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RIP Paul Auster 1947--2024
After a move, I found my college syllabus, where I was first introduced to Paul Auster. It was a contemporary lit course that seemed to specialize in white male authors writing about violence. Auster's New York Trilogy couldn't have been more different from the rest, so it stood out, but it took years of reading more widely to understand how unique of a writer he was. While others from his generation were focused on 👇

Well, that makes me sad. https://www.theguardian.com/books/2024/may/01/paul-auster-dies-aged-77-death-ame...

In The New York Trilogy, three private investigations fail, or succeed in upending the lives of the investigators. In fact, the studied are frequently in control of the studier, much like an author guides a reader. Watching a mysterious character only leads to self-destruction—a strange feeling for someone who didn‘t quite love a book but didn‘t quit, and knew the only way out was to reach the final page.

Each of the three stories concerns a main character that becomes so obsessed with another person's life that it affects his own identity. I'm not sure I understood all the connections, but I did find the writing beautiful and compelling.

#1001books #BookCrossing #BookSpinBingo
@TheAromaofBooks

#BookCoverChallenge
Day 37.
Here I will note 365 books (or as many as I will have before I get tired) that have shaped my taste in literature. No explanations, no reviews. Just the cover of the book.
I do not challenge anyone. You are all welcome to take part.

Picked this up randomly because I liked the title and cover. Auster effortlessly describes the thoughts of a solitary man and the madness he can create, the webs that can be weaved, a life that can spiral into insanity. I found the first and last stories particularly great, but especially the first, City of Glass, I have my own theory on what was really going on in this story, but in the end, it doesn't matter and that's what's so great about it.

#Top20series #20Series20days Day 7 I‘ve been MIA , back issues, life issues. Anyway , I adore this 3 book series, now available in one volume as The New York Trilogy.I read them originally in the 3 penguins up in the corner. Existential Noir is a good description, also among the 1000 books to read before you die. I do warn people to check out the reviews, as some people love these and other people , not so much.City of Glass is first.

This is the sort of book that defies description. Auster kept me off balance, trying to puzzle out what exactly I was reading, but once I stopped trying to define it and just started to go with it, I really enjoyed It. I will be thinking about this one for a while.

#7days7books
Day 1
Seven books that made a deep impression and changed me.

Thanks for the tag @Cathythoughts

Tagging @Centique if you want to play.

A haunting book that I realized I had already read when I was halfway through. No matter, the sense of deja vu only adds to Auster‘s narrative, drawing me in to his meta mystery; having me looking over my shoulder into my heart for the villain or the betrayal or maybe just the truth. A great book.

Just wanted thank all the peeps for likes and stacks for me to end up with this fortuitous... ahem... infamous lit influence number... muwahahahahahahaha!😈

This is a great book, but I feel like I‘m experiencing an incredible sensation of deja vu. There is a real hypnotic air to his storytelling and I‘m lost down the rabbit hole of my own memory- asking myself: did I read this all before?

A great American author who distills the essence of the American dream in all its grubby detail... Brilliant!

#WanderingJune

(Day 14 - #RoadToNowhere)

*I cannot think of a better literary representative for the “road to nowhere” trope than Paul Auster, particularly in his “New York Trilogy.” He writes quite postmodern “quest” novels, marking the (patrilineal) themes of Nietzsche‘s eternal recurrence of the same and Sartre‘s existential nausea. Huge oversimplification, I know—but the books are really good, if you‘re into that kind of thing. Have fun 📖!

Brilliant! I almost lost interest halfway through the story, but I'm glad I continued. Paul Auster sure is an amazing writer and great thinker.
🌟🌟🌟🌟 4/5

City of Glass, Ghosts, The Locked Room, all complete 🌟🌟🌟🌟/🌟 I would've given it a perfect score if Ghosts didn't sour my love a little, it was my least favourite. Luckily, it didn't put me off entirely because after falling hard and fast for City of Glass, going through a rough patch with Ghosts, The Locked room reignited my romance for the trilogy and after the last sentence it felt like I lost something... in a good way. 💞

We all want to be told stories, and we listen to them in the same way we did when we were young..👆🏻👆🏼👆👆🏽👆🏾👆🏿

"...Stories without endings can do nothing but go on forever, and to be caught in one means that you must die before your part in it is played out. My only hope is that there is an end to what I am about to say, that somewhere I will find a break in the darkness. This hope is what I define as courage, but whether there is reason to hope is another question entirely.” 2/2

"Only darkness has the power to make a man open his heart to the world, and darkness is what surrounds me whenever I think of what happened. If courage is needed to write about it, I also know that writing about it is the one chance I have to escape. But I doubt this will happen, not even if I manage to tell the truth..." 1/2

“He was the one who was with me, the one who shared my thoughts, the one I saw whenever I looked up from myself.
But that was a long time ago. We grew up, went off to different places, drifted apart. None of that is very strange, I think. Our lives carry us along in ways we cannot control, and almost nothing stays with us. It dies when we do, and death is something that happens to us every day.”

“Lying is a bad thing. It makes you sorry you were ever born. And not to have been born is a curse. You are condemned to live outside time. And when you live outside time, there is no day and night. You don‘t even get a chance to die.”

"...For man is a fallen creature— we know that from Genesis. Humpty Dumpty is also a fallen creature. He falls from his wall, and no one can put him back together again—neither the king, nor his horses, nor his men. But that is what we must all now strive to do. It is our duty as human beings: to put the egg back together again. For each of us, sir, is Humpty Dumpty. And to help him is to help ourselves.” 2/2

“Humpty Dumpty: the purest embodiment of the human condition. Listen carefully, sir. What is an egg? It is that which has not yet been born. A paradox, is it not? For how can Humpty Dumpty be alive if he has not been born? ... For all men are eggs, in a manner of speaking. We exist, but we have not yet achieved the form that is our destiny. We are pure potential, an example of the not-yet-arrived..." 1/2

"...The world was outside of him, around him, before him, and the speed with which it kept changing made it impossible for him to dwell on any one thing for very long... By wandering aimlessly, all places became equal, and it no longer mattered where he was. On his best walks, he was able to feel that he was nowhere. And this, finally, was all he ever asked of things: to be nowhere." 2/2

“Each time he took a walk, he felt as though he were leaving himself behind, and by giving himself up to the movement of the streets, by reducing himself to a seeing eye, he was able to escape the obligation to think, and this, more than anything else, brought him a measure of peace, a salutary emptiness within..." 1/2

"... It is imprecise; it is false; it hides the thing it is supposed to reveal. And if we cannot even name a common, everyday object that we hold in our hands, how can we expect to speak of the things that truly concern us? Unless we can begin to embody the notion of change in the words we use, we will continue to be lost.” 7/7

"...In general, people do. At the very limit, they will say the umbrella is broken. To me this is a serious error, the source of all our troubles. Because it can no longer perform its function, the umbrella has ceased to be an umbrella. It might resemble an umbrella, it might once have been an umbrella, but now it has changed into something else. The word, however, has remained the same. Therefore, it can no longer express the thing..." 6/7

"... A pencil is for writing, a shoe is for wearing, a car is for driving. Now, my question is this. What happens when a thing no longer performs its function? Is it still the thing, or has it become something else? When you rip the cloth off the umbrella, is the umbrella still an umbrella? You open the spokes, put them over your head, walk out into the rain, and you get drenched. Is it possible to go on calling this object an umbrella?... " 5/7

"....You see a kind of stick, with collapsible metal spokes on top that form an armature for a waterproof material which, when opened, will protect you from the rain. This last detail is important. Not only is an umbrella a thing, it is a thing that performs a function—in other words, expresses the will of man. When you stop to think of it, every object is similar to the umbrella, in that it serves a function... " 4/7

"...But words, as you yourself understand, are capable of change. The problem is how to demonstrate this. That is why I now work with the simplest means possible—so simple that even a child can grasp what I am saying. Consider a word that refers to a thing—‘umbrella,‘ for example. When I say the word ‘umbrella,‘ you see the object in your mind..." 3/7

“...And yet our words have remained the same. They have not adapted themselves to the new reality. Hence, every time we try to speak of what we see, we speak falsely, distorting the very thing we are trying to represent. It‘s made a mess of everything..." 2/7

“You see, I am in the process of inventing a new language....”
“A new language?”
“Yes. A language that will at last say what we have to say. For our words no longer correspond to the world. When things were whole, we felt confident that our words could express them. But little by little these things have broken apart, shattered, collapsed into chaos..." 1/7

Going for an #audiowalk in order to reach my daily goal of steps 🏃‍♀️🎧

Paul Auster is a fantastic writer. He's earned a place in my favorite Author List.

Without giving too much away, read it all the way through.

First book finished in 2019. Three interlinked short novels: the first ("City of Glass") was too much like an undergraduate philosophy essay but I really liked "Ghosts" and "The Locked Room".

Also qualifies for #booked2019 #NewToMeAuthor.

#lifetimereadingplan #postmodern

My #firstsnowonbrooklyn is courtesy of Paul Auster‘s The New York Trilogy. I haven‘t actually read it, but it‘s the Folio edition so it looks cool on my shelf. #winterwonderland

More book haul — I came across these two Penguin Classic Deluxe Editions at the used bookstore the other day when dropping off several books. Couldn‘t resist 😍!! Tagged book is a #1001Books.

I can see why my friend says this is her favourite book ever. I loved how intricate, profound and meta it was, but never pretentious and I never felt like it was trying to confuse me for the sake of it. I loved spotting the little connections between plots, and the writing style. I‘ll be thinking about this book for a very long time

This is a friends favourite book of all time so I‘m very excited to read it, I‘ve never read anything by Paul Auster before. #1001books

When you find your favourite book by your favourite author in your favourite city (I love you, Florence). And your bf asks if you‘re going to buy it...like you have a choice!!!🤷‍♀️

#1001 #tbrtakedown @JenP #reading1001 fun to read this and see Siri‘s name. Postmodern detective story. In search of identity?

#riotgrams #trilogy #currentread #interlockingshortstories #postmodernism

Day 6 #Riotgrams Duologies, Trilogies and more

This was the obvious choice for this prompt as I looked over my shelves this morning. I haven‘t read it but it is one of my few #folio books so I love looking through it. ♥️ The illustrations are so vibrant. 🚕 🗽 #aprella

#manicmonday @JoScho 😀
1. Android.
2. Nope - I need that paper to scribble and draw in the margins, and I don't get the same feeling with e-readers.
3. Instagram. So much.
4. Laptop. Mostly use it for work though.

It's still freezing here, but I couldn't resist breakfast on the porch swing. Am so enjoying this book!😀 Has any of you read it?