6/29/09

The thing that strikes me the most different between City of Glass and The Big Sleep is the difference of narration. Changing from first person to third is really something else. The beginning of this novel really had me thinking, an author, writing about an author, discussing how an author really writes about their own thoughts, while making the main character pretend to be author is pretty mind blowing. Not to mention the three (or four including Paul Auster [which is really two for the author and the character]) personalities the main character has. I think that Auster also displays his beliefs through Peter Stillman, and I think he will continue to do so. As from what I can tell so far, Stillman and Quinn are pretty similar, even if Stillman is a crazy experiment. Quinn seems to be just as crazy, only has better social skills. Which may be really only his acting skills, because at this point of the book, we’ve only seen him interact with someone pretending to be someone else, someone who is supposed to be sane, and respectable.
So far there has been a lot less plot in the City of Glass, and a lot more discussion, although there have been a lot of the same issues; sex, drugs, money, murder… Although the plot seems relatively different in the fact that the father is the issue, as opposed to in The Big Sleep where they are trying to protect the father.
-Monica