(Luận án tiến sĩ Ngữ văn bằng tiếng anh) PHẢN TRINH THÁM TRONG BỘ BA NEW YORK CỦA PAUL AUSTER

MINISTRY OF EDUCATION AND TRAINING
HANOI NATIONAL UNIVERSITY OF EDUCATION

DANG THI BICH HONG

ANTI-DETECTIVE
IN PAUL AUSTER’S THE NEW YORK TRILOGY

Speciality: Literary Theory
Code: 62.22.01.20

THE SUMMARY OF PHD THESIS IN PHILOLOGY

Hanoi - 2016


Thesis was completed at:
Hanoi National University of Education

Supervisor: Prof.Dr. LE HUY BAC

Reviewer 1: Assoc.Prof.Dr. Nguyen Duc Hanh
Thai Nguyen University
Reviewer 2: Assoc.Prof.Dr. Hoang Minh Luong
Academy of Journalism & Communication
Reviewer 3: Assoc.Prof.Dr. Le Nguyen Can
Hanoi National University of Education

The thesis will be presented to the Council
at Hanoi National University of Education
at…………………….., 2016

The thesis can be found at:
- National Library of Vietnam
- Hanoi National University of Education’s Library


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INTRODUTION
1. Rationale
i. In Barry Lewis’s opinion, the detective genre is one of the
candidates as a real partner of the postmodernity. “The laws” of
detective fiction may be used as the material for creating the antidetective works. Both anti-detective fiction and postmodern literature
are not sufficient grounds to justify the things in a causal relationship.
ii. Paul Auster is one of the typical contemporary writers in European
literature and Americian literature. During his writing career, Paul Auster
has written across many genres. However, in the field of fiction, he
seemed more successful. Paul Auster's works have been translated into
over 30 different languages; thus, he was honored in the world with many
prestigious awards, including Prince of Asturias Awards. Two years after
being presented to the readers, The New York Trilogy won France Culture
Award in the field of foreign literature.
iii. Paul Auster's The New York Trilogy is considered as one of the
most popular works of postmodern detective fiction. After the works’
publication, this trilogy has attracted the attention of many readers as
well as critics.
iv. In Vietnam, Paul Auster's works are getting more and more popular
with the readers. However, the researches of Paul Auster are still sketchy and
there is not any one about him as a postmodern detective author. Therefore,
"Anti-Detective in Paul Auster’s The New York Trilogy" has been our choice.

v. Carrying out this research, we aimed at establishing the theoretic
basis to analyze the originality of narrative in Paul Auster’s anti-detective
novels, and then confirming a trend of literary creation during the
postmodern period. Besides, we hope that the research will help to bring
Paul Auster's works as well as the trend of creating anti-detective novels
closer to Vietnamese literature.


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2. Subjects and scope of the study
The thesis studied the aspects, expressions of anti-detective in The
New York Trilogy by Paul Auster.
A survey was conducted on The New York Trilogy (Penguin Books,
2006) and a translation of The New York Trilogy by Trinh Lu (Women's
Publishing House, 2007) was another source of reference. In addition, the
research also looked into other works when necessary.
3. Objectives and tasks of the study
Performing this thesis, we confirm that anti-detective fiction is the
serial, development of literary detective genre. Questioning "Anti-Detective
in The New York Trilogy", we aim at analyzing and clarifying Paul Auster's
originality in the creating of his anti-detective novels. By comparing with
the later novels, the thesis also confirms the role of The New York Trilogy
in shaping the creative style of Paul Auster.
To achieve this objective, three basic tasks are done.
Firstly, the thesis systematized the development of the detective
literature genre. Due to the fact that most of anti- detective novels have
not been translated into Vietnamese, we tried to generalize the
appearance of the detective genre, emphasize the difference between
detective fictions and anti-detective ones through the typical authors

and works.
Secondly, the thesis confirmed that the way to build a detective in
The New York Trilogy is a clear demonstration of anti-detective. Paul
Auster's detectives in turn break the illusion about an invincible hero in
readers' thoughts. Detectives' searching process shifts from the crime to
their own identity in a world full of chance and uncertainty. This theme
will be repeated again and again in Paul Auster's novels later.
Thirdly, we also showed the art of building the anti-detective plot in
The New York Trilogy as a strategy to negate the immutable principles in a
detective plot. Metafiction and intertextuality are effective methods which
help Paul Auster make the dramatic plots unclear and put many stories into


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his novel over a detective story. These stories also formed the author's
style in his following compositions.
4. Research Methodology
Typology, narrative, comparative and cultural-historical studies are the
main research methods used in the thesis.
5. New contributions of the thesis
The thesis introduced, systematized the studies of detective literary
genre in the transition from detective to anti-detective fiction. In particular,
before this thesis, anti-detective literary was almost unheard of translation
or research in Vietnam. Our showing of achievements of detective literary
can become a reference.
On the basis of theory, the thesis researched a phenomenon of typical
and multi-values contemporary literature: anti-detective novels by Paul
Auster. We made a new approach to the anti-detective characteristics in
The New York Trilogy from the basic aspects of narrative method

combined with postmodern fictional styles in order to show the particular
characteristics in anti-detective novels by Paul Auster.
By combining theoretical generalization and practical research, the
thesis also indicated the shift of anti-detective literature gerne from
popular literature into scholarly literature and the possibility of
development of it in the postmodern context.
6. Structure of thesis
Apart from introduction, conclusion, references, the thesis is divided
into four chapters:
Chapter 1: Overview of Research Issues.
Chapter 2. The anti-detective fiction in the procedure of the genre.
Chapter 3. The multifaceted detective in The New York Trilogy
Chapter 4. Anti-detective plot in The New York Trilogy.


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Chapter 1
OVERVIEW OF RESEARCH ISSUES
1.1. The studies of anti-detective fiction
The term "anti-detective" was first proposed in 1972 by William
Spanos. Since then, the study of anti-detective fictions has attracted a good
deal of scholars. Here, we based our research of detective literature on the
two sources of Vietnamese and English materials with two major contents:
the opinion of the anti-detective fiction and the basic characteristics of this
literature typology.
1.1.1. Materials in Vietnamese
An investigation into the anti-detective fiction in discourse of
Vietnamese literary criticism review showed us its significance. Many
researches on classic detective fiction of the world- renowned scholars have

been translated into Vietnamese. In addition, a number of Vietnamese
authors have made their deep discussions about the literary detective.
However, there are almost not any researches on anti-detective literature. Le
Huy Bac is the only person that mentioned a branch of the detective fiction
genre in the postmodern context with term “pseudo detective” .
1.1.2. Materials in English
It can be seen from the studies in English that new viewpoints on this
literature gerne has always been supplemented following the
transformations of innovative practice. We paid closer attention to the
researches by William Spanos, Malcah Effron, Hans Bertens, Larry
McCaffery... Obviously, the Western literary criticism on detective fiction
are still continuous, even they opposed each other on the movement of
creative activities. Beside the studies of the detective literature, many
works directed their attention to the changes of the genre associated with
the change of historical context and social context. However, there is no
work to show the full process of this literary genre.
1.2. The studies of Paul Auster’s novels
Like the general overview of the detective fiction genre, we


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overviewed the situation of the research on Paul Auster from two sources
including Vietnamese and English documents.
1.2.1. Materials in Vietnamese
Vietnamese readers are gradually closer to Paul Auster’s works.
However, up to this moment, the studies of Paul Auster in Vietnam, in
general, have not matched with his talents and contributions. Based on the
overview of the researches on Paul Auster in Vietnam, we paid our attention
to the evaluations by Le Huy Bac and Nguyen Thi Thanh Hieu in their article

and thesis.
1.2.2. Materials in English
In the world liturature, Paul Auster has confirmed his position from
the 1980s and the studies of his works have also formed a fairly rich
system. Paul Auster's works have become the subject of monograph books,
thesis, dissertations, essays, scientific articles... Accessing to research
materials on Paul Auster, our method is not based on themes but on the
documentary groups since each of them sets up a different aspect of
reading Paul Auster’s works.
Accordingly, we devided the collected materials into 2 groups:
monographs and published articles, thesis, dissertations. We also gave our
full attention to the three books by Bernd Herzogenzath, Aliki Varvogli ,
Brendan Martin and some researches on Paul Auster by Dragana, Stephen
E.Alford…
1.3. The studies of The New York Trilogy
The interpretations of The New York Trilogy came from many
different angles, but generally they agreed at the metaphysical and
postmodern nature under the guide of the detective fiction of the trilogy.
1.3.1. Materials in Vietnamese
Overview of the studies on The New York Trilogy in Vietnam, the
introduction of Trinh Lu and scientific article by Le Huy Bac were
focused. Their reviews somewhat mentioned the anti-detective nature of
the fiction trilogy.


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1.3.2. Materials in English
From English material sources, we approached to the novel in two
ranges: the study of the uniqueness of The New York Trilogy in general,

and research on its anti-detective nature in particular. We also gave close
attention to the researches on The New York Trilogy of Anne M. Holzapfel,
John Zilcosky, William Lavender, Alison Russell, Stephen E.Alford, Mark
Brown, Norma Rowen, Madeleine Soprapure, Jeffrey Nealon, Paul
Jahshan, Dan Homes Matthias Kugler, Toni Rudat...
1.4. The arising issues
From the general overview of the anti-detective fiction genre including
Paul Auster’s novel and The New York Trilogy, it can be seen that:
There is a quite remarkable difference between the researches on the
anti-detective fiction in Vietnam and those around the world. There are not
any scientific works retracing the entire process of the detective genre.
The researches of Paul Auster in Vietnam are still limited and not
proportional to those abroad and the writer’s own stature as well.
This thesis approached Paul Auster's works in our own way:
emphasising on the art mechanism of the postmodern fiction used by the
writer to creat his anti-detective novels.
Chapter 2
THE ANTI-DETECTIVE FICTION
IN THE PROCEDURE OF THE GENRE
Detective elements appeared very early in the Western culture and
literature, beginning by the story of Cain and Albert in the Bibles, then the
legend of Oedipus in Greek tragedy and the story of three apples narrated by
Scheherazade in One Thousand and One Nights... However, until 1841, with
Edgar Poe’s works, the detective fiction really became a literary genre. Since
then, the literary detective has evolved through many forms.
2.1. The forms of the detective fiction
The detective fiction is a collection of literary works concerning a


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case or an investigation. Stories are organized by linear narrative sequence,
in which detectives, criminals, as well as all related characters are in the
same orientation to reveal the mysteries.
2.1.1. The Classic Detective Fiction
Classic detective fiction was officially formed in April 1841 with the
publication of The Murders in the Rue Morgue by Edgar Poe. Although
created in America, examples of this form mainly came from Great
Britain. The most flourishing period of the classic detective fiction was
from the second half of the nineteenth century to 1945, even, the time
between the two world wars was known as "the golden age of the detective
story". Following Poe’s standards, the classic detective fiction was put into
its top position by the writers such as: Van Dine, Elery Queen (USA),
Emile Graboriau, Gaston Leroux (France), Conan Doyle, Agatha Christie,
Cecil Day Lewis (UK)...
In the context of interculture between France and Vietnam in the
early years of the twentieth century, some Vietnamese writers as Pham
Cao Cung and The Lu immitated the way of writing the detective novels
from Western writers. The success of the August Revolution
fundamentally changed the country’s social and historic context and led to
the disruption of the detective fiction in Vietnam. In the 1980s, the
classical form of this genre reappeared with the investigation novels by
Phung Thien Tan, Tran Tu Van, Vo Duy Linh, Tran Thanh Ha, Di Li, etc.
2.1.2. The Hard- Boiled Detective Fiction
The emergence of the hard– boiled detective fiction with a number of
representatives such as Chandler, Hammett and James Chase is the result
of a direct reaction to some characteristics of the classic detective fiction.
A change in both of the form and content of the detective fiction
corresponded to a new urban American culture. During the postwar time in
the West, the hard–boiled detective fiction appeared popularly in France

and other European countries. Although the number of the hard–boiled
detective novels published in Europe was not as much as that in the US,


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there were many prominent names such as Leo Malet, Auguste Le Breton,
Jose Giovanni, etc.
The last decades of the twentieth century, a great deal of works
reflecting the reality of crime and the fight against crime appeared in
Vietnam. These crime novels in Vietnam are close to the hard–boiled
detective ones in the West. However, unlike the hard–boiled detective
novels showing a denial of the role of the rotten Western society, the
Vietnamese crime novels by Xuan Duc, Nguyen Quang Thieu, Nguyen
Nhu Phong… acknowledged the struggle of the police and society as well
against unjust forces.
2.1.3. The Political Detective Fiction
The political detective fiction originated in England in the early
twentieth century. Closely associated with the major political events of the
world, this form mainly reflected the real life. The works by Ian Fleming,
John Le Carre, Graham Greene (UK), Xemionov, Bogomolov (Russia),
Charles McCarry, Tom Clancy (USA)... attracted a lot of Western readers.
Today, with the appearance of terrorism, the detective writers like
Forsythe, Tom Clancy diverted to exploiting detective activities in this
fierce battle.
In Vietnam, "intelligence – spy novel" is a popularly used term,
equivalent to the term of the political detective novel in the West. This
literature form appeared in the 1960s of the twentieth century. It revealed
the silent struggle of intelligence soldiers and spies as well as the entire
nation in the fight against imperialism. After the Independence Day, the

intelligence – spy novels flourished in Vietnam with the works by Dang
Thanh, Nguyen Truong Thien Ly, Huu Mai, etc.
2.1.4. The Psychological Detective Fiction
Modern detective fiction bases on the psychological factors for
tracing the root of human behaviors. Detective novels, therefore, stress the
role of doctors, psychologists and scientists, etc... The works can be
considered as the art of research on crime psychology. The current


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renowned writers in detective fiction such as Georges Simenon (France),
Patricia Cornwell (USA), Rut Rendell (UK), Ingrid Noll (Germany),
Alecxandra Marinina (Russia), Lei Me (China), etc… are also wellexperienced in psychological exploitation.
The investigation novels in Vietnam are the closest works to the
classic detective fiction but still full of psychological analysis factors.
Besides, in the investigation novels, the writers focus on the detailed
analysis of the offenders' behaviors and their motivation instead of sticking
the discovering process. The detective novels by Bui Anh Tan, Nguyen
Dinh Tu are full of psychological factors.
2.2. Anti-detective fiction: new development of genre
2.2.1. The term of “anti-detective”
The writing style of anti-detective appeared in the early years of the
twentieth century in The Trial by Kafka and continued to grow until the
middle of the century with Portrait of a Stranger by Nathalie Sarraute,
The Erasers by Robbe-Grillet, Trilogy by Beckett, Victim of Duty by
Ionesco... Some postmodern writers applied and immitated the form and
the rules of the detective novels to create anti-detective ones.
The term "anti-detective" was first proposed in 1972 in William
Spanos’s The Detective and the Boundary: Some Notes on the Postmodern

Literary Imagination. Central to the anti-detective is its antiAristotelianism – its refusal to fulfill causally oriented expectations, to
create fictions (and in extreme cases, sentences) with beginnings, middles,
and ends’. What it attacks is the western belief in the susceptibility of
nature to rational explanation.
Tani argued that, anti-detective fiction was not the continuation of
the detective fiction. It broke the limit of the detective fiction.
It can be said that, the concept of anti-detective fiction is not really
unified among critics. Currently, items from "anti-detective" has not been
defined in the glossaries of literary terms.


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In our opinion, anti-detective fiction, a form within the detective
fiction, was born in the process of development of this genre in the
second half of the twentieth century. Anti-detective fiction often follow
the forms and rules of detective fiction in order to parody them. The
core of anti- detective fiction is the denial of creating detective
character with his reasoning and action possibilities and the break of
the plot of investigations with dramatic structure. Thereby, the stories
in anti-detective fiction not only describe a journey to discover the
mysteries as detective ones but also express writer's perspective on
issues of life and art...
2.2.2. Some typical anti-detective writers
While in the detective fiction, it is easy for the readers to find an
author whose name is almost related to a real detective, it is not the same
in the anti-detective fiction. However, the writers such as Samuel Beckett,
Louis Borges, Umberto Eco, Paul Auster, etc have created the world's
most famous anti-detective works. Each writer expresses a particular
cultural imprint in his work.

Samuel Beckett (1906 - 1989) was the Irish writer who won the
Nobel Prize for Literature in 1969. With the style of creating the detective
- writer character, Beckett’ Trilogy experienced a process of searching for
an identity as well as expressed the concerns about the writing activities.
The structure of fiction and the main theme in Beckett’s Trilogy are close
to The New York Trilogy by Paul Auster.
Jorge Louis Borges (1899 - 1986) is a famous writer, poet and
translator of Argentina. He is considered as the father of magical realism
in Latin America. Borges's works are connected together by common
themes such as dreams, labyrinths, unconsciousness and myths... Under
the form of a detective novel, Death and the Compass of Borges
considered the world as a labyrinth.
Umberto Eco (1932-2016) was an Italian writer presenting in the list
of the 20 greatest contemporary thinkers in the world, permanent candidate


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for the Nobel Prize for Literature by the Swedish Academy. His first novel
- The Name of the Rose - borrowed the "detective tools" to arouse a lot of
philosophical problems of human.
2.3. From detective fiction to anti-detective fiction: the change in
narration
2.3.1. The change in character
In the detective fiction, the detective is identified by means of his
superiority intellectual, his analytical skills and his respectable
courteous… The appearance of detective’s friends, the members of the
official police and the collection of false suspect also aims to stress on
the competence of the detective. The situation in which the detective
faces a crime is the symbol of a disruption of the normal order of society.

The final ‘trap-scene’ is only alluded to briefly as the reader may very
well imagine its outcome. Although the criminal’s actions may be
interesting and his motives complex, they must primarily be evil and their
deeds therefore always have to be kept subordinated to the detective.
Thus, the story’s primary emphasis is placed on those who investigate the
crime. The detective to get actively involved in the case and give up his
detached life for a limited time until order and harmony have been
restored. In the hard-boild detective fiction, the detectives uses the power
of fists, guns and becomes a new type of anti- heroes in the society
degraded in all respects. They deny the role of human reason and believe
in the absolute power of mysteries.
The anti-detective fiction inherited from the hard-boild detective the
characteristics of denying the role of human reason. In postmodern
detective works, the detective may even be not a real detective but is a
writer, a journalist, a monk, an archaeologist, a map-maker... His
investigation is nothing more than a signifier code. Readers are not
interested in whether the detective will succeed or fail, but in his journey
to find out the different signified.


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2.3.2. The change in plot
The structure of the detective fiction is emphasized on rationality,
logic of the events under clear-cut rules.
About situation, the work begins with a mysterious crime that most
of the facts happened in the past.
About pattern of action, the detective fiction advocacy through six
main stages involving pattern of action of the detective fiction by Edgar
Poe, they are: introdution of the detective; crime and clues; investigation;

announcement of the solution; explanation of the solution; denouement.
Anti-detective novels parodied and subverted the linear movement rule
of the plot. The ending of tracing the truth in anti-detective novels is not
concerned to have a neat ending in which all the questions are answered.
After all, the difference in movement between the plot of detective fiction
and that of anti-detective is the writer’s way to design the solutions.
Unlike requirements of two stories summed by Todorov, antidetective novels are not divided into two coherent story parts. The
boundary between truth and false, reality and image, present and past is
gradually blurred. Spanos, who first proposed the term anti-detective,
found a clear relationship between this literary genre with postmodernism.
Both postmodernism and anti-detective fiction are not sufficient grounds
to justify the things in a causal relationship.
*
Regarding to the detective fiction, we think that, the works are not
ejected from their own genre because of the content changes. Over more
than 200 years of development, the detective fiction has gone through a
variety of forms, from the classic detective, hard-boild detective, political
detective, psychological detective to anti-detective. The anti-detective
fiction applies the form of the detective one to convey the writer’s
concepts of art, human life. Some fundamental changes in the plot and the
character have been made on the movement from the detective fiction to
anti-detective fiction. And the movement of the genre is the cause which


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makes the detective fiction become an example for blur the boundary
between scholarly and popular literature.
Chapter 3
THE MULTIFACETED DETECTIVE IN

THE NEW YORK TRILOGY
As "the mirrors of life", the character became an integral part of
literary creativity. Characters in detective fiction were said to be in double
characters. This model originated from Poe's works. The story of the
detective fiction is a process in which the detective chases the criminal to
find out the mystery. From this relationship, a lot of other double
relationships will appear in the investigation such as the detective - the
victim, the detective - the detective’s companion, the detective investigating authorities... In anti-detective novels, the detective is no
longer a symbol of the truth’s power. He plays at the same time a variety
of roles and even fails to notice his own role. By generalizing the
differences in the detective between detective fiction and anti-detective
ones, we will clarify the multifaceted nature of the detective in The New
York Trilogy through the transformation from solving the mystery to
seeking the identity.
3.1. The detective on the process of solving the mystery
3.1.1. The detective and his specific relationships
In the detective world, the writers always put the detective in a
mysterious situation to test his talent. A classic detective fiction even became
a tense battle of wits between the detective and the criminal - two
counterparts in talent. Using detective tools, The New York Trilogy made the
readers at once think about a detective, a criminal or at least, a mystery at the
beginning of the story. However, the specific relationships of the main
character known as the detective was broken on the process of the story.
As a detective novel, City of Glass put the readers in a typical
context - the possibilities of crime. Quinn played the role of a detective but


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Quinn was not a real detective himself. He's just a writer who create

detective fiction. Unlike Quinn, who has nothing relevant to a detective
job, Blue in Ghosts was characterized by White as a detective at the
beginning of the novel. The more he investigated, the more he realizied
that there was not a pure relationship between White - Blue - Black as the
client - the detective - the object. The narrator who addressed "I" in The
Locked Room was neither a detective writer nor a private detective, but the
disappearance of Fanshawe pushed him into an investigation. After all, the
process of writing a book, investigating a person's identity and fate became
a detective investigation.
A common characteristic in The New York Trilogy by Paul Auster is
that most of the characters had nothing to guarantee their jobs as a
detective, moreover, there is an extremely interesting role reversal in three
novels. The characters escaped from the confines of the world created by
the author in order to write the story of their life.
3.1.2. Intellectual labyrinth - characteristics of detective games
According to Van Dine’s definition, detective fiction is a kind of
"intellectual game". It requires a high degree of rational thinking of
detectives during their tracing process to decipher mystery. The antidetective novels of Paul Auster broke the rational and logical nature of the
events under clear rules of causal relation. The author designed
"intellectual game" as a maze, focused on impromptu temporary ones not
for explaining the mystery but for adapting to it. The detective took part in
this game, so he also lost in a labyrinth. Breaking all the rules of the
classic detective fiction, Paul Auster reconstructed the tracing process of
the detective so as to express the tragic intellectual labyrinth of people.
In his own way, the writer will give the final answer at the end of a
traditional detective work. However, The New York Trilogy did not offer a
complete end. Closing the chain of the characters journey, the events in
Paul Auster’s novel completely broke all the rules of setting every thing in
the context of a final truth.

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3.2. Detective in the process of finding the identity
3.2.1. Identity in a chance world
The chance is events beyond human control. This is one of the haunting
problems in Paul Auster’s novel. The chance appeared in the anti-detective
novels thoroughly denied both the power of reasoning and the causal relation.
The detective situations in all the three works were opened with the
chance events whose characters were not aware of the complexity of them.
Under the impact of the chance events, the unity in the character’s
personality development was broken.
In different ways, Paul Auster's detectives casually entered the same
space: space of a closed room. This space was used as a common motif in
Edgar Poe’s detective works opening with The Murders in the Rue
Morgue. In the detective tradition, this motif associated with the
mysterious evil, however, in The New York Trilogy, it became a space for
character’s adventure in his own inner world. In that room, the character
had a chance to experience the human loneliness. The room was the place
where they saw themselves, as well as where they were reborn on the
lonely journey. The closed room was also a metaphor of writing. In the
private and privacy space, the detectives wrote up the stories and found
their identity in the writing.
The detective in Paul Auster's novel became a metaphor of chance
choice which led the characters’ destiny into different directions. That
also was a symbol of fragile identity. The writer made readers accept it as
an inevitability. That's the way for us to adjust ourselves to the
vicissitudinous and uncertain life.
3.2.2. Identity in the mirror of an other person
In the world of change, Paul Auster's characters could only

experience their existence through an other person. In The New York
Trilogy, meeting situations appeared in a chance way. The process of
discovering the detective’s identity was not separated from the mirror of
the double characters.


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The nature of the mirror of an other person in Paul Auster’s novels
is the reflection of the human loneliness. The relationship between a
person and another person can not be identified through the direct
contact but by loneliness. In spite of being among many people, each
person can only live his real life with the things inside his deep inner
realm. The inner realm itself is a labyrinth from which people in his
whole life can not escape. In retrospect, the most complicated labyrinth
traps a man is oneself.
*
In detective fiction, the detective always related to a mysterious
story about the crime and the investigation process to seek the answer...
In The New York Trilogy, the investigation was no longer merely the
search for the culprit but it was transformed into the endless discovery
of identity.
On the journey tracing the mysteries, we paid attention to the
character on their specific relations. However, the special of his quest was
nothing that was built on the certain basis to help the detective promote his
logical thinking ability. The author used the detective's quest to express the
impossibility of searching for the truth. That process was lost in the
intellectual labyrinth where chance elements mercilessly denied reasonable
ability of people.
The detectives in The New York Trilogy were continuously put on the

movement of forming and denying their identity though it may be beyond
their consciousness. The calm demeanour which adopted the change as an
inevitable element of the life has brought postmodern spirit to the trilogy:
the spirit of playing to nonsense instead of trying to create meaning for a
nonsensical world.


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Chapter 4
ANTI-DETECTIVE PLOT IN THE NEW YORK TRILOGY
The plot defined by the Oxford Dictionary as a plan or an outline of
the events in a play or a novel. Discussing detective fiction, many
researchers said that this genre was outside the plot innovation trend of
contemporary literature. It maintained the rigorous demands of plot for a
sequential order of beginning, middle, ending. In our opinion, this opinion
is not suitable to anti-detective fiction. Like the detectives, the readers
have to learn to read the ‘postmodern signs’ on a different level. Therefore,
the structure of the novel cannot be circular and coherent since the solution
is missing and the readers are not returned to the secure state of order that
existed before the crime had been committed.
To base on the opinion, we focused on two unique highlights of the
anti-detective plot by Paul Auster: metafiction and intertextuality. In the
thesis Characteristics of postmodern writing in Paul Auster’s novels by
Nguyen Thi Thanh Hieu, metafiction and intertextually are the two most
important art strategies in Paul Auster's works. Metafiction and
intertextuality can be said to be a beginning for different studies. Unlike
Nguyen Thi Thanh Hieu who considered metafiction and intertextuality as
the modes of showing postmodern sense of the writers, we approached
these modes in The New York Trilogy to clarify Paul Auster’s antidetective art in the plot. In his novels, metafiction broke the traditional

structure of the detective plot and intertextuality created a new plot style:
complex plot.
4.1. Metafiction as the way to blur the detective plot
As the term of postmodern literature, metafiction was used to name a
literature kind: novel about novel, fiction in fiction, in which work was
written as a language game with presenting its own playing rule. The
writer was both its author and reader who left the open endings for the
multi-direction receptions.


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Paul Auster’s anti- detective novels are a refined collection of the
works which blured the boundary between reality and fiction. It is also the
factor to break the unity of the plot, and not the writer but the readers
themselves can decode the stories’s mystery. To create the metafiction,
the writer used the multistory narrator model, open structure, questioned
about the relationship between the author and his work for the purpose of
blurring the authorship...
4.1.1. Multistory narrator model
The narrator is one of the basic categories of narratology. This is a
fictional image of the writer to organize the text, control the situations,
lead the story. In The New York Trilogy, Paul Auster deliberately blurred
the narrative’s spokesperson. Image of the author disappeared, the readers
are attracted by their reading to fill the questionable gaps and look for the
relationship between the different facts.
With frame fiction - the narrator retold the story of another person,
City of Glass has two narrators, first, it was Quinn - who himself told his
story in the red notebook, the second, who is "I" telling the story of Quinn
from the red book. Like City of Glass, there were two narrators in Ghosts.

Almost throughout the work, the narrator was in third person of an
observer who told the story of Blue. The Locked Room is narrated by the
first person pronoun "I" at the beginning fiction. Work was interlocked by
two main stories, the first was a story about life of "I", and the second was
about Fanshawe. Fanshawe did not directly appear until the end of the
work, however, his life and stories were the cause of the fictionline’s
maintenance and development.
The frame fiction style created a multistory fiction. This genre was
fairly common in detective literature. It derived from Poe's stories and then
was inherited and developed in the works of Conan Doyle, Christie... The
frame fiction aimed at affirming the reality of the stories’events.
Turning to The New York Trilogy, the purposes of authenticity were
emphasized by the writing mode of the frame fiction, so it made an


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impression that life itself likes a text. Life became literature with all its
bare, roughness; without neither sorting nor editing. The stop of the
characters’ note led to the stop of the narrator’s story at once; there was no
author's intervention to reach the completion of the events.
4.1.2. Open structure in the narrative
Open structure created a system of signs which can be interpreted to
infinity. The plot of The New York Trilogy led the reader into vague answers
for the problem, the events became more and more obscure, the characters
appeared without any explanation, and fiction has nothing story in it.
Anti-detective fiction of Paul Auster left "many things to say" on the
target journey of the characters. Instead of supplying the readers a work
with a plot, a beginning, a conflict, a solution and an end, the writer
created a new possibility neither for him nor for his characters but for the

readers to decode the mystery when he made the end for his novels.
4.1.3. Author – novels relationship and the authorship
According to Van Dine’s summation on detective fiction , there is a
homology: author : reader = criminal : detective. The investigators (and the
readers) traced the clues of the criminals (as well as indications made by the
author in his fiction) to find the answer to the mystery. In the Paul Auster’s
trilogy, the relationship between the writer and the character and the narrator
separated the connections between the different facts to form the labyrinth of
the boundaries.
The author of The New York Trilogy was "dead" as Roland Barthes’s
wording of the role of the author in postmodern narrative. The writer
himself denied his creative role. In the novels, the boundary between text
and text was disappeared. The character admitted to being the author of the
fiction that was telling about himself... Paul Auster created a multistory
metafiction style with replacement of the narrator, changing point of view,
the constant reconstruction and denial of authorship.
When the different roles of the narrator could not give the final
ending, the reading process became the mutual creativeness.


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4.2. Intertextuality as the way to create the complex plot
Intertextuality is the term proposed by Julia Kristeva to name the
relationship of a text with other texts. According to the spirit of
intertextuality, each text was influenced by numerous other texts.
Accordingly, a plot is never single because it will be read in many
different ways by intertextuality experience of its readers.
In Paul Auster’s trilogy, he linked the many kinds of texts in a variety
of different forms: text quoting, event citing , anecdote citing, and using

non-verbal signs... With such an intertextuality structure, the stories of Paul
Auster referenced to a lot of the postmodern society problems. In this thesis,
the aim of reading the intertextuality structure in The New York Trilogy is at
the meanings which are believed to be the most characteristic and haunting
ones. They are stories of the language and of American culture.
4.2.1. "The New York Trilogy" and the story of language
Language is one of the themes throughout The New York Trilogy.
Through Babel Tower, Paul Auster presented a concept of language doubt.
Because of the difference in language, each person can be closed in its
own language. People have been excluded from their own language.
The view on language is closely related to Paul Auster’s concept of
art creative activities. Writing a novel is like creating a world by language.
The basis of this world is not fixed, so the world can not have its invariant
shape. Reality is the images that are made through language. Memories are
merely a game of language signs.
4.2.2. "The New York Trilogy" and the story of American culture
Gathering under the name of The New York Trilogy, Paul Auster’s
anti-detective novels mainly described the space around New York. This
city was not only a context of the character’s thoughts and actions but also
a space to remind of the cultural events which helped form America with
its unique achievements in spite of its short period.
Every street, building, monument and bridge… of the city was
described in The New York Trilogy in connection with the unique events,


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anecdotes. Whith that, anecdotes about American writers appeared
spontaneous in Paul Auster's novels for referring to the author's concept of
the world, people and art.

*
Basing on the characteristics of the detective plot with dramatic
structure, we demonstrated that the innovation with artistic craft in plot in
Paul Auster’s The New York Trilogy was used to break the classical
structure. Metafiction, intertextuality were the highlights of form and
technique by which the writer expressed the concern about the problems
of contemporary life.
With the aim of blurring the boundaries between literature and life,
metafiction in Paul Auster’s The New York Trilogy denied consistency
knowledge. Paul Auster opened other possibilities up for a detective plot
not following the structure of opening, developing, and ending by his
creation such as: creating the fiction in fiction form, making open detective
events and blurring the authorship. The readers were drawn in the fictional
details to experience the stories’ incompletion status as the life itself.
Focusing on the haunting theme in The New York Trilogy with
intertextually mode, we affirmed again: detective plot is never the purpose
of Paul Auster’s anti-detective novels. Putting the events, anecdotes, texts
in the stories, Paul Auster showed his readers things as the break state of
language, the unique cultural values of America. The fiction dismantled
altogether what is presented as a macrocosm, a unification, a grand
narrative. Fiction is pieced together from the fragments of reality.
CONCLUSION
1. Discussing on detective fiction, Todorov put it in relation with the
genre problem. He asserted that a masterpiece should create a new genre, and
break the previous rules of the genre; it should also determine two
its own standards: the standard of the broken genre and the one of the created


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genre. Todorov separated detective fiction from the general rules, he
supposed that a masterpiece of the popular literature should be the most
suitable book with its genre. The best detective novel must not break the
rules of the genre but follow them. In our opinion, Todorov’s concept of
detective fiction was no longer fit for anti-detective fiction. Not being bound
by the available rules of the genre, each anti-detective writer selected his
own way to create his works. Paul Auster's The New York Trilogy was a
vivid example of unsuitability between the fixed concepts and the writing
practice. In order to demonstrate the "dislocation" between the fixed rules of
the detective fiction and the breaking of the rules in Paul Auster’s novels, we
defined the theory basic of detective literature, thence we focus on unique
highlights in Paul Auster’s narration.
2. Beginning with Edgar Allan Poe, the detective fiction reached the
level of literary works and since then, after nearly 200 years of its
existence and development, it has made the history of the genre through
many generations of the writers. During the period of 200 years, detective
fiction is evaluated in different or even contrary ways. In developing
process with the appearance of many forms such as classic detective,
hard-boild detective, political detective, psychological detective, all of
them have remained a general characteristic which we considered as a
criterion to identify of the detective literature, it’s the orientation for the
readers. Decoding the mystery is always the destination of this genre. It
governs the way that the writers build the plot and character. With our
opinion, anti-detective fiction is one form in the procedure of the detective
genre. Like the appearance of the concept "anti-drama" proceeded from
"drama" as well as "anti-character" from "character", the concept "antidetective fiction" was originated in "detective fiction". That is the evidence
of innovation in creative activities. In the postmodern context, when some
novelists have developed their narration, breaking the "rules" of the
detective novels, forming a new writing style, anti-detective fiction is no
longer a stimulation merely for the crowd’s psychology with the thrilling

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crime happenings and thorny investigation process. The traditional closed
structure of the plot with beginning, developing, ending was broken, the
character was out of the orbit to recode the mystery with his reasoning and
action possibilities. The aesthetic experience of the readers was strictly
demanded for decoding the art and human messages that writers took in
their fictions. Thus, anti-detective novels have left the field of popular
literature for scholarly one. In Vietnam, the detective literature is still not
seen as an independent genre. Instead of focusing on the intellectual
questions, the writers often associated the crime story with psychological
and social analyses. It partly reflects the concepts, thoughts of Vietnamese.
3. Mentioning the character in detective literature means mentioning
the detective. He is the basis for determining the existence of a detective
narrative, and thereby, the writer built the other characters through the
double relationship: detective - victim, detective - criminal, detective accompanied person... In The New York Trilogy, we emphasized the
parody of form of the detective fiction by building the multifaceted
detective. Putting the character in the specific relationships, the discovery
process of detectives in Paul Auster’s novels did not follow the rules of
logical deduction. The detectives were set on a journey to decipher the
mystery, however, that was not the destination that the works wished to
get. The detection of the outside world transformed continuously into the
discovery of the identity. The identity and its uncertainty in a world of
chance, in the incessant insight from the other identity became the
highlight in Paul Auster’s anti-detective novels.
4. Discussing the plot, many opinions agreed that the detective
literature did not belong the innovation trend. It maintains a traditional plot
style with the strict causal relationships between the events towards the

completion point. We affirmed that, anti-detective fiction is a part of the
plot innovation trend of contemporary literature. Metafiction and
intertextuality are two important choices for the writer to break the
monopoly of the journey to decipher the mysteries of the plot organization.