Empty

I find it interesting that I just read a 201 page novel and come away from it feeling somehow empty. Auster neither lifts me up nor shoots me down, he doesn’t even give me that “ah Ha” moment that we all so much desire in virtually every story. With this said I would argue that Auster had some intention of making the reader feel this way, making us go on this journey to no where for us learn something about our selves. Maybe to hopefully bring some awareness to our own personal identity in hopes to avoid going nuts like the characters in City of Glass .

Well maybe this is a bit of a stretch, maybe Auster’s plan wasn’t quite that ambiguous, but I do believe that this argument has some merit on some level. After all Quinn struggles with a bit of an identity crisis from the beginning with the whole William Wilson pseudo name; then as the book moves along, Quinn takes on the role of Paul Auster, a detective, which he only writes detective novels, he doesn’t have the slightest clue what a detective’s thinking process is in solving a case. So in order to better commit to the part and hopefully solve the case, Quinn forces himself to completely forgo all personal thought and completely become Auster. Only problem is, he has no idea who this guy is. So he attempts to solve the case while he has no thought process and no sense of purpose or direction. On top of this identity crisis we have Peter Stillman Jr. who has no real clue who he is or why he exists; and then we have Peter Stillman Sr. who apparently has a twin, and is not completely confident who he is.

As we read through all these identity issues, it becomes easy to see how the book then seems confusing or empty or unclear; for it has what I will argue is an identity crisis of its own. What is it? What is it really about? All these questions can be asked and as readers we are given little to no answers. Would it be ridiculous to argue that Paul Auster as the author maybe had or has a bit of an identity crisis as a writer, maybe he has or is unsure of whom he truly is as a writer and that why the work is so unclear to us. Then maybe he likes it this way and believes we should find it interesting and deciphering who he is as a writer and what this work should mean. Maybe it’s a bit of stretch, but none the less, it did pop into my head as I finished the work. What does it all mean?