The role of solitude in paul auster s prose

MASARYK UNIVERSITY
FACULTY OF EDUCATION
Department of English Language and Literature

The Role of Solitude
in Paul Auster’s Prose
Bachelor Thesis

Brno 2008

Author:
Richard Tetek

Supervisor:
Mgr. Lucie Podroužková, Ph.D.


I herby declare that I am the sole author of this thesis. To the best of my knowledge and
belief, the thesis contains no material previously published or written by another person
except where due reference is made in the thesis itself. I used only the primary and
secondary sources listed in the bibliography.

Brno, 15 April 2008

Richard Tetek

2


Acknowledgements
I would like to thank Mgr. Lucie Podroužková, Ph.D., for her patience, kind guidance and

worthy advice.

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Contents

Introduction

5

0.1 Paul Auster’s Biography

6

1. The Invention of Solitude

8

1.1 Portrait of an Invisible Man

9

1.2 The Book of Memory

15
22

2. The New York Trilogy
2.1 City of Glass

23

2.2 Ghosts

30

2.3 The Locked Room

34

Conclusion

39

Resume

41

Bibliography

42

Appendix

46

4

Introduction

The aim of this thesis is to analyse Paul Auster’s prose in connection with the
theme of solitude. I have chosen two of his books, namely The Invention of Solitude and
The New York Trilogy, because they provide a wide range of views on the topic. The two
books deal with similar questions and they both reflect Auster’s opinions on the role of
solitude in our lives.
For most people the word solitude often carries mostly negative connotations. It is
connected with other expressions such as loneliness, friendlessness or isolation. It is
generally seen as something undesirable and unwanted. Nevertheless, there inevitably are
moments when we are alone. Moreover, it is possible to find many examples of important
figures throughout history who relished aloneness.
I have decided to choose Paul Auster’s books because they focus on contemporary
problems of our lives in an original way. The theme of solitude, which is often connected
with the quest for one’s identity, is paramount in Auster’s work, and it is one of the key
issues he tries to explore.
The purpose of this paper will be to examine Auster’s views on the role of solitude
in postmodern world and to identify what the term means for him. I will analyse each book
separately because they both approach the topic from a different perspective. I will also try
to decide whether they have something in common.
Finally, I would like to find out whether Auster’s understanding of solitude is
more negative or positive. I will describe possible advantages and disadvantages of
aloneness in accordance with the both books.
Because Paul Auster’s prose often draws on autobiographical material, I will
include a brief biography and also a short introduction to each book in order to provide
useful background for understanding Auster’s work.

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0.1 Paul Auster’s biography

Paul Auster was born on February 3, 1947 in Newark, New Jersey. His parents
Samuel and Queenie Auster were middle class Jews of Polish decent. However, their
marriage was unhappy and they later divorced. In 1960 Auster’s uncle, who worked as a
translator, left several boxes full of books in Auster’s house in storage. Young Auster
started to read them and it developed his interest in literature and writing.
When his parents separated, Auster lived with his mothers and younger sister, who
suffered from mental breakdowns. After finishing high school, Auster went on to study
literature at Columbia University, where he began his relationship with Lydia Davis. Auster
graduated in 1970 and started to work as a utility man on an oil tanker. Between 1970 and
1974, Auster lived in France, where he tried to support himself with various translations
and other occasional jobs (Kreutzer).
After his return to the USA, he married Lydia and the couple settled in New York,
where their son Daniel was born in 1977. Auster was translating French poetry and some of
his poems and essays were published. However, the family had serious financial difficulties
and the marriage was gradually disintegrating. Auster also tried to write several plays but
they were unsuccessful.
Desperate to earn money, Auster even wrote a private-eye thriller under the
pseudonym Paul Benjamin or invented a card game. In spite of all those attempts, his
financial situation did not change for the better. In 1979, Auster’s father died and Auster
inherited enough money to pursue his literary career. Meanwhile, his marriage with Lydia
collapsed. They decided to live separately and later divorced. It was at that time, when
Auster started to work on The Invention of Solitude (Kreutzer).
In 1981, Auster met Siri Hustvedt, also a writer, and the two got married in the
same year. Soon, their daughter Sophie was born. Things started to improve considerably
for Auster. Moreover, after publishing his next work, The New York Trilogy, he became
popular worldwide. Nowadays, Auster is considered to be “one of the foremost American
novelists now writing” (Sim 186).

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Paul Auster has published eleven novels, several books of poetry, many essays and
translations. He has also written a number of screenplays, for example for films like Smoke,
Lulu on the Bridge or The Inner Life of Martin Frost.
He is usually classified as a postmodern author (Sim 123). Auster often uses
features of various genres like, for instance, detective or picaresque novels to explore
themes which are typical of his writing. Most of his books contain aspects of the author’s
own life or references to other literature and they can be described as metafictional, where
many of his characters are involved in a certain kind of writing or are writers themselves
(Barone 5).
Intertextuality, fragmentation or vicious circles where the author himself enters the
book, are some other techniques present in his work. Search for identity, coincides,
contingency of language, solitude or ambiguity of reality are the key topics of his prose.
(Wikipedia The Free Encyclopedia). Paul Auster still lives and works in Brooklyn, New
York.

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1. The Invention of Solitude
The Invention of Solitude is Auster’s first published prose book. Although it has
many autobiographical features, it is not a typical autobiography. Its aim is not just to
describe Auster’s life but, more importantly, to put forward some universal questions.
Auster himself refuses to consider it as his autobiography and describes it as “a meditation
about certain questions, using myself as the central character” (Auster, The Red Notebook
106). It is divided into two sections. The first one is called Portrait of an Invisible Man and
the second one The Book of Memory. The two parts were originally written as two separate
books, with a gap of about a year between them. Nevertheless, they were published

together under the name The Invention of Solitude in 1982.
Auster started to write Portrait of an Invisible Man as a spontaneous reaction to
his father’s sudden death. It is written in the first person and it explores, among other
things, the question of solipsism; whether, and to what extent, it is possible to understand
other people’s feelings and emotions, whether we can penetrate someone else’s solitude.
The Book of Memory was a direct response to the first part. It is a confessional
collage of thoughts, memories, quotations and meditation upon topics like fatherhood,
identity and the sense of life, written in the third person. It also tries to define what our
solitude means for us and what our self consists of.
The Invention of Solitude was the first Auster’s book attracting wider public
attention and it opened the gate for his later literary career. The reviews were mostly
positive, although some were complaining that especially the second part is marred by
“recurrent pointless mannerism” (Merwin). Others pointed out that the abundance of
allusions and references is a sign of Auster’s immaturity as a writer, and that the high
number of quotes may put off the reader who is not familiar with them. (Hamilton). The
book, however, introduced the themes and topics that would later appear in most of his
books and are crucial for his literary work: “The Invention of Solitude is both the ars
poetica and the seminal work of Paul Auster. To understand him we must start here; all his
books lead us back to this one” (Bruckner 27). It also implies that mixing the real,
autobiographical features with the fictional will become one of the trademarks of his prose.
The book is also important for understanding Auster’s views on solitude.

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1.1 Portrait of an Invisible Man
The death of his father comes as a big surprise for Auster. Even though their
mutual relationship could be described as cold and distant, Auster feels the need to explore
it deeper after his father dies. He decides to achieve it through writing a memoir: “I
thought: my father is gone. If I do not act quickly, his entire life will vanish along with

him” (Auster, The Invention of Solitude 6). This implies that Auster sees their relationship
as unresolved. Putting ideas on paper is a way of solving the problem. He failed to do so
while his father was alive and he feels he must do it now.
From Auster’s point of view, his father was an unapproachable, withdrawn kind
of person. On the surface, he had led a normal, sociable life but inside he stayed cold,
without a real passion for anything around him. This must have had a negative impact on
his family because he was unable to express any passionate emotions of love for them: “He
did not seem to be a man occupying space, but rather a block of impenetrable space in the
form of a man” (Auster, The Invention of Solitude 7). He had lived in his own solitary
world, absent and closed even for the people closest to him. In this sense, his existence
seemed empty and invisible.
After receiving a phone call informing him about his father’s death, Auster comes
to the old, solidly built house where his father had lived alone for fifteen years. He finds
going through his father’s things both terrible and fascinating. The objects he comes across
give him the illusion that his father is still there. Only after he throws away his father’s ties,
does he accept the fact that his father is dead.
What Auster tries to do is to give his feelings some form, to organize them
through writing them down. He attempts to rediscover and reassess his relationship with his
father. Auster sees his father’s restrained behaviour as something negative and harmful. He
understands it as an attempt to hide from both himself and the world around him (Barbour
186). His father solitude and remoteness has no positive aspect for Auster:

Solitary. But not in the sense being alone. Not solitary in the way Thoreau was, for
example, exiling himself in order to find out where he was; not solitary in the way Jonah
was, praying for deliverance in the belly of the whale. Solitary in the sense of retreat. In the

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sense of not having to see himself, of not having to see himself being seen by anyone else.

(Auster, The Invention of Solitude 17)

There is no doubt that Auster suffered because his father was not able to show any
emotions or passion towards his son. According to Auster, the marriage of his parents was
not the happy one from the very beginning. His mother was already on the verge of leaving
his father during their honeymoon. Auster imagines his own conception as a result of “a
passionless embrace, blind, dutiful groping between chilly hotel sheets”. He even goes that
far to call himself “a random homunculus” (Auster, The Invention of Solitude 19). Eight
months later when the baby was coming, his father refused to go to hospital with his wife
and went to work. She had to be taken to hospital and cared for by her sister. He came only
for a short visit to see his newborn son and went to work again.
Auster’s early memories of his father are those of his absence. Even when he did
not work and stayed with his family, his father still seemed somehow distracted and absentminded. Auster explains that it was impossible for him to understand his father. He could
not get close to him; he was not able to penetrate through the emotional vacuum
surrounding him. As he puts it: “Impossible, I realize, to enter another’s solitude. If it is
true that we can ever come to know another human being, even to a small degree, it is only
to the extent that he is willing to make himself known” (Auster, The Invention of Solitude
20).
Unfortunately for his son, the father seemed not able or willing to reveal what his
real feelings were. He never spoke about his emotions and refused to look into himself, as
if his inner life was something elusive even for him. Instead, he hid himself behind clichés
and fixed routines.
Auster compares the state of his father’s inner world to the state of the house
where his father had lived. Since his wife had divorced him, his father occupied the
enormous house all by himself for fifteen years until his sudden death. He changed almost
nothing since the rest of the family had left. Auster noticed that: “Although he kept the
house tidy and preserved it more or less as it had been, it underwent a gradual and
ineluctable process of disintegration. He was neat, he always put things back in their proper
place, but nothing was cared for, nothing was ever cleaned” (Auster, The Invention of
Solitude 9). The house reminded of a place occupied by a stranger who stays there for some

10


time and then leaves it without being anyhow connected with it. Auster sees it as a
metaphor for his father’s role in the family; he just existed within it, but always stayed on
the surface, there was nothing warm or passionate and it disintegrated in the end.
After the death of Sam Auster, Paul, his only son, had to take care of his father’s
property. He went through the things left behind in the house. Old clothes, razors, empty
tubes of hair colouring, monogrammed toothbrushes: all those things haunted Auster when
he had to deal with them. He notes that “there is nothing more terrible, I learned, than
having to face the objects of a dead man” (Auster, The Invention of Solitude10). Once those
things lost their purpose they have become only symbols of solitude, ghosts and remnants
of the deceased.
Among other things, however, Auster finds something very precious for him. In
the bedroom closet, there are dozens of photographs of his father and the family. Auster
hopes that the photographs can reveal something about his father, something that can help
him find the way into Sam Auster’s inner world. It is rather symbolic when he discovers a
photo album entitled “This is Our Life: The Austers” but finds out that it is empty inside.
Another photograph found there could well serve as a symbol for the first part of
the book. It is an old trick photograph of his father (see the appendix). It depicts five men
sitting round a table in a still position, gazing at each other. When we look closer (the
photograph is also on the book’s cover), we can see that all of them are identical, but taken
from a different angle and put together to make it look as if five men were “conducting a
séance” (Auster, The Invention of Solitude 33). Throughout the whole Portrait of an
Invisible Man, elusiveness and remoteness of his father becomes a recurring theme for
Auster. The stillness, coldness and artificiality of the picture seem to reflect Sam Auster’s
personality as described in the book. Everything looks perfect and neat on the surface, but
underneath there is a gloomy emptiness and anxiety.
Auster also ascertains another side of his father’s character he had not been aware
before. Some snapshots from his father’s youth and the time when he was a bachelor show

him as a sociable man, always smiling and surrounded by women. Therefore, for some
people, Sam Auster could have been a witty, cheerful man with an intense social life. Yet
Auster’s view of his father is a bit more critical: “What people saw when he appeared
before them, then, was not really him, but a person he invented, an artificial creature he

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could manipulate in order to manipulate others. He himself remained invisible, a puppeteer
working the strings of his alter ego from a dark, solitary place behind the curtain” (Auster,
The Invention of Solitude 16).
Even his ex-girlfriends did not know Samuel Auster properly, as it is revealed
when they surprisingly get know about each other’s existence. They also knew only a part
of him: “He managed to elude them all” (Auster, The Invention of Solitude 17).
What Auster acknowledges many times in the book is that it is almost impossible
to understand other people’s mind. Our means of understanding are limited. With this in
mind, Auster ponders whether it is even possible to write about another person (Auster, The
Red Notebook 106). We live solitary lives inside our minds and it is up to each individual
if, and to what extent, we let anyone in. In this sense, we should not consider Portrait of an
Invisible Man a typical biography. Rather than that, it is a kind of meditation on a
relationship, an attempt to put together memories and feelings and to cope with them via
writing them down.
During his search for his father’s past Auster finds a snapshot of his grandparents
and their family. There is his grandmother with his father, who was then a one-year-old
baby, and other four children. Auster spots that his grandfather is missing and that he had
been cut out of the photograph. Upset by the discovery, Auster reveals and old family
secret, which can explain a lot about his father’s withdrawn and solitary character. It is a
secret of an old murder that had happened in his grandparent’s family in 1919.
Auster's grandmother shot her husband because he had been cruel and unfaithful
to her. She had to face a charge of murder but was later discharged and released.

Nevertheless, the family had move to a different part of the USA and the bonds to the other
family members were broken. Since then, the family moved constantly. This contributed to
their isolation: “In a family that had already closed in on itself, this nomadism walled them
off entirely. There were no enduring points of reference: no home, no town, no friends that
could be counted on” (Auster, The Invention of Solitude 51). The concept of nomadism and
uprooting is often present throughout Auster's works. It is as if something from his father’s
past was passed on to his son and through him into his writing. This feature can be also
seen, together with the metaphorical sense of “hunger and yearning”, as one of the
reflections of his Jewish origin and background (Rubin 66-68).

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This experience must have had some impact on Auster's father. Sam Auster was
seven at the time of the murder and he remembered what had happened, although he was
reluctant to speak about it. It may be the key to his personality and it can explain his
detached behaviour to some extent. Thinking about those unhappy events Auster's remarks:
“I do not think they explain everything, but there is no question they explain a great deal. A
boy cannot live through this kind of thing without being affected by it as a man” (Auster,
The Invention of Solitude 38).
Later on, when Sam Auster started his own business, he concentrated on earning
money. Art did not mean much to him because he could not see any direct link between an
aesthetic experience and profit. The fact that his son wanted to become a writer and
struggled to earn his living by occasional translating, must have been a disappointment for
him. Paul Auster, however, sees writing as one of the most important things in his life.
Auster affirms that “writing is no longer an act of free will for me; it’s a matter of survival”
(Auster, The Red Notebook 123). Pascal Bruckner writes in an essay about Auster that “his
father had denied him the usual outlet of youth: rebellion, because you can’t rebel against a
phantom” (Bruckner 27). Nevertheless, writing can be seen as an act of rebellion against
his father’s values, as well as an attempt of the writer to define who he is.

It is a strange paradox that Auster was able to become a writer due to the money
he inherited after his father had died. Until then, he had struggled hard to earn his living
and could not fully concentrate on his writing. In this sense, the death of his father saved
his future as a writer (Auster, The Red Notebook 132). The Invention of Solitude is a way,
apart from other things, how to reconcile with his father: “The son would never stop
repaying this debt, would never finish reimbursing the deceased, in prose, for his fearsome
gift. As payment Auster seeks to revive the image of this man he barely knew” (Bruckner
27).
The theme of a sudden inheritance appeared in Auster’s other books too. It saves
Nash in The Music of Chance (2006) as well as Fogg in Moon Palace (1992). Blending the
autobiographic with the fictional is typical of Auster. The boundary between the two is
often blurred in his works.
Another paradox is that although Auster finds out that the writing about his father
is much more demanding and painful than he had thought, he is afraid to finish it: “I want

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to postpone the moment of ending….when I step into this silence, it will mean that my
father has vanished forever” (Auster, The Invention of Solitude 69).
This will not happen, however. Paul Auster’s relationship with his father will stay
partly unresolved and the theme will keep haunting Auster, as his apparent from his later
novels. In an interview, Auster confessed that he still thinks a lot about his father (Contat).
Although their relationship was painful and complicated, there is no doubt that Paul Auster
loved him deeply.

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1.2 The Book of Memory

Although the second part of the book also deals with the father–son relationship, it
differs from the first section in many aspects. Firstly, Auster decided to write it in the third
person, referring to himself as A. In many ways, The Book of Memory is even more
personal and that is why it was more difficult for him to put it together. He explains that “in
order to write about myself, I had to treat myself as though I were someone else” (Auster,
The Red Notebook 106). It enables him to distance himself from the text and to be more
honest and open.
Secondly, it explores new topics and offers different points of views on the role of
solitude. The crucial theme, however, is a search for identity. Auster tries to find out who
he really is; he wants to go through the pieces that his self is made of. He examines the role
of our memories and the past in our lives, as well as the nature of chance a coincidences in
our lives. For him, “the book wasn’t written as a form of therapy; it was an attempt to turn
myself inside-out and examine what I was made of” (Auster, The Red Notebook 136). The
theme of solitude links the second part of the book with the first one, but now, Auster
concentrates more on his own solitude and its creative potential (Barbour 186).
Auster sees writing as a solitary activity: “Every book is an image of
solitude….its words represent many months, if not years, of one men’s solitude.” (Auster,
The Invention of Solitude 145). Every writer uses his own methods and ways of writing. In
Auster’s case, writing takes place in his room, alone, just with a pen and a notebook or a
piece of paper.
Aloneness can stimulate one’s imagination and creativity (Buchholz 222). Artist’s
room is a dream place, which encourages the mind to roam in time and space and to explore
distant worlds (Barbour 190). The author becomes someone else; he becomes a part of his
story. The bonds with the outer world must be cut for a while so that some new ideas can
emerge.
From the reader’s point of view, reading someone’s book means sharing the
author’s solitude for a moment. Both the reader and the writer live within the same story
but each of them can perceive it from a different perspective. The worlds they live in are
different, yet there definitely is some kind of bond present: “Reading literature creates a

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kind of companionship that preserves the solitariness of writing and reading” (Barbour
193). Auster feel that connection most strongly when he translates poetry. He projects his
own feelings and thoughts onto someone else’s work:

Even though there is only one man in the room, there are two. A. images
himself as a kind of ghost of that other man, who is both there and not there, and whose
book is both the same and not the same as the one he is translating. Therefore, he tells
himself, it is possible to be alone and not to be alone at the same moment. (Auster, The
Invention of Solitude145- 146).

Writing the The Book of Memory is similar for Auster. It is a collage of voices, of
his “ghosts”, that have their say in his writing. He is and he is not alone. It is him and it is
not him who writes the book: “That book has dozens of authors, and I wanted them all to
speak through me. In the final analysis, The Book of Memory is a collective work” (Auster,
The Red Notebook 144). Moreover, this postmodern form of a textual fragmentation can
give the reader more freedom in the way the text is perceived at the expense of author’s
control. It is the reader who can decide “which paths to follow, assembling the text
according to her own desires” (Geyh XXIV).
Sharing stories also plays an important role for his relationship with his own son
Daniel. Auster’s marriage with his first wife, Lydia Davis, was gradually collapsing at the
time when he was writing The Invention of Solitude. The couple lived separately and Auster
could see his three-years-old son only occasionally (Kreutzer). Although they do not see
each other very often, Auster wants to make sure that he will not repeat the mistake of his
father. He does everything possible to assure his son of his love. Auster wants to redefine
and reinvent the meaning of solitude and tries to use it more creatively. He hopes that his
solitude will not have the destructive effect on Daniel.
By sharing some of his experiences of aloneness with his son, he wants to

provide the conditions for Daniel to develop his capacity to be alone (Barbour 189).
Children need some time alone as well as the assurance of their parent’s love. Being
together but having chance to fulfil one’s need for privacy, can maintain our relationships
healthy. Our capacity to be alone in adult life has its origin in our childhood when the
infant has an experience of being alone in the presence of the mother or the father. Parents

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should spend some time with their children without playing or focusing their attention on
them all the time. The child will then learn how to cope with his own solitude later on. The
ability to be alone without being anxious is also an aspect of emotional maturity (Storr 1820).
Children should be given an opportunity to be alone in order to get in touch with
their inner feelings. They often have their special hiding place, for example a spot in their
bedroom or in a garden, where they can retreat if they feel such a need. Nevertheless, all
children need to feel secure and be aware of their parent’s love. They should also have a
chance to spend some time alone to use their imagination. (Buchholz 155-156). Storytelling
is one of the natural ways how to achieve it.
Throughout the book, Auster often mentions reading stories to his son. One of
these stories is the story of Pinocchio. Pinocchio’s separation and the reunion with his
father Geppetto is symbolical for Auster. Pinocchio saves Geppetto from the belly of a
shark and becomes a real boy. It can be seen as a metaphor applicable to Auster and Daniel,
but also to Auster’s relationship with his own father.
Daniel, too, relishes his time alone. It gives him chance to retreat into a world of
fantasy and it helps to trigger his imagination: “I have to be alone to think,” he says to his
father (Auster, The Invention of Solitude 139). Accordingly, his father needs some time
alone to arrange his ideas and write them down. Daniel shares his father’s interest in
stories. Through reading stories, they create a bond between them.
The link between the author and the reader is very important for Auster on a more
universal level. Both the author and the reader live in their separate worlds, but they still

share what they have in common for that moment; the story. He experiences the same while
reading to Daniel:

Auster interprets the act of reading as a form of companionship based on the
shared solitude of author and reader. The oxymoron `shared solitude´ represents an
idealized fusion of aloneness and communion. It is a union of opposites that may be
logically absurd, but expresses a spiritual yearning for synthesis or reconciliation of the
tensions of human existence. Auster’s way of describing the writing and reading of
literature strives to reconcile solitude and relationship to others. He tries to reconceive
solitude as not solipsistic isolation but the necessary condition for a more meaningful form
of connection with others than possible in normal social interaction. (Barbour 194)

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Auster sees his writing as a connector with the world. He also imagines that, in
the future, his son would read his book and he hopes that it would help him to express his
emotions and feelings that his son cannot understand so far.
Through the process of writing The Book of Memory, Auster’s son Daniel got
seriously ill. His diagnosis was a severe pneumonia with asthmatic complications, and he
could have died if he was not moved to a hospital quickly. Daniel had to stay in the hospital
for some time, and his parents visited him regularly. The horror of the possible death of his
son causes a change in Auster’s perceptions of his own life: ”…it was only at that moment,
he later come to realize, that he finally grasped the full scope of his own fatherhood: the
boy’s life meant more to him than his own; if dying were necessary to save his son, he
would be willing to die (Auster, The Invention of Solitude 116). Moreover, it reminds him
of his own mortality and responsibility.
At the time of writing the second part, Auster lived alone in a little room in 6
Varick Street. His marriage had collapsed and his prospects were rather bleak (Kreutzer).
The room becomes a central point of his life. Here, he decides to use his solitude creatively

and employ writing as a tool of introspection and self-examination. According the tone of
the book, we can feel that it was not a happy period of his life for Auster. It is as if the
reality of the outside world ceased to exist for him: “It is a hermetic season, a long moment
of inwardness. The outer world, the tangible world of materials and bodies, has come to
seem no more than an emanation of his mind” (Auster, The Invention of Solitude 82). His
quest is of a spiritual nature. He feels it has to be done in order to get further with his life:

The world has shrunk to the size of this room for him, and for as long as it
takes him to understand it, he must stay where he is. Only one thing is certain: he cannot
be anywhere until he is here. And if he does not manage to find this place, it would be
absurd for him to think of looking for another. (Auster, The Invention of Solitude 83)

The room serves as a microcosm, as a place of imagination. It is a place of
resurrection and of a new start. It is “a kind of mental uterus, site of a second birth”
(Bruckner 28). But before that, Auster must undergo a painful process of self-exploration,
he must dig deep into himself. In this respect, his enclosure is not a nihilistic escape from
the world leading to oblivion, because its purpose is positive: to reconstruct the self through

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exploring all the thoughts and inner voices that immerse in his mind. He must focus upon
his inner world to find out what it consists of (Rubin 64).
The notion of enclosed spaces is a paramount theme in Auster’s works. It later
reappears in The New York Trilogy and Moon Palace (1992), but the theme can be traced in
almost all of his novels. They are places of a profound significance. For Auster, enclosed
spaces are the places of a change, or, at least, places where the characters try to get answers
for the questions that haunt them. Nevertheless, the goal is not always achieved because
there simply are not any definite answers.
In a metaphorical sense, the room serves both as “a tomb” and as “a womb”

(Ting). The walls do not have to be seen as a barrier; they can function as a protective shell
that enables the mind to roam freely. Auster gives his friend S., whom he met while living
in Paris, as an example: “He lived in the tiniest, most minimal space I’ve ever been in. And
yet, he probably had the biggest mind of any person I’ve ever known, and he managed to
inhibit that space as if he were utterly free” (Irwin).
In The Book of Memory Auster often refers to other writes like for example
Thoreau, Hölderlin, Emily Dickinson and Anne Frank. All those writers mentioned in the
book, have one thing in common. Although for various reasons, they all spent some time in
confined spaces. It was a cabin for Thoreau, a tower for Hölderlin and rooms or apartments
for Dickinson and Frank. They all had some, though very different, experience of solitude.
Their writing, too, often draws on their seclusion. That is why Auster feels affiliated with
them.
Visiting Anne Frank’s room in Amsterdam was a direct impulse for writing The
Book of Memory. When he entered the room, he found himself overflowed with emotions:
“…not sobbing, as might happen in response to a deep inner pain, but crying without
sound, the tears streaming down his cheeks, as if purely in response to the world. It was at
that moment, he later realized, that The Book of Memory began” (Auster, The Invention of
Solitude 87). There is no doubt that the book has its origin in a sense of dissatisfaction and
a deep anguish. Auster wants to fulfil his yearning for finding his place in the world by
writing a literary work (Rubin 62).
Auster’s penchant for confined spaces is not limited to rooms. Many times, he
refers to the story of Jonah in a belly of a whale, as well as to the story of Pinocchio and his

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father, imprisoned in a belly of a shark. He describes these stories as metaphors, as
reflections of situations similar to his own life. Auster understands the Book of Jonah as the
most dramatic story of solitude in the Bible. It is interesting, that it is also the only one
written in the third person. The parallel with The Book of Memory is obvious. Jonah refuses

God’s command to speak to the Ninevites and decides to escape on a ship. But God sends a
tempest on the ship which does not stop until Jonah is thrown into the sea. There, he is
devoured by a great fish. Jonah stays in its belly for three days until he reconciles with God.
In the belly of the fish, solitude equals silence, as his refusal to speak leads to his disaster.
As Auster puts it:”Who seeks solitude seeks silence; who does not speak is alone; is alone,
even unto death- Jonah encounters the darkness of death” (Auster, The Invention of
Solitude 134). Jonah, however, does not die, but finds his way back to life through
introspection and praying to God, and is finally released back onto dry land. The fish was
sent not to punish Jonah and kill him, but to give him another chance. Jonah has to go
through that experience of dying and vanishing in order to prepare for new life. Then, he is
ready to speak and start again. It is interesting, how Auster reflects on that moment: “In the
darkness of solitude that is death, the tongue is finally loosened, and at that moment it
begins to speak, there is an answer. And even if there is no answer, the man has begun to
speak” (Auster, The Invention of Solitude 134).
Similarly, Auster hopes to find his way back to life, but in his case, he uses
writing instead of praying as a means of introspection (Barbour 192). His writing is
supposed to provide the answers. For him, the crucial question is- Who am I, and what is
my place in the world? He also acknowledges that he may not get the answer but the
important thing is to look for it.
In the same way as Jonah spent some time in the belly of a whale, Auster’s spends
his time in the room in Varick Street. That is where his seclusion takes place. Exploring his
thoughts, he discovers a strange paradox. Being physically separated from others does not
mean being alone completely. He finds out that the more he is alone in a physical sense, the
bigger and more understandable is his mental connection with others. All our thoughts,
memories and feeling have their origin in a connection with something, objects or people.
From this point of view, it means that we are never alone mentally: “The more intensely
you are alone, the more deeply you plunge into a state of solitude, the more deeply you feel

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that connection. It isn’t possible for a person to isolate himself from other people” (Auster,
The Red Notebook 144).
By “other people”, he means more than his family and people around him. He
applies the term to people from the past as well, to all the voices that speak inside him and
have some influence on his live.
No matter how apart you might find yourself in a physical sense- whether
you’ve been marooned on a desert island or locked up in a solitary confinement- you
discover that you are inhibited by others. Your language, your memories, even your sense
of isolation- every thought in your head has been born from your connection with
others…….That is why that book is filled with so many references and quotations, in
order to pay homage to all the others inside me. (Auster, The Red Notebook 144)

The question is, though, whether we can find our genuine self in that myriad of
voices. Some argue that it is not possible to attain because the self “resists categorization”
(Bruckner 31). The search for it “is an eternal quest, without guaranteed results, which can
never achieve closure” (Bruckner 32). The quote would well correspond with Auster’s
findings about the nature of the self. He does not find all the answers but writing the book
helps him to overcome a difficult period of his life.

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2. The New York Trilogy

The New York Trilogy is Paul Auster’s first book of fiction. It was written soon after
The Invention of Solitude and it explores and evolves similar themes. It consists of three
parts: City of Glass, Ghosts and The Locked Room. The three novellas of the trilogy were
originally released separately in 1985 and 1986, but they were later published collectively
as The New York Trilogy in 1987.

Although it was at first difficult for Auster to find a publisher and he received
seventeen rejections, it later earned him international acclaim. There is also a comics
adaptation of City of Glass, done by David Mazzucchelli and Paul Karasik in 1994.
It is not easy to define the genre of the novel. It has been described as
“postmodernist detective fiction” (Sim 126), “a surreal detective novel” (Begley) or “a
meta-anti-detective story” (Sorapure72). Although it uses some elements characteristic for
detective genre, it cannot be considered as a typical detective prose. Auster explains: “I felt
I was using those elements for such different ends, for things that had so little to do with
detective stories, and I was somewhat disappointed by the emphasis that was put on
them…I tried to use certain genre conventions to get to another place, another place
altogether” (Auster, The Red Notebook 108-109). Using pastiche is one of the typical
features of postmodern literature. In Paul Auster’s case, genres like detective fiction can
provide “ready-made forms, ideal for postmodern miscegenation” (Sim 126).
Unlike detective fiction, The New York Trilogy does not provide a solution and
explanation to the case at the end of the book. It leaves more space for the reader and, in
this respect, it can be more demanding. Or, as Auster puts it: “If a true follower of a
detective fiction ever tried to read one of these books, I’m sure he would be bitterly
disappointed. Mystery novels always give answers; my work is about asking questions”
(Auster, The Red Notebook 139). Therefore, it is interesting that City of Glass was
nominated for an Edgar Award for best mystery novel (Geyh 443).

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2.1 City of Glass
The theme of solitude is closely linked with the question of identity in City of Glass.
Quinn, the main character of the book, spends his time alone in a small New York
apartment. His wife and son died a few years ago, and his life lost its sense. Quinn escapes
into his solitude and lives in his own world, occupying the space between reality and
fantasy. He seems to have no ambitions anymore; he does not consider himself an

integrated personality. Presumably, he hopes to get rid of his pain and distress together with
his old identity. His life takes place inside his head: “although in many ways Quinn
continued to exist, he no longer existed for anyone but himself” (Auster, The New York
Trilogy 4). Then, one night, there is a strange phone call, which will turn Quinn’s life
upside down.
This is the starting point of the novel. Again, there is a writer, this time called
Quinn, alone in a room. Again, he tries to find his place in the world. The situation reminds
that of The Invention of Solitude, but this time the reader gets more; he gets a story. City of
Glass deals with similar questions as The Invention of Solitude, but Auster’s approach is
different. He decides to write a story that still draws on his personal life, but this time he
shifts it into a fictional world. For Auster, however, both the “normal” and the “fictional”
world are ambiguous and pregnant with the unexpected and unpredictable. Our world can
be as absurd and incomprehensible as the world of fiction. Therefore, there is no need to
define the exact border between the two (Auster, The Red Notebook 117).
At the time of writing City of Glass, Auster’s life has undergone many changes. He
had met Siri Hustved, his future wife, and fell in love (Auster, The Red Notebook 141). The
tone of City of Glass, however, is far from optimistic. The feelings of loss and deprivation
are still visible, together with a sense of alienation to the outer world. Auster explains: “In
many ways, I think of City of Glass as an homage to Siri, as a love letter in the form of a
novel. I tried to imagine what would have happened to me if I hadn’t met her, and what I
came up with was Quinn. Perhaps my life would have been something like his… “(Auster,
The Red Notebook 142). Quinn thus represents Auster’s possible future if he had not met
Siri.

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Quinn writes mystery novels under the pen name William Wilson. The main
character of his books is a private detective called Max Work. Max becomes Quinn’s alter
ego; someone he would like to become as well. Unlike Quinn, Max has no doubts, he

always knows what to do and there is not a case he could not solve. Quinn is the exact
opposite; he is indecisive and numb, his life seems empty and lonely and he has no real
friends. All he asks for is “to be nowhere” (Auster, The New York Trilogy 4).
By assuming Work’s identity, Quinn can escape his own misery. When he becomes
Max Work, he is no longer alone: “And little by little, Work had become a presence in
Quinn’s life, his interior brother, his comrade in solitude” (Auster, The New York Trilogy
6). Looking at the world from Work’s point of view helps him survive. It gives meaning to
his existence. Becoming Work enables him to get rid of confusion and disorder within his
own mind: “Seeing the world through the eyes of his detective and writing about a universe
with an established order makes up for Quinn’s loss, serves as a refuge from the chaos that
surrounds him and as a centre within Quinn’s own decentred world” (Herzogenrath 28).
Nevertheless, these escapes can be only occasional and Quinn still has to face the
reality of his everyday life. Chance helps him to solve his problem and connect the reality
with his imaginary world. One night Quinn receives a strange phone call. Someone who
obviously has a wrong number asks for help of a private eye called Paul Auster from the
Auster Detective Agency. Quinn does not know who Auster is but when the stranger calls
again, he decides to pretend that he is Auster, the detective, and takes up the case.
Paul Auster, the real writer, therefore becomes another Paul Auster, the private eye,
a fictional character in his own book, and Quinn becomes a real detective working on a
case. Even though this swap may confuse the reader at first, it opens the way for new
possibilities for both Auster and Quinn. By being engaged in a real case, Quinn can live as
his fictional character, and Auster can give his fictional character some real essence.
Auster, as the character described in the book, is a middle-aged writer, living
happily with his wife Siri and son Daniel. Although the names are the same as in reality,
Auster did not mean to create his exact copy. He used it as an opportunity to be ironical
about himself. He explains: “I was mostly making fun of myself. Everything the Paul
Auster character said in City of Glass, I don’t believe. I have the opposite opinion on

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everything. His ideas are bullshit” (Billen). This kind of short circuit when the writer steps
into the text often arises in postmodern fiction so that „text and world fuse“ (Sim 132).
The stranger on the phone asking for Auster’s help is called Peter Stillman. He
represents extreme solitude and all the negative consequences it entails. Peter’s father, also
called Peter Stillman, worked as a reputable professor in the religion department at a
university. When his wife died, he went mad and decided to use his son for a terrible
experiment. He locked two-years-old Peter junior into a dark room for nine years.
Stillman hopes that by isolating his son from the real world and by forcing him to
forget human language he has acquired, Peter will start speaking the prelapsarian language
of God. The need to invent a new language that would be pure and untainted by the
muddied waters of communication, serves his as an excuse for mistreating his own son
(Tysh). The result is disastrous. Peter junior goes insane and his personality disintegrates.
Peter shows many symptoms typical of prolonged enforced solitude: restlessness, inability
to concentrate, fear of resuming social relationship and partial failure of memory (Storr 4445).
When he is accidentally rescued after the nine years of total isolation, Peter’s sense
of time and reality is disrupted: “I know nothing of time. I am new every day. I am born
when I wake up in the morning, I grow old during the day, and I die at night when I go to
sleep” (Auster, The New York Trilogy 18). Despite the fact that he gets married later on and
his state improves, Peter will stay alone forever. No one can understand his world and
penetrate his solitude.
His aloneness is closely connected with language and the ability to express thoughts
and ideas. Peter often fails to match the meaning of words with what they represent in
reality; he was told to connect certain things with certain words, but he still sees language
as something treacherous and arbitrary. However, he accepts the human language as a
means of communication with the surrounding world. Nevertheless, he has a great
difficulty to speak normally. When talking to Quinn he says: “This is what is called
speaking. I believe that is the term. When words come out, fly in the air, live for a moment,
and die. Strange, is it not? I myself have no opinion. No and no again. But still, there are
words you will need to have” (Auster, The New York Trilogy 16).

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