In all the reviews I am surprised no one has mentioned Poe's short story "William Wilson," the very definition of doppleganger in literary prose. Here in "City of Glass' we have the same thing, even Auster uses the name William Wilson. This novel brings back true literature in a culture devoid of anything that smacks of indepth thinking on the part of the reader. Allusions, allegory, symbol, puns, linguistic twists, irony, shifting narrators...it's all here. The play on initials between Don Quixote and Danial Quinn is exquisite; the continual movement of Stillman and the paradox of his name speaks volumes about the craft of the author; the quick syntax of detective fiction when Quinn is Auster is beautifully reminiscent of Phillip Roth; the Socratic philosophical dialogue between Stillman and Auster makes me smile with joy that an author encapsulated the form so subtlely and let the audience 'get it' on their own. As a reader, the beauty of the style and form shines through without me having to be told by the author what he is doing. That is priceless in a contemporary literary world where stunted, choppy, rough prose has eclipsed mastery. I am so glad I have a copy of City of Glass; it is the best book I have read in years.

I found this book to be a remarkably inventive work of fiction. Auster is a tremendously intelligent, and surprising writer who seems to create an almost continuous suspense in part by creating new mysteries and questions as he goes along. We wait and watch with the former writer Wilson Wilson now become the detective Daniel Quinn who is known to his client Shipman and his wife Virginia by the name Daniel Auster as Quinn tries to keep track of Shipman's father just released from prison who he fears being murdered by. At the end of the work we not only wonder what has happened to the younger Shipman and his wife Virginia who apparently have disappeared, but even more urgently wonder what has become of Quinn. We are not even certain where he is.

In the course of the telling the whole multiple- identity complication is informed by a discussion of fictional reality, and the text-of-reference here is Quixote. The detective Quinn goes to the house of the man whose name he has adopted, the writer Paul Auster and among things they consider Cervantes device of having the second part of his novel allegedly written by a fictional narrator.

All of the games of multiple- naming however do not diminish from the powerful real feeling created by the author, in telling for instance of Wilson's loss of his wife and son, or of what it means to him to meet a prosperous happy Auster with beautiful wife and son. The same holds true in the telling of the story of young Shipman's years of imprisonment by his father. Here the whole story is enriched by a brief history of children raised in the wild , including that of the child of Auvergne and Kaspar.

If I have one complaint about the book is that it ends leaving so many questions open. But then again it is the first novel of a trilogy and Auster may have some answers in the volumes to come.

I found this book to be a remarkably inventive work of fiction. Auster is a tremendously intelligent, and surprising writer who seems to create an almost continuous suspense in part by creating new mysteries and questions as he goes along. We wait and watch with the former writer Wilson Wilson now become the detective Daniel Quinn who is known to his client Shipman and his wife Virginia by the name Daniel Auster as Quinn tries to keep track of Shipman's father just released from prison who he fears being murdered by. At the end of the work we not only wonder what has happened to the younger Shipman and his wife Virginia who apparently have disappeared, but even more urgently wonder what has become of Quinn. We are not even certain where he is.
In the course of the telling the whole multiple- identity complication is informed by a discussion of fictional reality, and the text-of-reference here is Quixote. The detective Quinn goes to the house of the man whose name he has adopted, the writer Paul Auster and among things they consider Cervantes device of having the second part of his novel allegedly written by a fictional narrator.
All of the games of multiple- naming however do not diminish from the powerful real feeling created by the author, in telling for instance of Wilson's loss of his wife and son, or of what it means to him to meet a prosperous happy Auster with beautiful wife and son. The same holds true in the telling of the story of young Shipman's years of imprisonment by his father. Here the whole story is enriched by a brief history of children raised in the wild , including that of the child of Auvergne and Kaspar.
If I have one complaint about the book is that it ends leaving so many questions open. But then again it is the first novel of a trilogy and Auster may have some answers in the volumes to come.

I found this book to be a remarkably inventive work of fiction. Auster is a tremendously intelligent, and surprising writer who seems to create an almost continuous suspense in part by creating new mysteries and questions as he goes along. We wait and watch with the former writer Wilson Wilson now become the detective Daniel Quinn who is known to his client Shipman and his wife Virginia by the name Daniel Auster as Quinn tries to keep track of Shipman's father just released from prison who he fears being murdered by. At the end of the work we not only wonder what has happened to the younger Shipman and his wife Virginia who apparently have disappeared, but even more urgently wonder what has become of Quinn. We are not even certain where he is.
In the course of the telling the whole multiple- identity complication is informed by a discussion of fictional reality, and the text-of-reference here is Quixote. The detective Quinn goes to the house of the man whose name he has adopted, the writer Paul Auster and among things they consider Cervantes device of having the second part of his novel allegedly written by a fictional narrator.
All of the games of multiple- naming however do not diminish from the powerful real feeling created by the author, in telling for instance of Wilson's loss of his wife and son, or of what it means to him to meet a prosperous happy Auster with beautiful wife and son. The same holds true in the telling of the story of young Shipman's years of imprisonment by his father. Here the whole story is enriched by a brief history of children raised in the wild , including that of the child of Auvergne and Kaspar.
If I have one complaint about the book is that it ends leaving so many questions open. But then again it is the first novel of a trilogy and Auster may have some answers in the volumes to come.