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NARRATIVE PERSPECTIVE IN
PAUL AUSTERS
THE NEW YORK TRILOGY
***
REIDUN DAHL
SECOND YEAR BACHELOR THESIS
UNIVERSITY OF AARHUS, DENMARK
MAY 21, 2003
1 INTRODUCTION
The three novels that outline Paul Austers The New York Trilogy (NYT) first came out separately,
with City of Glass being published by Sun & Moon Press in 1985 followed by Ghosts and The
Locked Room in 1986. Finally, in 1987, Faber and Faber published the novels as a trilogy, and it is
in this form that the novels subsequently have become widely and justly renowned. In total, Paul
Auster is the author of ten novels, the first being the memoir, The Invention of Solitude, from 1982.
His most recent novel, The Book of Illusions, came out in 2002 and he is now writing on his next
book, which for the time being bears the work title, Oracle Night. Originally, Paul Auster started out
humbly as a poet, reviewer and translator before finally making a name as a novelist. Hence, during
the 1970s, he industriously published several works of his own poetry, while also translating the
poetry collections of several distinguished French poets into English.
As the premise of this thesis, I have decided to deal with the two fundamental themes of identity
and narration, and furthermore to consider the contextual themes of intertextuality, ambiguity and
nothingness. Accormdingly, I have chosen to subdivide them into four related topic areas in order to
examine these central themes as closely as possible, which then will be elaborated further on in the
supplementary sections, so that I eventually may arrive at a rewarding conclusion.. Since NYT is so
wide in scope and thematically rich as it is, the two core themes of identity and narrative
perspective, had to be settled on at the expense of other equally appropriate themes. Consequently,
there are a number of topics that I will not consider in my thesis. Among these are the topics of
language theory, deconstruction and postmodernism. Also, when it comes to the trilogys stylistic
challenge to the detective genre, which has been extensively discussed among scholars, I will only
go into this briefly in section 4.1. Moreover, I will also have to leave out an evaluation on the
biblical theme, however interesting it is. Lastly, I will ignore the widespread speculations about the
autobiographical elements detectable in NYT, as I believe them to be both irrelevant and space
consuming in this specific context.
As has been stated above, the novels that make up The New York Trilogy were first published as
individual books, and could therefore be treated as distinctive pieces of fiction, which they often
have been among literary scholars. However, in the course of my thesis, I mean to consider them as
three closely related stories, as I find that each story essentially supplement the other within the
trilogys poly-vocal turbulence. Concisely, I mean to examine the stories on an individual as well as
a collective level, but before I move on to starting the actual analysis, I will just briefly sum up the
principal concerns of this thesis: First of all, the title of my thesis being "Investigating the
Malleability of Identity and Narrative Perspective", my aim is to reveal some of the mechanisms
that are at play in forming and not the least fragmenting characters notion of identity. Secondly,
there seems to be a suggestive struggle going on between the narrator and the narrated, which is
further embedded in an intricate network of intertextual voices. Thus, in the end these main points
will at last lead me to reflect on the occurrence of ambiguity, and in this connection also to evaluate
my suggestion that the trilogy in a way could be said to approach the theme of nothingness.
2 DISINTEGRATION OF IDENTITY
What first and foremost connects the trilogys main characters, Quinn of City of Glass, Blue of
Ghosts and the unnamed narrator in The Locked Room is a pronounced susceptibility to external
influences, which gradually erases their private notions of self. Thus, influenced by polarized
moods of emotional frustration on the one hand and hunger for detective outgoingness on the other,
the character Daniel Quinn, upon receiving a misplaced phone call, eagerly plunges himself into a
seemingly authentic case. A similar thing goes for Blue, who by White is lured into a supposedly
simple job of shadowing a man known as Black. But the job has the effect of charging Blue with
contesting feelings of confinement and freedom in the midst of a growing self-alienation.
Conversely, in The Locked Room, it is the very absence of the character Fanshawe that for a long
time dictates the actions of his unnamed friend up until one critical point, where he finally seizes
authority over his own life.
2.1 MULTIPLE SELVES
To let Daniel Quinn enter the scene first, one notices how immediately the identity- diffuseness in
his life is established. Already on page 4 Quinns writer pseudonym William Wilson is introduced as
not only having "been born within Quinn himself", but as someone who "now led an independent
life". However, Quinn firmly explains that he does not equate himself and William Wilson for the
obvious reason that "William Wilson, after all, [is] an invention" . Still, Wilson seems to serve a
rather significant purpose in that he "justifie[s] the lives of the other two" , these being Quinn and
the main hero of his novels, Max Work. Quinn describes Max Work as having "increasingly come to
life" , as well as being a detective who "necessarily had to be real" . This is owed to the fact that
Quinn no more is "thinking of himself as real" , but finds comfort in "pretend[ing] to be Work
even if only in his mind" . Subsequently, Quinn embraces yet another identity as Paul Auster who is
supposedly a real detective, an action that soon fills him with a sense of having "lost ground" and
makes him "fall behind himself" . However, Quinn tries to retain a sense of order when he, before
his appointment with Peter Stillman, stresses that it is not "his appointment [but] Paul Austers" .
The fact that Quinns assortment of identities is extensive is further demonstrated in the words he
uses before entering the Stillman apartment, for here he declares, "I must keep my eyes open" , with
"eyes" ironically punning " I ",or, many " Is ". However, by the end of that day, when Quinn
submits his first written meditations on the case, he states that it is crucial "to remember who I am...
[t]o remember who I am supposed to be" . In deed, this self-contradicting sentence illustrates just
how decisively Quinn has disrupted his sense of self. From now on this notion of irresolution will
be repeatedly hinted at.
On page 50, Quinn again has to "[remind] himself of who he [is] supposed to be" and this renders
him in a condition of mental blankness, as "he feels as though he had somehow been taken out of
himself" . Still, Quinn feels convinced that he has not yet "lost himself", due to the fact that he is
"merely pretending" . However, when Quinn later walks into Grand Central Station to find Stillman
Sr, he does so "as if inside the body of Paul Auster". In fact, by also obscuring the physical borders
between his identity and that of Paul Auster, Quinn actively steps beside himself to begin a new
existence in limbo.
With his four identities (i.e. Quinn, William Wilson, Max Work and Paul Auster), Quinn symbolises
a veritable overrepresentation of characters . That each identity is serving an isolated purpose is
clearly demonstrated when Quinn on page 6 pronounces Wilson "ventriloquist" and himself a
"dummy", whereas Work is "his interior brother, his comrade in solitude". But Quinn, upon facing
the erotic apperance of Virginia Stillman, seems to forget this arrangement. Hence, when he later
realizes that Virginias sexual advances will not lead to anything, Quinn admits to having been
"misguided in his hopes" due to the fact that he had "momentarily confus[ed] himself with Max
Work" . Quinns mounting disillusionment reaches a peak when he, while awaiting Stillman Srs
arrival, sees a woman reading Suicide Squeeze, the first book written by his author-self William
Wilson, and misleadingly refers to her as "one of his readers" (i.e. Quinns). Although he tells
himself that he can always "return to being Quinn" , his contradictive adding up of non-existing
identities inevitably refutes this theory, as he has now become as illusory as them, a mere echo of
his former self . Analogous to this is the situation that Blue of Ghosts ends up in, where Blacks
presence controls as well as confirms that of Blue, and thus in fact makes him more aware of
himself to such an extend that Blue "for the first time in his life [feels] he has been thrown back on
himself, with nothing to grab hold of" . Like Quinn, there are several moments when Blue feels so
close to Black that he must remind himself of their separateness. One example of this can be found
on page 147, where Blue on catching himself in the act of imagining Blacks real story declares,
"This isnt the story of my life, after all, Im supposed to be writing about him, not myself".
Nonetheless, it is later revealed that "the only way for Blue to have a sense of what is happening is
to be inside Blacks mind" . Paradoxically, it is also in such moments of extreme closeness that
Blue, like Quinn, is reassured that he can go back to leading "the semblance of an independent life"
at any time. Blue remains all the time attentive to the inevitable constraints connected with working
solo, "After all", he says, "[one] cant watch someone twenty-four hours a day" - except, of course,
oneself. Yet, the more Blue adapts his life to that of Blacks, the more Blue feels estranged from
Black and on page 170 Blue arrives at the conclusion that it "is not possible for a man as Black to
exist". This is further paraphrased near the end of the novel, when Blue says that he "at this point
can no longer accept Blacks existence, and thereforedenies it" . But by denouncing Blacks
existence, Blue necessarily denounces his own, however, he also feels that by watching Black "he is
also watching himself". Pace has described this symmetry of existence that here is seen between
Blue and Black as exemplifying "two mirrors facing each other, holding nothing but a small
artificial space, but creating the illusion of infinity" .
One thing that connects all three character in the trilogy is the fact that they all share a preliminary
faith in their own independence which, when proved illusory, hurls them into an insufferable
condition of existential trepidation. Alford elaborates on this issue when he argues that "[t]he
characters and narrators of these stories respond to their evolving insight into the nature of their
selves with fear, violence and despair" . As in the cases of Quinn and Blue, the Narrator of The
Locked Room devotes his life to the unravelling of another characters life. However, this case
differs from the others, though, in that Fanshawe unlike old Stillman and Black, may be considered
a physical non-character.
What is paradoxical about the last novel is that the Narrator is caught in a chain of events governed
by an absent character. While Quinn and Blue come gradually closer to their objects, the narrators
sense of identity is contingent on that of Fanshawes from the start, the Narrator describing him as
"the place where everything begins without him I would hardly know who I am" . The fusion
between him and Fanshawe is firmly established on page 231, when the Narrator looks back and
confesses: "[T]he more fully I disappeared into my ambitions for Fanshawe, the more sharply I
came into focus for myself". This culminates by the end, when the Narrator realises that his
pursuing Fanshawe as a separate being "had been wrong. Fanshawe was exactly where I was, and
he has been there since the beginning" . Unlike Blue, the Narrator does not go as far as to violently
attack his impostor, for even though he shows many signs of the fear and despair Alford referred to,
he integrates Fanshawes existence into his own "as the thought of [his] own death" , and in so
doing he in fact evolves into a more fulfilled and complete character than both Quinn and Blue,
whose identities and notions of self remain compliant to outer control throughout.
2.2 THE ARBITRARINESS OF NAMES
The various changes of identity that the characters go through are closely linked with their taking
new names. Time and again, names are assumed or discarded by one character, only to be re-
adopted by another character at a later point. This eventually has the effect of creating not only
"complexity, but outright contradiction", as Alford puts it . To start out with Daniel Quinn again, his
noms de plume are, as earlier mentioned, those of William Wilson and Max Work. Significantly,
"William Wilson" is also the title of an Edgar Allan Poe story about man who kills his
doppelganger. Furthermore, the blowhard personality of Wilsons hero is quite literally a big [max]
job [work] for Quinn , because it leads to Quinns "feeling somewhat exhausted by his efforts" .
Also, Quinn shares his initials with Don Quixote, the anti-hero of Miguel de Cervantes novel
whose spirit can be seen as pervading City of Glass. On page 74, old Stillman intriguingly notes that
the name Quinn among others rhymes with "twin" as well as with "kin". What makes this
particularly interesting is the fact that "twin" semantically means two of a kind, while "kin" means
of same blood. Thus, only ten pages later, Quinn pretends to be Peter Stillman, son of Peter
Stillman and in that way he not only twins young Stillman, but indirectly associates himself with
old Stillman as if being of same blood as him.
I have so far distinguished between the Stillmans as young and old Stillman for the sake of
simplicity, but the novel never does so and that could suggest that young Stillman from the very
beginning is only a product of Quinns imagination. This suspicion is supported by Quinns first
impression of young Stillman as an embodiment of whiteness, as " almost transparent" so that it
seems "as though he [is] not there" . Young Stilllman in deed seems to posses the charisma of a still
man and on page 37 in Barrone et al, Stillman is lucidly portrayed as a man "whose very name
spells paralysis, atonia [and] immobility". His death-like appearance is further stressed by the fact
that Quinn is reminded of his own dead son, who uncannily was also named Peter. Upon first
meeting young Stillman, the reader is sucked into a veritable whiteout of names, his nominal
creativity being far more impressive than Quinns. After first having introduced himself as Peter
Stillman only to disown that name, he goes on to denominate himself "Mr Sad", "Peter Rabbit",
"Mr White" and "Mr Green" (later they both reappear in Ghosts), ending with "Peter Nobody" .
Dawson observes that young Stillman in disowning his name indirectly rebels against his abusive
father, his identity being, as Dawson further notes, "not dictated by his name, but by his random and
irrational whims" . Adding to this, I will say that young Stillmans plenitude of names has the effect
of making up for the transparency and non-entity of his character. Obviously, the name of young
Stillmans wife puns virgin rather wittily, I think: For with her red lips, "seductive" eyes and
"voluptuous" figure, Quinns first impression of her conflicts strongly with the common convention
of virginity. Stillmans nurse, we are told, is a Mrs Saavedra whose husband Michael Saavedra is
the person who originally found Quinns phone number. With Michael Saavedra also being the
Christian names of Miguel de Cervantes, who is the author of Don Quixote (a book about corrupted
authorship), we here see the first example of how names of characters in one book reflect those of
characters in another.
Comparatively, the second novel Ghosts is typified by sparseness in the selection of names, as the
characters are literally degraded to merely representing the names of colours; Blue, Black, Brown,
White and Green, including Gold and Snow. The name Black we see echoed at one point on the
cover of Henry David Thoreaus Walden, where one Walter J. Black features as the publisher. Later,
in The Locked Room, a Dennis Walden appears as a childhood friend of Fanshawe and the narrator.
Young Stillmans Mr Green is resonated in the Stuart Green who publishes Fanshawes books,
while Browns nom fascimile is a Jeffrey Brown, who appears as a former college of Fanshawes.
His name is directly transplanted from Nathaniel Hawthornes story Wakefield, in which the
protagonist Fanshawe abruptly deserts his wife, and exiles himself from society, much like Blue
ends up doing in Ghosts. The fact that Hawthornes character has a wife named Sophie, just like the
female character in The Locked Room, is yet another striking example of how characters and names
in the NYT and the literary texts it draws on gesture back and forth to one another across novel
limits.
4 INFLUENCE OF INTERTEXTUALITY
A principal feature in The New York Trilogy is the many intertextual elements, which repeatedly
intersect it. However, I find it important to note that the use of intertextuality is, as I see it, most
extensively used in the first two novels, whereas the last novel is only intertextual in the sense that
it refers back to its two forerunners at a certain point. As a result, the first part of this section will
primarily be focusing on some of the most pertinent examples of intertextuality in City of Glass and
Ghosts. However, in section 4.2, which concerns the combination and creation of text, The Locked
Room will, along with the two other stories, again be subjected to further analysis. First of all,
explaining what the term intertextuality means and implies can be a somewhat difficult task,
however, Clair offers a fine summary by formulating intertextuality as "the idea that all texts exist
in a timeless field wherein they relate to and influence each other in all directions". In fact, there are
three varieties of intertextuality embedded in The New York Trilogy: One is the variety of
intertextuality that springs from a discourse between two particular texts, another is an
intertextuality of subjectivity (i.e. when the author is involved in the text as a character) and lastly,
there is the type of intertextuality, which stems from a discourse between a particular text and a
given genre, in this case the detective genre.
5 GOVERNANCE OF AMBIGUITY
Oozing through the whole trilogy is the notion that everything is ambiguous because nothing never
really is but only seems, which suggests that uncertainty and contradiction are defining parameters
in the story. In deed, everything that happens, happens at the dictates of chance: A wrong number is
what sets Quinns story into motion, and direct speech is allowed to flow into the main text in
Ghosts, while the Narrator begins an entirely new life only by virtue of Fanshawes sudden
disappearance. All this gives the stories a shared texture of transparency that necessarily helps to tie
them even closer. Thus, in the following section I will examine those of the indicative places in the
text, which endorse my point that events occur arbitrarily, as well as point out a few of the symbols
that stress the prominence of ambiguity in the trilogy.
6 CONCLUSION
Evidently, even the most meticulous reading of The New York Trilogy cannot wholly explain all of
its intricate minutiae, unless one zooms in on a specific topic and a limited number of pressing
themes in connection with this topic. Therefore, I chose to dedicate my thesis exclusively to the two
core topics of identity and narration together with the contextual sub-themes of intertextuality,
ambiguity and finally nothingness. Hence, by doing a comparative and contrastive reading of the
individual novels as well as by drawing on outside scholarly sources, I have succeeded in
demonstrating how the issue of identity runs parallel with the issues of narration and intertextuality,
including that of textual creativity. One particular concern of this thesis has been through analysis to
uncover the means by which the formation and disintegration of identity is carried out. Pertaining to
this I found out that the characters notion of identity was effectively thwarted as a result of the
rigorous multiplication of selves and character doublings, including their rather flexible interchange
of names. Furthermore, it is clear now that the main characters only by clinging to the lives and
writings of their respective counterparts were able to generate some sense of self. Ironically, my
analysis showed that it is precisely the vigorous research of an others identity which leads to Quinn
and Blues permanent breakdown of identity, while the Narrator in re-creating Fanshawes story and
embedding it into his own eventually frees himself from fictive domination.
Concerning the trilogys diffusion of narrative perspectives my analysis revealed that several
narratives are being unfolded, in that the characters are seen narrating one anothers stories in
connection with relaying their own. This means that there is never an entirely fixed narrative
perspective from which the trilogy is recounted to us, which thus suggests that "[t]he centre, then, is
everywhere" as in the detective stories that Quinn takes pleasure in reading.
Although the three novels were originally written and published separately, the purpose of this
thesis was through an investigation of the shared themes of identity and narration to illustrate their
closeness. My analysis showed that paradoxes, contradictions and the general occurrence of
irresolution caused, among others, by the very splintering of identities and complexity of narration
are governing factors in all three stories, because they give them a shared absurd cast and hence
connect them.
Another significant result is the fact that the use of intertextuality actually sets off a dialogue
between the individual story and another text, and thus has a bearing on the readers interpretation
of it. As for the intertextual signals that were shown to shuttle back and forth between the stories
they are of importance, since they present themselves to all readers regardless of their literary
experience. Thus, the build up of the trilogy not only promotes intertextuality between the
individual stories as one collective unit and other literary texts, but also an intertextual referencing
between the three stories individually.
As for the deliberate omission of autobiographical speculations in the thesis, they proved as
superfluous as I anticipated, although it is interesting to note now that Paul Auster once has
confessed that "to a greater or lesser degree, every novel is autobiographical". Nevertheless, I will
agree with Barrone et al when it is argued that "[q]uestions, paradoxes [and] mysteries: these, and
not autobiographical verities, are at the heart of Austers writing". In deed, like Fanshawes
notebook, the trilogy in the end "answer[s] the question by asking another question", and it is
precisely by reason of this that the trilogy may appear to the reader as "open, unfinished, to be
started again". This seems to match up with Paul Austers own remark that books ideally should be
regarded as a "springboard for the imagination".
Hence, on basis of this I will conclude that the true endpoint of The New York Trilogy is more that
of possibility than of nothingness, due to the fact that there is no definitive conclusion, so that
interpretation therefore is made a process that necessarily has to take place between the trilogy and
the individual reader. Accordingly, Paul Auster himself has once said with respect to The New York
Trilogy that he hopes,
"its inexhaustiblethat youre going to keep thinking about it and keep testing your reaction and
come up with new things".