LK E 2009_11 / STG

Reading a Novel – Paul Auster, Moon Palace

Solomon Barber by Ronja Klemm

Solomon Barber was born in Shoreham, Long Island in 1917 and is introduced to the story at
the age of 54 described as a really fat man. He spend his childhood alone since he never got to
know his father and his mother had mental illness and died in 1939 when he was 22. His dad,
a popular painter called Julian Barber at this time, died in Utah as he was told in many
different versions. Not fitting in crowd of the other kids, probably because of his fatness,
Solomon Barber started reading books in order to escape his daily life and to find a place
where he could keep himself hidden. At the age of 17 he started to write his first book called
“Kepler’s blood” which based on his father’s disappearance. After graduating from High
school he studied history and literature and worked as a popular American history professor at
many universities in which however he only stayed for no longer than two or three years.
When he was 29 years old, he got to know Emily Fogg, a student who was his unfulfilled love
and the only women ever who slept with him out of love. But he was left by her without
knowing that she was having a baby, called Marco Stanley Fogg. Later in the story he was
found by Marco who worked for Thomas Effing, Solomon’s dad. After discovering that
Marco is his son and visiting Emily’s grave, he falls into a fresh grave and breaks his leg.
After staying in hospital for a long time Solomon Barber dies.
Furthermore in this characterisation I would like to respond to more hidden aspects that are
connected to Solomon Barber. First which things are hidden under the name “Solomon
Barber”, then the moon in connection to Solomon and last but not least the parallelism
between those three characters and their contrasts.
After reading the name “Solomon Barber” the word “solo” kind of protrudes out of the first
word. It fits really well to Solomon Barber’s character, because he grew up in a world without
a family or having one person to trust and commit his problems. Having no social contacts he
felt lonely and separated himself from the outside world into his own world by reading books.
There he was able to create a save place where nobody would stare at his outward appearance
and where he could not be judged. Disappointed in every person he eve loved (his mum,
Emily) he gained a huge lack of self-confidence. But nevertheless at the same time he
probably knows that the way he lives, with eating too much and smoking cigars, makes him
look the way he does. The second name “Barber” is the description of the job of a hairdresser
which is in combination with Solomon Barber’s character a bored, yet even a paradox term.
But there is more hidden in the name “Solomon”, adding another “o” to mon it becomes
“moon”, a symbol which appears everywhere in the story. Regarding to Solomon Barber the
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LK E 2009_11 / STG
Reading a Novel – Paul Auster, Moon Palace

moon creates the expression of something extraordinary. The moon, a mysterious celestial
body, which constantly circles around the world, is a meaningful metaphor. Since Solomon
Barber has been his whole life all by himself, not having anybody, he actually never fit into
the crowd. He, himself, circled like the moon around the society. Even “moonlike” he gets
thinner before his death, just like the moon looses its shape every month. Since the moon is
always connected to the earth, so is Solomon: even when he tries to escape into his own
world, he is not able to move freely.
The story “Moon Palace” is a skein of three different life stories bleeding into each other. The
main three characters: Marco, Effing and Solomon all experienced personal losses during
their life and all have broken relationships to women they were really into. After suffering this
frustration they were constantly and restlessly on the move, again a hidden reference to the
moon which is always on the move as well. After having a not working marriage Thomas
Effing escapes his situation, going to an expedition to the west, just like Marco who goes to
the West after quit the relationship to Kitty, too. And even Solomon is on his never ending
move from one college to another after his unfulfilled affair with Emily. The parallelism
between Solomon and Marco is even more dramatically, since both of them grew up without
having a father, not knowing their fathers were still alive. But at the same time there is also a
huge contrast in their outward appearance: Marco is extremely thin and Solomon Barber
immense fat.