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La trilogía de Nueva York
This book its about 3 different stories that take place in New York...without a doubt, one of the most memorable novels from the 80's.
Paperback, 336 pages
Published
January 15th 2002
by Anagrama
(first published 1985)
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WELL, CONGRATULATIONS, PAUL AUSTER!!
I wouldn't actually have thought it possible, but with the breathtakingly sophomoric intellectual pretension of the final 30 pages of "City of Glass", you have actually managed to deepen my contempt and loathing for you, and the overweening, solipsistic, drivel that apparently passes for writing in your particular omphaloskeptic corner of the pseudo-intellectual forest in which you live, churning out your mentally mast...more
WELL, CONGRATULATIONS, PAUL AUSTER!!
I wouldn't actually have thought it possible, but with the breathtakingly sophomoric intellectual pretension of the final 30 pages of "City of Glass", you have actually managed to deepen my contempt and loathing for you, and the overweening, solipsistic, drivel that apparently passes for writing in your particular omphaloskeptic corner of the pseudo-intellectual forest in which you live, churning out your mentally mast...more
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Shovelmonkey1
rated it
·
review of another edition
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review of another edition
Recommends it for:
people who like a little mind messing
Recommended to Shovelmonkey1 by:
1001 books list
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 ...more
Turns out I rather loved this - once I had progressed beyond the first forty pages. For the first forty pages I'd already rather ...more
I was standing in a bookshop today thinking I hate book reviews. I mean, really. Hate.
Let me give you an example.
'A dazzling achievement.' Time Out
'Marks as a new departure for the American novel.' Observer
Seductive metaphysical....' Literary Review
'Written with an acid sharpness' Sunday Telegraph
So, please let me give you an example of the dazzling metaphysical sharpness of this new departure for the American novel:
Let me give you an example.
'A dazzling achievement.' Time Out
'Marks as a new departure for the American novel.' Observer
Seductive metaphysical....' Literary Review
'Written with an acid sharpness' Sunday Telegraph
So, please let me give you an example of the dazzling metaphysical sharpness of this new departure for the American novel:
...more
As it h
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 th...more
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 ...more
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 ...more
K.D.
rated it
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review of another edition
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review of another edition
Recommended to K.D. by:
501 Must Read Books - Modern Fiction
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
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...more
*
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...more
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
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
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)
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 ...more
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'ombre...more
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'ombre...more
Paula
rated it
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review of another edition
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review of another edition
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 i...more
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
"Ghos...more
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
"Ghos...more
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. ...more
I started this book right after my English class discussed Samuel Beckett's Endgame which really got me prepared for this style of writing. ...more
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
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.
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...more
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...more
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
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
Well, it reads faster than Lord of the Rings, as far as trilogies go.
Paul Auster wrote three detective novels that break the traditional standard of what it means to detect, investigate, and deduce; and bundled them up in a "trilogy" that reflects the self as much as it does the urban landscape.
In an age where the best-selling authors are thriller-suspense mystery pop once-a-month bogies (see Evanovich, Clancy, King, Patterson, etc), Auster almost pokes fun at...more
Paul Auster wrote three detective novels that break the traditional standard of what it means to detect, investigate, and deduce; and bundled them up in a "trilogy" that reflects the self as much as it does the urban landscape.
In an age where the best-selling authors are thriller-suspense mystery pop once-a-month bogies (see Evanovich, Clancy, King, Patterson, etc), Auster almost pokes fun at...more
My disappointment with the trilogy is neatly summed up by James Wood in an article he wrote for the New Yorker called 'The Novels of Paul Auster', so it's probably best to read that instead of anything I've written here. Most of the notes I made in the margins turn out to be shopping lists (boring ones - ‘two single duvet covers’ … ‘sulphur pillow cases from John Lewis’) or work related (smaller post-its? Larger post-its!). That said, a handful of passages with pencil rings around them are keepe...more
If you like puzzles or riddles with no clear answers, you might just enjoy this.
I picked it, in an effort to follow up on my decision to read more of the "classics". The premise sounded original & intriguing (fact which, I feel, made my eventual disappointment even more bitter. High expectations an'all...)
Now, I am not one to easily dislike a book but I can, honestly, say I hated this :( I slogged through the stories, feeling like I was having my teeth pulled a...more
I picked it, in an effort to follow up on my decision to read more of the "classics". The premise sounded original & intriguing (fact which, I feel, made my eventual disappointment even more bitter. High expectations an'all...)
Now, I am not one to easily dislike a book but I can, honestly, say I hated this :( I slogged through the stories, feeling like I was having my teeth pulled a...more
If there were 4.5 stars, I'd put it there.
I think Paul Auster might be a terrific writer. The series is really cool together with the third novella really striking some surprising notes. There were times I wasn't sure that I liked it, then there were times the writing just hit me, and I actually said, aloud, "This is good sh*t!"
Quotes
City of Glass:
"On his best walks he was able to feel that he was nowhere. And this, finally was all he ever ask...more
I think Paul Auster might be a terrific writer. The series is really cool together with the third novella really striking some surprising notes. There were times I wasn't sure that I liked it, then there were times the writing just hit me, and I actually said, aloud, "This is good sh*t!"
Quotes
City of Glass:
"On his best walks he was able to feel that he was nowhere. And this, finally was all he ever ask...more
This is late. Or as late as anything can be that doesn't have an actual deadline. And these book reports or whatever the fuck they are certainly don't help matters. I seriously finished this and another book over a month ago and I've found myself slowing down my reading because I don't want the bother of articulation. Of course that's only part of the story, the other part is that I'm just out of phase at the moment. So maybe this will get things going again. After all, I'm only 43 books from go...more
I started this about a year ago, and then other books got in the way. I finally came back and finished this, and I wonder why I waited so long. Auster fascinates me, because he is so literary and so meta meta and yet always manages to affect me emotionally. This is a collection of 3 very short novels, detective stories as only Auster could write, although I must say that Finch by Jeff VanderMeer is certainly in the same vein. The shortness is a big part of the charm, as it reminds me of the dete...more
Sometimes I enjoy books that I can't really explain to people afterwards. I've recommended books whole-heartedly whilst still only being able to say "Well, it's too hard to explain what it's about. Just read it." I don't know how common this is, of course. I also don't know how often people take my un-eloquent advice and actually read those books. Perhaps people don't like to be confused; in fact, after this book, I'm thinking that perhaps I don't like to be confused. (This, despite en...more
Paul Auster's New York Trilogy is an anthology of three novellas, all loosely related but glued together by the city of New York. All three are detective stories that handily deal with issues of identity. "City of Glass" is about an author hired to investigate a suspicious character, whose daily meanderings throughout the city suggest a greater meaning. "Ghosts" is a colorful story about a man named Blue hired to spy on a man named Black by his employer, whose name is Whit...more
Three novellas in the guise of mysteries, existential mysteries, The New York Trilogy (City of Glass, Ghosts, and the Locked Room) is an entertaining blend of Kafka and Hammett. In the first story someone arrives at Grand Central who may be a threat to the hero’s client; in the second someone is being watched; though the watcher may be being watched, in the third, a best friend disappears leaving behind a beautiful wife, a newborn, and a trunk full of manuscripts of great literary merit. The he...more
A post-modern detective story that combines 3 short stories into one. Although the stories are not and yet at the same are intertwined with one another, they do not have to be read together, however, it does provide more insight into the stories if they are.
It's hard to summarize these stories but they delve more into the human psyche than anything. In "City of Glass" a writer is mistaken as Paul Auster-detective and is asked to protect a client from his abusive father who...more
It's hard to summarize these stories but they delve more into the human psyche than anything. In "City of Glass" a writer is mistaken as Paul Auster-detective and is asked to protect a client from his abusive father who...more
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After a year spent traveling in Europe, he enrolled at Columbia University and spent a year in Paris on an exchange. Returning to Columbia in 1968, he wrote articles and reviews while anti-Vietnam protests and riots raged around him. After publishing a crime novel pastiche, Squeeze Play, written under the pseudonym Paul Benjamin (who would later appear as a blocked writer in his screenplay for the...more
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“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.”
—
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“Something happens, Blue thinks, and then it goes on happening forever. It can never be changed, can never be otherwise.”
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