Paul Auster's 'City of Glass' as a postmodern detective novel

Rheinisch-Westfälische Technische Hochschule Aachen, Institut für Anglistik I
roseminar: From the Detective story to modern crime fitction: A Survey of the genre
WS 2005/2006

Paul Auster`s City of Glass as a postmodern detective novel

by: Toni Rudat

Table of contens

1.0 Introduction 3

2.0 Introduction to postmodern detective fiction 4

2.1 The question of reality and identity within the postmodern period 6
2.2. Eriksson′s model of identity formation 7
2.3 Mead′s model of identity formation 8

3.0 Daniel Quinn: a multiple character 8

3.1 The quality of doublings within the novel 13
3.2 The narrator′s role within the novel 14

4.0 Conclusion 15

5.0 Bibliography 16

1.0 Introduction

PAUL AUSTER`s novel ′City of Glass′ published in 1985 appeared during the period of the postmodern era.¹ Although it is considerably discussed at what time the beginnings of the postmodern era is to be set, it is irrefutable that ´City of Glass´ belongs to postmodern literature.

To analyse in how far PAUL AUSTER`s ´City of Glass´ serves as a representative of the postmodern era and to show the reader in what way postmodern qualities are converted into the writings of that time, the main part of this paper will be divided up into two sections. The first section serves to define the coming up of this movement and the qualities it possesses within the genre of detective fiction. Furthermore some important idealistic features like the idea of reality and identity have to be taken into consideration. The short introduction of the two identity-constituting models by ERIKSON and MEAD will provide a better overview of the idea of identity formation. Within the second section the novel itself will be taken into consideration. Therefore it is necessary to take a close look at the main character Daniel Quinn and his character development the crisis of his identity in the course of the novel respectively. Besides another striking factor, namely the appearance of doublings and triplings of characters, has to be clarified as well as the role of the narrator. The conclusion at the end of the paper is supposed then to show to what extent ´City of Glass´ belongs to postmodern literature and which peculiarities of postmodern writings have been included in this novel.

Since there are just a few recent publications on Paul Auster and his novels three of them namely, An Art of Desire: Reading Paul Auster by BERND HERZOGENRATH, Crisis: The Works of Paul Auster by CARSTEN SPRINGER and the publication of ANNE M. HOLZAPFEL The New York Trilogy: Whodunit?: Tracking the Structure of Paul Auster′s Anti-Detective Novels served as the basis for this paper.

2.0 Introduction to postmodern detective fiction

The emerging of postmodernism is difficult to define.² There are many different attempts to give a fixed period of postmodernism but an exact dating is impossible. Nevertheless it is clear that the rise of postmodernism was a kind of cultural turn or a cultural change within society.³ Within the scope of this paper only some of the attempts of dating will be given.

HELGA SCHIER assumes that postmodernism came up in the 1960s in the USA in the course of the publication of IRVING HOWE`s book The Decline of the New in 1963.<sup>4</sup> CHRISTOPHER REED argues that postmodernism in art began in 1977 “with the publication of CHARLES JENCKS`s `The Language of Post-modern Architecture`”.⁵ Both authors believe that it is possible to give a fixed point in time for the appearance of this new movement which was turned against the ideals of the modern period.⁶ Hans Bertens offers a more permissive attempt while saying that postmodernism started in the late 1970s and early 1980s. He assumes that “the term was applied to the experimental art of the 1950s and 1960s and to the pop art movement of the mid 1960s”.⁷ According to HANS BERTENS postmodern fiction is concerned with the question of an ontological nature (the theory of being, of essence and the qualities of existence). So epistemology (the theory of realization) forms a great part of postmodern fiction. One may believe that this sounds paradoxical in connection to the postmodern belief that an absolute and certain truth is unattainable as described in paragraph 2.2, but the aim of this kind of writing is not to find the truth in the world but in a world. Therefore it has to be taken for granted that ontology permits the existence of a so-called `plurality of worlds`.⁸

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1 Herzogenrath, Bernd. 1999. An Art of Desire: Reading Paul Auster. Amsterdam/Atlanta: Editions Rodopi, p.27. Quotes from this book will from now on be referred to as: Herzogenrath 1999, .

2 Bertens, Hans; Fokkema, Douwe, eds. 1997. Introduction to International Postmodernism: Theory And Literary Practice. Amsterdam/Philadelphia: John Benjamins Publishing Company, p. 4. Quotes from this book will from now on be referred to as: Bertens/Fokkema 1997, .

3 Ibid., p. 4. cf. also Schier, Helga. 1993. Going Beyond: The Crisis of Identity and Identity Models in Contemporary American, English and German Fiction. Tübingen: Niemeyer, p.9. Quotes from this book will from now on be referred to as: Schier 1993, .

4 Schier 1993, p. 9.

5 Reed, Christopher. “Postmodernism and the Art of Identity.“ In: Stangos, Nikos, ed. ³1994 [¹1974]. Concepts of Modern Art: From Fauvism to Postmodernism. Thames and Hudson, pp. 271-293, here p. 271. Quotes from this essay will from now on be referred to as: Reed ³1994, .

6 Bertens/Fokkema 1997, p. 5.

7 Ibid., p. 4.

8 Bertens/Fokkema 1997, p. 195.