mysterious event → Mysterious event → Complication of the mystery

(peripeteia) → Climax → Unraveling of mystery → Lack of resolution.

STASIS BEFORE MYSTERIOUS EVENT

Before anything happens the protagonists find themselves in a state of stasis, living a

structured and somewhat repetitive life. For Quinn, his life consists of writing mystery novels,

―at the rate of about one a year‖ (NYT 3), going on long walks through New York City and

engaging in all sorts of cultural activities, without going into much detail about all of this.

Blue‘s life is even more stripped bare of details and personality: ―Blue goes to his office every

day and sits at his desk, waiting for something to happen.‖ (NYT 137) It isn‘t until White

enters his office that something actually happens. Blue‘s situation has to be the best example

of the state of stasis. For the narrator of the final story, his situation causes him distress, yet

he does not undertake anything to change this. He feels ―old, already used up‖ and he finds

that his accomplishments ―amounted to a mere fraction of nothing at all.‖ (NYT 209) He goes

so far as to say that what he has done so far ―was so much dust, and the slightest wind would

blow it away.‖ (209) All of this paints a rather bleak picture for the narrator of The Locked

Room. However, all of their lives are about to change drastically, as a ―mysterious event‖

occurs.

MYSTERIOUS EVENT

The term ―mysterious event‖ is deliberately kept vague, as it is difficult to really speak

of a mystery or crime as such. It has already become clear that there is a lack of an actual

45

crime or noteworthy event. However, something happens that triggers the action for the

protagonists. In the first story, the mysterious event starts with the phone call Quinn receives

at night. He decides to go and meet the person in distress in the morning. This decision to

impersonate the detective Paul Auster, leads him to change his routine and act as a private

eye. And, as such, he starts his investigation of the older Peter Stillman, by reading and

observing. For Blue, who is a ‗real‘ detective, the mysterious event comes as less of a surprise.

To him, the case seems simple and he ―needs the work, and so he listens to White and

doesn‘t ask many questions.‖ (NYT 137) All of it seems very straightforward for Blue and the

only thing that is more or less suspicious for him, is White‘s appearance. Blue finds not only

―a black beard […], and the overly bushy eyebrows‖ suspicious, but also ―the skin, which

seems inordinately white, as though covered with powder.‖ (NYT 137) Despite what appears

to be an odd disguise, Blue accepts the case and starts his surveillance almost immediately. In

these first two stories, the mysterious event is linked to the work of a detective. For the

narrator of the final story, however, this context is absent. For him, the mystery is caused by a

letter with unexpected information. This letter ―caused a series of little shocks‖ for the

narrator, as it was ―too much information to absorb all at once.‖ (202) Nonetheless, this

moment and the results of the letter are what trigger the narrator‘s quest.

COMPLICATION OF MYSTERY (+ PERIPETEIA)

By now the protagonists‘ investigations are well under way, and yet, paradoxically,

they are no closer to a solution than before. Not only are they not accomplishing anything,

they are also getting stuck in their own actions. The complication of the mystery is

characterized by the moment of peripeteia for our protagonists. In City of Glass, Quinn‘s

investigation, previously leading him nowhere, has taken a change. He decides to confront

the older Stillman and engage him in conversation. However, their final meeting does not

result in what he had hoped for. By confronting Stillman, Sr. while posing as his son, Quinn

has apparently scared the old man away. As he is waiting for him, like he does every morning,

the old man does not appear. While Quinn, ―ha[d] worked his way through his roll and coffee,

read the account of the Mets‘ Sunday loss, and still there was no sign of the old man.‖ (NYT

86) Finally, Quinn accepts that he has ―lost him‖ and he feels equally at loss. In an attempt to

make sense of the situation, he decides to go and meet the ‗real‘ Paul Auster. It is this

moment that can be identified as the peripeteia in the story. Instead of turning this meeting

46

into a positive event, Quinn feels too overwhelmed and sends himself into a downward spiral:

―Quinn was nowhere now. He had nothing, he knew nothing, he knew that he knew nothing.‖

(NYT 104) His loss of a clear trajectory makes him decide to find ―a spot for himself in narrow

alleyway, and [settle] for the night.‖ (NYT 113) In an attempt to move forward, Quinn has set

the tone for his own lurking fate.

In the second story, Blue is caught in a similar downward spiral. He too, decides to

confront his adversary, Black, by disguising himself and engaging in various conversations.

However, these conversations only raise more questions and even cause Blue to break into

Black‘s room and steal his manuscript. Interestingly, Blue mistakes his actions for a result of

―fate‖, he sees them as inevitable and thus, the moment of peripeteia echoes that of the

ancient Greek tragedy. He describes it as follows: ―This is what the ancients called fate, and

every hero must submit to it. There is no choice, and if there is anything to be done, it is only

the one thing that leaves no choice. But Blue is loath to acknowledge it.‖ (NYT 189) Indeed,

for the ancient classic heroes fate is fixed and any attempt to avoid it is an act of hubris. Blue

eventually acknowledges that he can no longer avoid directly provoking Black. Yet, this

apparent recognition of fate for Blue, only results in the exact opposite, leading him further

away from finding out the truth about his adversary.

Similarly, the narrator of The Locked Room also finds himself even more distanced

from Fanshawe, despite his attempts to uncover as much as possible about his former friend.

In this story the mystery becomes more complicated when the narrator receives a letter from

Fanshawe. The shock this produces leads the protagonist to become obsessed with

Fanshawe, despite his attempts to ―[dig] into the present.‖ (NYT 244) Ultimately, he resolves

to write a biography about Fanshawe. However, every effort the narrator makes in order to

find out more, leaves him feeling at loss. He achieves the exact opposite of what he intended

to do and seems to lose himself in the process.

CLIMAX AND UNRAVELING OF THE MYSTERY

The next steps, the climax and the unraveling of the mystery, are closely linked in each

story. For Quinn, a climax is reached when he has come to the end of his surveillance of the

Stillman‘s residence and finds that his old life has disappeared. The discovery that he can no

longer return to his old routine takes him by surprise: ―He had come to the end of himself. He

47

could feel it now, as though a great truth had finally dawned in him. There was nothing left.‖

(NYT 126) The mystery unravels as Quinn regresses further into a state of non-being. He is

stuck in a ―period of growing darkness [which] coincided with the dwindling of pages in the

red notebook‖ and ―[l]ittle by little, Quinn was coming to the end.‖ (131) This unraveling of

the mystery, however, does not answer any questions as it does in traditional detective

fiction. If anything, it more or less underlines the impossibility of reaching a solution, or even

seems to deny that there is a solution that has to be found.

In Ghosts, the climax occurs in the final confrontation between Black and Blue. After

Blue has stolen Black‘s manuscript, Black lures Blue into his room and is pointing a gun at

him. This leads to a fight, in which Blue knocks out Black and it is unclear whether or not

Black is still alive. The rest of the story unfolds much in the same ambiguous way as City of

Glass does. Blue ends up in his apartment with Black‘s book and concludes that ―Black was

right, […]‖ as Blue ―knew it all by heart.‖ (197)

For the nameless narrator of The Locked Room, the climax is also to be found in a

confrontation between both adversaries. The protagonist receives a second letter from

Fanshawe, demanding they should meet. Their meeting takes place in a house somewhere in

Boston, under unusual circumstances. They speak to each other through a door, Fanshawe

has locked himself in a room and the narrator is not allowed in. During this conversation

Fanshawe unravels his own personal mystery, he explains where he has been and what he has

done since his disappearance. This story, like Ghosts, ends with the protagonist reading the

manuscript of his double.

LACK OF RESOLUTION

All of the stories have an open ending. By the end, in some stories, a few matters have

become clear but most questions remain unanswered. Moreover, for the reader it is

impossible to gather what has happened to the protagonists after the final moment. Quinn

has apparently disappeared and ―it is impossible […] to say where he is now.‖ (133) The

whereabouts of Blue are equally unknown and the narrator stresses the impossibility of ever

knowing: ―from this moment on, we know nothing.‖ (198) The third story ends with an image

of finality, in which the narrator is crumpling the pages of the notebook and throwing them

into the trash bin. The final sentence underlines this: ―I came to the last page just as the train

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was pulling out.‖ (314) Significantly, all three stories end with a text running out, being read

from beginning to end or being torn up, page by page. The juxtaposing of the motif of texts

or books coming to a halt and the lack of answers these texts have to offer, underlines the

impossibility of knowing and illustrates the uselessness of looking for solutions in texts.

2. TIME AND SPACE IN THE NEW YORK TRILOGY: AN AUSTERIAN CHRONOTOPE

To end this discussion, let us take a look at the interconnectedness of space and time.

As mentioned before, for Bakhtin space and time function as a whole, together functioning as

a chronotope. Many critics have pointed out the importance of space in Auster‘s novels and

have dedicated entire works to this aspect. Steven E. Alford, in an essay dealing with

signification and space, connects space to selfhood. He claims:

―Hence from the point of view of The New York Trilogy, space can be a place where selfhood is

lost, where selves (the quarry) are found, where intertextuality can be maintained, where space

itself can be overmastered within space, through mapping, and where, through the act of

establishing utopia, space can finally express its dominance over history.‖ (Alford, Space 621)

This space, in which ―selfhood is lost, where selves (the quarry) are found‖ is thus, according

to Alford, ―intimately involved in the significatory acts of self-constitution, acts that somehow

involve the intersection of self and other […]‖ (Alford, Space 623) He then discusses how this

works for Quinn, who tries to leave himself behind on his walks through the city. He explains,

that ―Quinn thinks that by leaving home, and by having no particular destination, he can lose

not only his way but his self.‖ However, as Alford remarks, he is mistaken because, ―to lose

himself, he would have to lose not only his destination but also his point of origin, since his

home (in geographical space) is linked intimately to his sense of self.‖ (Alford, Space 623) As

such, the home, or das Heimliche, is the realm of the self. Auster‘s characters are all more or

less forced to leave home and embark on a quest of detection. In fact, ―[t]o leave home is to

abandon the self altogether, yet ‗home‘ derives its meaning only from its relationship to the

‗away‘.‖ (624) This polarity of ―home‖ and ―away‖, then, translates itself into the parallel binary

of ―self‖ and ―other‖. As such, the protagonists fail to truly leave their selves behind, in their

attempts to cross over to the other, exactly because of the ―self-anchoring […] character of

home‖. (624) The question now arises why the characters are attempting to leave home and

try to lose themselves? Alford explains it as follows: ―By supposing ourselves to be in a place

49

(‗home‘), and finding it not ideal, we posit (through the textual act of describing a place

where, in principle, we could never be) another place (utopia) where we aren‘t either.‖ This

means, then, that because the characters find the self not ideal, they try to reach an-other.

Quinn, rather ambiguously, writes in his notebook: ―Wherever I am not is the place where I

am myself.‖ (NYT 111) With this comment he illustrates his inability to be someone else,

which also means someplace else. Interestingly, he writes this comment in his notebook after

meticulously observing the homeless people in New York. It had already become clear that

the figure of the homeless beggar is connected to making visible ―the other‖ in society. These

people no longer have a home, they are constantly underway to someplace else. What is

more, their binary has been disrupted: they have become simply ‗other‘, without ‗self‘ and, as

such, they function as the personification of ―the other‖ in Auster‘s fiction.

It is clear then, that space and selfhood are indeed linked. Yet, how does time fit into

this picture? Time in The New York Trilogy is governed by chance, by contingency. It is

chance that causes the protagonists to embark on their quests and how this quest unfolds is

equally marked by contingency. Scott Dimovitz comments on this by positing that ―Austerian

chance seems to do nothing but close off options.‖ (Dimovitz 619) However, this does not

mean that chance is destructive force, au contraire, ―[b]y opening himself up to contingency,

an Austerian character inevitably loops back into a system of correspondences that will take

the character where he needed to go.‖ (Dimovitz 619) Chance, then, enables the workings of

space, taking the character ―where he needed to go‖. A good example of this is the moment

with the two older Stillman‘s at the train station. Quinn feels that any choice between them

would be ―a submission to chance.‖ (NYT 56) And yet, his choice seems to indeed take him in

the right direction.

Chance, in fact, functions as a denial of stasis. The governing role of chance shows us that

nothing is fixed, nothing can be pinned down exactly. By recognizing that space and selfhood

are interconnected, and that time and chance are connected, it becomes clear that selfhood

is, in fact, subordinate to chance, and as such, to change. In short, the self is not a fixed entity.

In conclusion, it has become clear that the quest in these stories can be structured

according to a specific pattern. All three protagonists follow this similar pattern in their

search for answers, as well as themselves. This quest, then, inherently brings together time

50

and space as one. It is an act in which time and space are of equal importance and cannot be

separated. A quest cannot be an actual quest if either is missing or considered less important.

Therefore, time and space, chance and self, are closely interconnected.

51

WORKS CITED

- Alford, Steven E. ―Mirrors of Madness: Paul Auster‘s The New York Trilogy‖. Web

resource <http://www.polaris.nova.edu/~alford/articles/ausidentity.html>

- Alford, Steven E. ―Spaced-out: Signification and Space in Paul Auster's "The New York

Trilogy."‖Contemporary Literature, Vol. 36 No. 4 (Winter 1995), p. 613-63. University of

Wisconsin Press.

EBSCO 6 Nov. 2008 <http://www.jstor.org/stable/1208943>

- Auden, W. H. ―The Guilty Vicarage: Notes on the detective story, by an addict.‖ Web

resource, Harpers Magazine <http://www.harpers.org/archive/1948/05/0033206>

- Auster, Paul. The New York Trilogy: City of Glass, Ghosts, The Locked Room. London:

Faber and Faber, 2004

- Bakhtin, Mikhail Mikhailovich. The Dialogic Imagination: Four Essays. ed. by Michael

Holquist; transl. by Caryl Emerson. Austin (Texas): University of Texas Press, 1982

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