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The New York Trilogy (New York Trilogy #1-3)

by Paul Auster, Luc Sante (Introduction), Art Spiegelman (Illustrations)

3.93 of 5 stars 3.93 · rating details · 21,060 ratings · 1,250 reviews

Paul Auster's signature work, The New York Trilogy, consists of three interlocking novels: City of Glass, Ghosts, and The Locked Room; haunting and mysterious tales that move at the breathless pace of a thriller.

Paperback, 308 pages

Published March 28th 2006 by Penguin Classics (first published 1986)

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Apr 07, 2013 notgettingenough rated it 1 of 5 stars

Shelves: modern-lit

Paul Auster says....Adios Amazon.

Find the review here now:

http://alittleteaalittlechat.wordpres...

49 likes · like · see review

Jun 19, 2012 David added it · review of another edition

Shelves: intellectual-con-artist-at-work, utter-dreck, read-in-2008, never-gonna-finish, embarrassed-to-own, hideously-vile-protagonists, mind-numbingly-boring

Further update, June 19th 2012.

In response to several thoughtful comments that take issue with the nastiness of my initial review, I have come to the conclusion that the comments in question are essentially correct. Please see my own response in comment #32 in the discussion. And thanks to those who called me on this, apologies for my earlier vitriolic responses. In general, I try to acknowledge the validity of other opinions in my reviews and comments, something I notably failed to do in this d...more

44 likes · like · see review

Oct 09, 2011 Shovelmonkey1 rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition Recommends it for: people who like a little mind messing

Recommended to Shovelmonkey1 by: 1001 books list

Shelves: 1001-books, bookcrossing-books, read-in-2010, so-right-but-so-wrong

I think this was my first encounter with Paul Auster, a man who I met through the cult of the 1001 books to read before you die list. Prior to that I was vaguely aware of Auster and his peculiar brand of love/loath inciting literature which had friends alternatively raging or swooning, but had never bothered my arse to go and see what all the fuss was about.

Turns out I rather loved this - once I had progressed beyond the first forty pages. For the first forty pages I'd already rather rudely pig...more

30 likes · like · see review

Jun 27, 2007 Cody rated it 2 of 5 stars

Shelves: fiction

At times The New York Trilogy strikes me as something like the movie Saw for intellectual types. People who enjoy Saw tell me that it "messes with your mind," when what they really like are the suspense and the gore. Readers who enjoy The New York Trilogy tell me that it "challenges your perception of reality" (the intellectual form of the above statement), when what they really like is all of the cleverness and the self-reflexive smartypants in-jokes. The plot and many of the images and devices...more

12 likes · like · see review

Feb 18, 2013 kaelan rated it 5 of 5 stars

First, a brief harangue. I can’t help but noticing how often the word “pretentious” has been thrown around in the reviews for this book. What a bothersome word: pretentious. It’s a lot like the word “boring,” in that they both seem to fool the user into thinking that they mean something objective, when in fact they’re highly subjective. Nothing is inherently boring, just as nothing is inherently pretentious. On the contrary, these words say a lot more about the speaker than they do about the thi...more

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Apr 30, 2012 Fahad rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: fiction, favorites

ثلاثية نيويورك

قرأت هذه الثلاثية قبل سنوات، وخربشت وقتها بعض الأفكار حولها، ولكن لأنني لم أكن حينها مهتم بنشر مراجعاتي للكتب، فبقيت هذه الأفكار في حالة غير مكتملة في ملف نصي مهمل، فلذا أعتذر مقدماً عن الحالة الغريبة التي قد تبدو بها هذه المراجعة، اعتبروها مراجعة معتقة نوعاً ما.

صدر الجزء الأول من ثلاثية نيويورك (مدينة الزجاج) سنة 1985 م، ثم صدر الجزءان التاليان (الأشباح) و(الغرفة الموصدة) في السنة التالية، وصارت الروايات الثلاث منذ ذلك الحين تصدر معا ً، تقدم الثلاثية عادة على أنها رواية تحري، وي...more

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Oct 01, 2011 Zaki rated it 4 of 5 stars

I can see why people may not like this.

Paul Auster puts himself in the first story for one. How egotistical can you get? But there is a reason he does that which he explains in The Red Notebook.

The New York Trilogy is the strangest, most seductive thriller you could read.

I really liked it. It took me a little while (to get into it) to get on board. I feel like it’s a book that kind of creeps up on you and it slowly enchants you and you do kind of fall under its spell. It’s got a certain rhythm...more

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Sep 28, 2011 Emir Never rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

The City of Glass. Daniel Quinn receives a misplaced call for Paul Auster, who, in relation with the call, should be a detective. Daniel, a former poet, playwright, essayist, and book translator who turned himself into a detective novel writer after losing his family, decides to assume the identity of detective Paul Auster.

Daniel then meets with the client, a strange man whose name is shared with someone else. There is a perceived danger to the client's life, and Daniel will have to avert that d...more

9 likes · like · see review

Jun 15, 2009 K.D. Oliveros rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Recommended to K.D. by: 501 Must Read Books - Modern Fiction

Shelves: 501, 1001-core, suspense-thriller

Life is too short to re-read a book, but someday I will give time for this one. The reason is that I assumed that the book being a trilogy is composed of 3 totally unrelated stories since I read in the write up that the stories were published one at a time in a weekly magazine in the 80s. However, to my surprise, at the end of the 3rd story – The Locked Room (which by itself was the best among the 3) – it was revealed that the detective looking for Fanshawe was the main character in the first st...more

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Jul 19, 2008 R. rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: 2008

It was only $2.95. So, I'll give it a shot.

*

Okay, pulled from the hall closet where it still lingers among dusty DVDs of Confessions of a Dangerous Mind, Martin Mull comedy albums. The previous reader left a bookmark; simple white square upon which two words were written: "exegetical" and "prelapsarian" - right before the chapter entitled, "The Locked Room"

*

Fawk. Auster has managed to accomplish everything I could ever hope; what's left? I finished City of Glass whilst drinking from a bottle of...more

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Dec 19, 2007 Maryam rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Paul Auster
پل استر نویسنده ی مشهور امریکایی
سه کتاب شهر شیشه ای، ارواح و اتاق در بسته با استقبال بی نظیری همراه شد که باعث ادغام این سه کتاب در یک مجموعه به نام سه گانه ی نیویورک شد

نمی شود آنقدر از کسی متنفر بود مگر آنکه قسمتی از روح مان آن را بسیار دوست داشته باشد

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Feb 22, 2013 amal rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

ثلاثية نيويورك ترتب الأفكار والكلمات بشكل استثنائي ؛ ترتيب يشبه حقيقة شروق الشمس في منتصف ليل الجانب الآخر من الأرض، لامعنى مطلق للكلمات مع أوستر كل شيء يخضع للنسبية، غول المراقبة يبتلع أبطال القصص الثلاث حتى يتلاشى وجودهم في الآخر ، الكاتب يبدو ذا حس سيكوباتي يستدرج الفضول ويخنقه بالاستفزاز والتوقف المفاجئ في منتصف الطريق ، يقطع حبل أفكارك من المنتصف تماما كما تقول الصبوحة :)

اندمجت مع الأحداث وفكرت لو أن الإنسان يراقب نفسه كما يراقب الآخرين -كتحرّي- كيف ستكون النتائج ؟ وجدت التساؤل في الصفحات التالية ! تشك في أن أوستر يراقب أفكارك ويتلاعب بها كما يتلاعب بشخصياته ..
يأتي على ذكر شخصيات غريبة من الواقع مثل الناقد والفيلسوف الروسي ميخائيل باختين الذي استخدم أوراق النسخة الوحيدة لإحدى مخطوطاته للتدخين ، و السيدة ونشستر أرملة صانع البنادق التي تبني المزيد من الغرف لمزيد من الحياة، والإيطالي لورنزو دابونتي متعدد الهويات، يقول أوستر " يبدو من المستحيل قول أي شيء عن إنسان إلا بعد أن يموت، فليس الموت الحكم على السعادة فحسب، وإنما هو القياس الوحيد الذي يمكننا به أن نحكم على الحياة ذاتها"

تباً لك ياأوستر اللعنة عليك أيها اليهودي المتحذلق ؛ قد تردد مثل هذه اللعنات وأنت تقرأ مشاهد عديدة ، مثلاً حين يسافر البطل إلى باريس ويتحدث مع شخصيات ويزور أماكن ..ثم يعيد الحدث للنقطة الأولى وكأن شيئا لم يكن !

"الكذب شيء سيء ، فهو يجعلك تأسف حتى كونك قد ولدت، وألا تكون قد ولدت فتلك لعنة. محكوم عليك بأن تحيا خارج الزمن، وعندما يحدث ذلك لايكون هناك ليل ولا نهار، بل ولاتتاح لك الفرصة حتى للموت ! "
لفّة طويلة وتفسير ماء بالماء هو ماثرثر به أوستر في الإقتباس السابق ليقول لنا عن -سيئات الكذب السيء- لاشيء

علاقة جميلة يخلقها مع القارئ بحبكة من السراب ، تزيد من متعة القراءة ، أصحاب الوقت الثمين والفائدة وماإلى ذلك وذاك لا أعتقد أنها ستروق لكم (بس) الصراحة ممتعة وتكسر الملل وروتينية المنطق، يتحدث عن كتاب دون كيخوته وكأنه يتحدث عن ثلاثية نيويورك :

"لقد أراد أن يختبر مدى قابلية رفاقه للانخداع.إذ راح يتساءل :
هل من الممكن الوقوف أمام العالم بأقصى قدر من الثقة بالنفس وإطلاق الأكاذيب واللغو، هل من الممكن القول إن طواحين الهواء هي فرسان مسلحون وأن حوض الحلاق هو غطاء واقٍ للرأس وأن الدمى بشر حقيقيون ؟ هل سيكون من الممكن إقناع الآخرين حتى بإقرار ماقاله على الرغم من أنهم لايصدقونه ؟ وبتعبير آخر إلى أي مدى سيتحمل الناس الهرطقات إذا كانت مصدر تسلية لهم ؟
الإجابة واضحة. أليست كذلك، البرهان أننا مازلنا نقرأ الكتاب، ومايزال مسلياً إلى حد كبير بالنسبة لنا، وذلك هو في نهاية المطاف مايريده أي شخص من كتاب -أن يسليه-

* هنا مقال يتحدث عن الكاتب وبعض كتبه (less)

8 likes · like · see review

Oct 11, 2007 JC rated it 1 of 5 stars

If you like trite, obvious and sophomoric writing, this is the book for you...this could have been such a cool trilogy. It was painful every page...HOWEVER, this was recommended to me by someone I really respect(ed) when it comes to books..so some of you may think I'm crazy (most do anyway)

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Mar 20, 2013 Javier Jiménez rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: favorites, mistery, philosophy

Fiel a mi costumbre, antes de empezar a leer el libro sabía muy poco, si no es que nada, acerca de la trama, solo recordaba haber leído que era un poco sobre detectives, tipo novela negra. Por lo tanto, no esperaba nada en particular, sabía que podía ocurrir cualquier cosa. Me gusta tener esa sensación de no saber lo que va a pasar al leer un libro o ver una película, de esa forma creo que estoy menos influenciado o predeterminado por factores externos. Sin duda este método me ha traído varias s...more Fiel a mi costumbre, antes de empezar a leer el libro sabía muy poco, si no es que nada, acerca de la trama, solo recordaba haber leído que era un poco sobre detectives, tipo novela negra. Por lo tanto, no esperaba nada en particular, sabía que podía ocurrir cualquier cosa. Me gusta tener esa sensación de no saber lo que va a pasar al leer un libro o ver una película, de esa forma creo que estoy menos influenciado o predeterminado por factores externos. Sin duda este método me ha traído varias sorpresas, afortunadamente la mayoría han sido positivas, entre ellas esta trilogía.

Al contrario de lo que creí al inicio, estas novelas no son las típicas historias de detectives. Cada quien lee y aprecia un libro de diferentes formas y una de las formas en las que ví el libro es haciendo a un lado la trama detectivesca. La historia va más allá. Hay metafísica, filosofía, semiótica, simbolismo y sobre todo lenguaje. En realidad me es complicado escribir acerca de esta lectura, pero de lo que estoy seguro es que me gustó y disfruté bastante leer (y releer) estas páginas. Incluso seguía pensando en el libro por varios minutos cada que terminaba de leer. Pero no era solo pensar en el libro, si no que aquello me llevaba a otras cavilacioens acerca de la soledad, el lenguaje, el azar, la realidad y sobre todo la identidad. No era la primera vez que leía algo relacionado a la idea del cambio constante de las cosas ("Nunca te bañarás dos veces en el mismo río." Heráclito), sin embargo la forma en la que está desarrollada en las historias me agradó bastante.

Por otra parte, al inicio creí que los tres libros tenía una relación entre sí. Después avancé algunas páginas, terminé el primer libro ("Ciudad de cristal"), empecé el segundo ("Fantasmas") y pensé que no. Luego terminé el último libro ("La habitación cerrada") y veo que sí hay relación. Quizás no es una relación directa entre los personajes, como había imaginado que había podido ser, pero a fin de cuentas los temas son los mismos. Hay una parte del libro que dice "Estas tres historias son finalmente la misma historia, pero cada una representa un etapa diferente en mi conciencia de dónde está el quid".

Por lo anterior, escribir acerca de cada libro por separado es un poco volver a escribir de lo mismo, sin embargo no es totalmente redundante y cabe hacer algunas anotaciones con respecto a cada libro en el aspecto individual.

"Ciudad de cristal" es una historia acerca de un escritor llamado Quinn que se hace pasar por un detective que está vigilando a un supuesto criminal. A través de esta vigilancia la identidad de Quinn se ve modificada y a la vez se cuestiona la necesidad de llevar a cabo esos cambios. Creo que de las tres historias esta es donde Nueva York tiene un papel más importante. Vale la pena mencionar que me sorprendí y enredé un poco cuando el nombre Paul Auster empieza a parecer entre las páginas. Muy interesante también la teoría sobre historia acerca de Don Quijote y las semejanzas con la historia de "Ciudad de cristal".

En "Fantasmas" la soledad también ocupa un papel importante, solo que quizás más que en las otras dos historias. La historia es sobre un detective que debe vigilar a una persona. La llega a conocer de tal forma que ya sabe lo que la otra persona va a hacer. A la forma en la que interpreté la historia, hay partes en las que se manifiestan preguntas totalmente existenciales, por ejemplo "Qué sentido tiene nuestra vida?", es decir "Si ya no existiera algo por lo que aparentemente estamos viviendo entonces seguimos existiendo?". Además también hay partes en las que se expone lo que puede suceder cuando dos personas distintas leen un mismo libro, así como el mismo hecho de escribir, algo que se desarrolla también en el libro anterior y un poco más en el siguiente.

Finalmente, "La habitación cerrada" parecería ser la menos enredada de las tres historias sin embargo también tiene su toque de confusión. La trama es acerca de un hombre que se hace cargo de la familia de un excompañero de escuela que está desaparecido y se supone que ha muerto. En este libro me sucedió algo curioso porque si tuviera que acomodar los tres libros de acuerdo a mi gusto este estaría en el último lugar, sin embargo es donde doble más esquinas de página debido a las citas que encontré. Incluso en la primer página ya había encontrado una cita que me agradó: "La vida nos arrastra de muchas maneras que no podemos controlar y casi nada permanece con nosotros. Muere cuando nosotros morimos, y la muerte es algo que nos sucede todos los días".

En los tres libros sentí que algunos personajes podían representar al mismo Paul Auster (a parte del Paul Auster escritor de "Ciudad de cristal"). De igual forma sentí que dos mismos personajes podían representar las dos personalidades o las dos etapas en la vida de un mismo personaje. En "Fantasmas" sentí que Azul y Negro eran el mismo, en "La habitación cerrada" parecía que podría interpretarse como si Fanshawe y en el narrador fueran el mismo y en "Ciudad de cristal" he llegado a pensar que Quinn era una parte del narrador, el cual también podría ser el mismo Paul Auster.

Como conlusió, la trilogía me hizó reflexionar y pensar debido a su contenido filosófico implícito y a la vez las sorpresas y enredos que me causó también me gustaron. Considero que es un libro muy recomendable, sin embargo quien lo lea debe de contar con cierto grado de paciencia. La trilogía no es muy larga en cuanto a páginas, un promedio de cien páginas cada libro, sin embargo hay que leer con mucho cuidado cada oración, incluso cada palabra. También podría darse como consejo el no desesperarse cuando pareciera que todo es confusión y no hay un camino fijo. Es normal, en vez de asustarnos por esa sensación deberíamos de disfrutarla y recordar que siempre hay varios caminos y que como Paul Auster ha dicho "Un libro no pertenece solamente al autor, sino también al lector y juntos hacen del libro lo que es".(less)

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Aug 12, 2012 Jerry Ghazali rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: novels

Trilogi tiga novel yang telah membikin aku berfikir panjang sebaik saja aku tiba ke muka surat terakhir novel ini. Aku tertarik dengan perungkaian unsur paradoks karakter fantasi rekaan Lewis Carroll iaitu Humpty Dumpty daripada novel pertama trilogi ini iaitu "City of Glass". Namun antara tiga novel, aku paling gemarkan novel kedua iaitu "Ghost" walaupun novel ketiga "The Locked Room" punya penyudah cerita yang memberi kejutan maksima lantas kepala aku yang tidak gatal digaru dengan sengaja.

Apa...more

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Apr 24, 2012 Ben Winch rated it 2 of 5 stars

Shelves: anglo, american, problematic

For a work that starts so strongly, The New York Trilogy descends into banal gibberish remarkably quickly, and continues in this mode until its unsurprising, unenlightening denouement. Presumably the result of the young Auster having improvised his opening in a fever-dream, put it aside, and then felt constrained but uninspired to continue it at a later date, this opening section is a small marvel of verbal invention and imagination, and entirely worthy of the two other would-be masters that pos...more For a work that starts so strongly, The New York Trilogy descends into banal gibberish remarkably quickly, and continues in this mode until its unsurprising, unenlightening denouement. Presumably the result of the young Auster having improvised his opening in a fever-dream, put it aside, and then felt constrained but uninspired to continue it at a later date, this opening section is a small marvel of verbal invention and imagination, and entirely worthy of the two other would-be masters that possibly inspired it: Peter Handke (in the play Kaspar) and Werner Herzog (in the film The Enigma of Kaspar Hauser). That this sub-genre (of the child locked in the room and forced to develop or not develop its own language) is essentially a cliche is not a problem; in fact it helps to propel us into the story, and when couched in terms of the book's other cliches (the crime novelist-become-detective, the Calvino-esque metafictional first few pages) it is made to shine in a whole new light (a light that is absent from those other Kaspar Hauser-ist character studies). Still, it's brief. Auster, a Beckett disciple, seems to pay homage to his hero and quickly decide it's not worth the effort, and from then on it's as if he's given in to an early, disillusioned middle-age. The prose is wooden, the concepts shallow, the plot non-existent. Every promising lead is forgotten. As to the idea of New York as a setting, forget it - this could be anywhere. Is Auster making comment on the post-modern city's anonymity, or is it just an accident of publishing/marketing that put these three fairly unrelated pieces together and called them a trilogy? Late in the book - in 'The Locked Room' - he offers a trite and unconvincing explication of the 3 pieces as a trilogy, a typically Austerian author's-voice intrusion which feels like an afterthought and does nothing but break the admittedly tenuous flow. By now every mistake of the young over-reaching storyteller has been committed repeatedly. 'Show don't tell'? Nope, Auster's determined to tell - and just in case you miss his meaning he'll spell it out for you. To a degree, I feel for him. The whole idea of this alter-ego (Fanshawe) who disappears bequeathing a lot of unfinished manuscripts to our narrator who has always idolised him - I mean it's the whole fever-dream inspired-opening-without-a-follow-up scenario in a nutshell, right? And in a way it's an admirable way to tackle the situation - head-on, with a maximum of self-awareness. The type of idea a thousand writers have probably had ever since they first read Borges's 'Pierre Menard' or Calvino's If On a Winter's Night a Traveler or even Tristram Shandy. But if there is a lesson to be learnt here it's 'APPROACH WITH CAUTION'. Self-referential becomes vacuous so easily! From memory I have read this thing twice now, despite my bad first impression. Why? Because I want to like Auster. He makes you feel as if maybe, one day, he'll stumble upon some revelation. But ultimately maybe he's just too conflicted - capable of inspired passages but too in thrall to the demands of the professional author. You ask me, almost everything he writes has a stilted unnaturalness that bespeaks either lack of sufficient editing or straight-up not keeping his eye on the ball. Moon Palace was passable; The Music of Chance was almost alive; in Oracle Night he just about convinced me he was on the verge of saying something, but when it wasn't forthcoming I gave up and didn't look back. Perhaps tellingly, I came to Auster via a chapter from his early pseudonymous crime novel Squeeze Play, which was included by Michael Dibdon in The Picador Book of Crime Writing, and this piece shone (I thought) more than almost anything in that anthology save Raymond Chandler, or anything Auster has written since. Is this whole subsequent heir-to-Beckett/poet-laureate-of-New-York 'literary' schtick just a case of Auster taking himself too seriously? It might be.

As an aside, does anyone else find Auster's infrequent but jarringly out-of-key sexual passages disturbing? I think it's the way he narrates them so matter-of-factly, usually in a single sentence, after obsessing over trivial details for pages. It's almost as if some bolt of self-expression suddenly breaks through all the consciously-impersonal meandering. Stillman puts 'his worm' in 'whores' who 'squirm'. The narrator of 'The Locked Room' 'finds' himself opposite an exquisite Tahitian prostitute in Paris. Most disturbingly, in The Music of Chance, Nash (the hitherto eminently-sensible adult protagonist) falls obsessively in love with a prostitute brought into his life by the younger, reckless Pozzi - nothing wrong with that, but it's so glossed-over, so abrupt, working only as a plot-device, that again I'm forced to wonder if it's some unwanted intrusion from Auster's personal life that he has tried to edit out of existence only to be thwarted by its necessity to the plot. Equally as repellent is the scene in 'City of Glass' where Quinn meets Paul Auster's wife, whom Auster-as-narrator eulogises in vomit-worthy tones as if (I can't help thinking) asking forgiveness for those other scenes. Maybe I'm reading this wrongly - certainly Auster gives us little to aid in our interpretation of these stylistic hiccups - and I'm not suggesting he should excise all sexuality from his writing. At least not on principle. But, well, either explore it meaningfully or, yes, excise it. Beckett did without it, after all, whatever went on in his personal life. As it is, it just feels to me as if every 200 pages or so Auster opens his trench-coat to compulsively reveal his naked prick then hides it away again and pretends it never happened. Embarrassing all round.(less)

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Jan 04, 2012 April rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

The New York Trilogy totally deserves 5 stars from me because it is amazing but I made the mistake of listening to the audio book version read by Joe Barrett whose "Casey Kasem-esque" voice was so disconcerting that I was continually distracted by his enunciation. At one point he pronounced prelude "prel-ude" splitting the word after the L and putting emphasis on the U! His female voices were creepy and his kid voices made me grimace with discomfort. Finally, I am not sure why he made the accent...more

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Jan 05, 2012 Kelanth, numquam risit ubi dracones vivunt rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: narrativa

La prima cosa che mi ha colpito in maniera positiva in questo libro è stata la scrittura, piena di "fronzoli", "merletti" e abbellimenti che rendono la lettura piena e corposa.

Mi sono piaciuti molto anche i continui riferimenti al "caso", al fato che nella vita ci accompagna. Molto singolari anche le digressioni sull'etimologia delle parole e la spiegazione di un punto di vista traslato di alcuni passaggi biblici.

Carino l'esempio dell'ombrello, che secondo un protagonista di una vicenda all'in...more

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Feb 09, 2012 Audrey rated it 5 of 5 stars

I wish I had written about City of Glass right after I read it, because I don't remember it right now without any sort of refresher except that I thought it was awesome and that is also how I currently feel about Ghosts which I just finished approximately 45 minutes ago at a winery where I was selling cheese but also getting free wine.
1. A song was playing and it went "Or are you just an illusion? Are you just an illluuuuuuuuushun" and that freaked me out
[ these are all songs about illusions i...more

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Apr 20, 2009 Paula rated it 4 of 5 stars

Recommended to Paula by: Margie Stein

Shelves: novels-and-stories

City of Glass (1985), Ghosts (1986) and The Locked Room (1986): Meta as in metafiction, also metaphysics and metaphor. This is fiction about fiction, writing about the writer. Who’s writing whom? Who’s the author and who’s the imagined character? Auster's characters aren’t “real” people (even when they are autobiographical) in the sense that you might invite one over for dinner, but are real in the sense that you might imagine yourself dissolving into fiction, or have the sense that the self is...more

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Feb 20, 2009 Shek rated it 3 of 5 stars

For me, this was a problematic book, fraught with numerous problemats. For one thing I have a grievance with any book that expects the reader to slog halfway through it before any rewarding aspects begin to surface. I sympathize entirely with anyone who quits before getting to that point, since I very nearly did exactly that.

Also, I kept hearing that part I, "City of Glass", was the high point, and that afterward it went downhill. When I was halfway through
"Ghosts" (part II) I would have comple...more

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Feb 27, 2008 Suzanne rated it 5 of 5 stars

Shelves: 1001-books-before-you-die, post-modern, fiction

This is my first experience with Paul Auster and I have to say that I am impressed. The three novellas included in this book are not difficult reads, but they have so much meat to them they aren't easy reads either. I found them to be very thought provoking. Is this kind of obsession or sense of duty really possible in the non-fiction world?

I started this book right after my English class discussed Samuel Beckett's Endgame which really got me prepared for this style of writing. I had never read...more

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Sep 12, 2007 Nathaniel rated it 1 of 5 stars

Shelves: books-i-refuse-to-finish

It is not because of “City of Glass” that I am continuing into the second book of this trilogy; it is because the second installments are contained between the same covers and I neglected to bring an alternate book to the office. It takes hard work to make detective stories dull and to suck the intrigue out of mystery; but Auster seems to know how it’s done. It seems like he had just finished grad school and was filled with the conviction that contriving a book around concepts masquerading as ch...more

5 likes · like · see review

Jan 05, 2012 Alper Kumcu rated it 5 of 5 stars

The NY Trilogy is the early masterpiece of Auster. It clearly reflects Auster's style in every sense.What I like about the book is that it is multi-layered and can be read at each layer, namely, a psychological thriller, a detective novel and a meta-fiction about writing itself. I define the genre as "intelligent fiction" since the book is "magic-realism re-defined". The NY Trilogy can be regarded as the gateway to Auster's world.

2 likes · like · see review

Oct 13, 2008 Theoth rated it 4 of 5 stars

Ermmmm, I read this some years ago and can barely recall the second and third stories now. The three stories are 'interlocking', i.e. linked by themes and ideas, so it is not necessary to read all three in order, nor to read all three at all.

5 STARS for the first story which I do clearly recall hitting me a full blow to the frontal neurons. It starts as one kind of novel then changes into something else and keeps changing until the immersed reader is experiencing an identity crisis as slippery a...more

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May 07, 2013 thegift rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: unitedstateslit, literature, paulauster, pomo, favoritefiction

i remember buying these as 3 separate works, before it was sort of in a literary way, famous…

i had not taken detective fiction seriously until i read this work. maybe i do not fully understand it: it seems to me the most resonant, most refracted, of all his work. there is the search for original language revealed as flawed, in that language is between people, not things, not private but social. there is the process of writing and writers block similar to the indecipherable but necessary act of j...more

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Jan 06, 2008 Jeremy Quinn rated it 1 of 5 stars · review of another edition Recommends it for: Nobody.

I can't believe I read this all the way through, but I just kept thinking that at some point, something has to happen. I was disappointed. The writing is mechanical and boring. It's like being told a story by someone barely interested what they are saying. There is no experience to it, no stake in the characters, and like I said, nothing of note really happens. When Auster makes an attempt to wrap up the disjointed and feeble plot lines after two and three-quarter books of emptiness and abrupt e...more

8 likes · like · see review

Jun 03, 2012 Colin rated it 4 of 5 stars

All the one/five star reviews for this book are pretty hilarious. New York Trilogy is pretty interesting. Exasperating? Absolutely. Silly? Definetly. Genius? Ehh. Let's not go crazy. 100% worth checking out? Yes.

Seriously? One Star? One Star ratings should be applied judiciously. Ever have an aunt give you Tuesdays With Morrie? One Star. Did that girl you like tell you to read Ishmael? One Star. The New York Trilogy does not deserve One Star. Jesus.

Bear in mind that I liked House of Leaves.

4 likes · like · see review

Nov 21, 2012 La Stamberga dei Lettori rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: polyfilo

Definire questi tre racconti lunghi detective stories è alquanto fuorviante.
A parte l'atmosfera di genere poliziesco americano, in stile 'hardboiled' come si definiscono i gialli con detective privati, donne misteriose e fatalmente seducenti, ambientati in locali bui, solitari e generalmente malandati, i tre racconti, legati tra di loro da incroci casuali e dallo svolgersi tra le geometrie del tracciato urbano newyorchese, sono delle riflessioni, a tratti anche troppo cerebrali e metafisiche, s...more

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Nov 24, 2010 Angelo Ricci added it · review of another edition

Leggendo Trilogia di New York di Paul Auster mi appare alla memoria, non so perché, l’immagine mitteleuropea di Elias Canetti e del suo Auto da fè. Per la “trilogia” mi riferisco al primo dei tre romanzi: Città di vetro. Daniel Quinn si nasconde dietro ad uno pseudonimo per scrivere romanzi polizieschi e si trova invischiato in una discussione con un altro personaggio (che porta il nome dell’autore stesso della “trilogia”) sulla genesi del Don Chisciotte, che vedrebbe concretizzarsi un gioco di...more

1 like · like · see review

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About Paul Auster

Paul Auster is the bestselling author of Sunset Park, Invisible, Man in the Dark, The Book of Illusions, The Brooklyn Follies, and The New York Triology, among many other works. His books have been translated into forty-three languages. He lives in Brooklyn, New York.

http://us.macmillan.com/author/paulau...

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Quotes from The New York Trilogy

“Every life is inexplicable, I kept telling myself. No matter how many facts are told, no matter how many details are given, the essential thing resists telling. To say that so and so was born here and went there, that he did this and did that, that he married this woman and had these children, that he lived, that he died, that he left behind these books or this battle or that bridge – none of that tells us very much.” — 43 people liked it

“In other words: It seems to me that I will always be happy in the place where I am not. Or, more bluntly: Wherever I am not is the place where I am myself. Or else, taking the bull by the horns: Anywhere out of the world.” — 36 people liked it

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