Today something different. As reading is a big part of my life I thought I’d mention books I read. If just to keep writing and not forget about my place here 
So here it goes: Paul Auster – City of Glass
My good friend and pen pal, Emma, has been recommending Paul Auster for some time. So when I made my book ordering after Christmas I decided to give it a try and ordered New York Trilogy. I didn’t know what to expect but I like to experiment and, as another pen pal recently put it, read books “outside the comfort zone”. I finished the first of the stories in the book last night. I was surprised that I finished it, actually because before I couldn’t really get myself to reading it, I found it dull. But then I told myself that as soon as I finished it I would start Harry Potter and the Philosophers’ Stone again. So I finished it. Not just because of the prospect of the reward but also because I wanted to know what would happen.
I do not understand Paul Auster. Or at least I did not understand City of Glass. I have no idea why someone would tell such a story. And I can’t help wondering about it either. It is a strange fascination that now drove me to typing a kind of review. One the one hand I think I don’t understand the story. On the other hand, what I’ve learned studying English literature tells me that that probably is the purpose of the story: I am supposed to not understand it and wonder about it.
Point one: there is a character called Paul Auster in the story (LC). He’s introduced quite early but doesn’t appear until much later. The central character is mistaken for him. At first I thought it was a clever trick to make me wonder about things like authorship, perspective and maybe a narrator. It drove me to thinking about the real author Paul Auster. But then the character was introduced which was a weird scene. A bit like an author meeting his figure just reversed. Then I wondered if maybe the character Paul Auster was the author Paul Auster and that there was a true story behind it. But then something weird happened. Suddenly the narrator drew attention to himself. Hum… He was an acquaintance of Paul Auster LC thus making it clear that LC was not telling the story so LC was not equal with the Paul Auster. You don’t get these narrators often these days. It’s not so fashionable anymore but I think it opens so many possibilities to perspective and for issues of reality and such. Furthermore, if you have a narrator that draws attention to himself, he usually does so at the beginning. If he doesn’t you usually don’t really notice that you have a narrator except for omniscient remarks now and then. Take Harry Potter for example. There you have an omniscient narrator that you don’t even notice, except for little remarks and well, from the fact that there are chapters without Harry. Anyway, I wasn’t thinking about the narrator until he drew attention to himself. If he hadn’t I think I wouldn’t be wondering what happened to the central character. In admitting that he is just telling what he has found out he opens up riddles. Who left the food on the floor? Where did Virginia Stillmann and Peter go? Why couldn’t they reach him? Where there really two Peter Stillmanns? What happened to the central character?
I am going crazy with these questions in my head …
What I also don’t get is the title. City of Glass… city… New York … glass … breakable, transparent… maybe a reference to the human mind as two characters go nuts… just a guess…
It’s probably the fact that I’m used to well-plotted books with a straight-forward storyline and here I was asking myself again and again “what is the purpose of this chapter/paragraph/fact?” I can only conclude that the purpose of all of it was to leave me wondering about this strange, strange story.
