DOCSLIB.ORG

Download Article (PDF)

Total Page：16

File Type：pdf, Size：1020Kb

Download full-text PDF Read full-text
Download Article (PDF) Advances in Social Science, Education and Humanities Research, volume 142 4th International Conference on Education, Language, Art and Inter-cultural Communication (ICELAIC 2017) Urban Crisis Writing in Paul Auster‟s Novels Long Shi College of Foreign Languages Pingdingshan University Pingdingshan, China Abstract—In Paul Auster’s Novels, the writer pays special ecology of the human species. Strictly speaking, the humans attention to the urban crisis writing: spiritual and ethical crisis, of the age of affluence are surrounded not so much by other the racial prejudice and terrorist violence. In various crises in human beings, as they were in all previous ages, but by the city, compared to the mild spiritual and ethical crisis, the objects”[1]. In the traditional sense, the object of the racial prejudice is more radical, even violent, while the crisis consumption is goods, or the direct object is the value of the reaches the peak in terrorism. Auster’s consciousness of the use of goods, which is to meet people‟s physical and urban crisis is unprecedented, and the urban crisis writing physiological needs. In modern time, the meaning of occupies a prominent position in the literary imagination, consumption changes a lot. In consumption, the objects which becomes the central theme and the starting point of his become signs, “In order to become object of consumption, thinking. Auster’s writing on different crises expresses his the object must become sign; … it becomes “personalized,” critical thinking on the city of the past and present as well as his concern on the city in the future. and enters in the series, etc.， it is never consumed in its materiality, but in its difference” (ibid). In city, the signs, the Keywords—Paul Auster; novels; urban crisis writing basic elements of consumer society, are full of life. On the surface, people consume objects; actually, they consume the image and signs disguised as an object it becomes. I. INTRODUCTION Although Edward Glaeser, in Triumph of The City, In Timbuktu, through a dog‟s consciousness, Auster enthusiastically praises the city as the great miracle and expresses his concern of people‟s dilemma in a consumer exalts the prosperity of the city, he intentionally neglects the society. Willy‟s Americanization process starts with playing challenges and crises the city faces. Developing up to present, “stickball in the streets, read Mad Magazine … and listened city has become a “soft” opened Pandora box which is full of to Buddy Holly and the Big Bopper” (TB 15). Willy the unprecedented crises. Some crises even have endangered constructs his identity through cultural consumptions as the existence of human beings. In his novels, Auster makes a Hugh Mackay interpretes Baudrillard‟s statement: “We close description of various crises in city. For Auster, the become what we consume” [2]. Willy is manipulated to form intention of writing the urban crises is not just to expose an identity within the framework of fixed Americanization them, he urges us to attach great importance to the crises. that is presented to him through the producers, mainstream This paper firstly examines the spiritual and ethical crisis of culture. Among the goods, he consumed since a little boy, city life—the consumption controlled by technology and hair trainer is just the tip of the iceberg, castor oil, pot cheese, media, the deconstructed traditional ethics and the lumpy porridge, Blackjack gum. “We all grew up with that entertainment of gambling. Then the racial prejudice in city junk”, there are some other useless bits of knowledge. Under in novels will be analyzed, which is centered on the the influence of consumer culture, people admire the prejudice against the black and Jews. Last but not least, celebrities, hoping to gain something important to him. terrorist violence will be explored, especially Auster‟s However, that is not real, it is simulations, as Baudrillard attitude and his own understanding of war on terror. states, “to simulate is to feign to have what one does not have” [3]. The emergence and prosperity of mass media accelerates the symbolization of consumption and change the II. THE CITY AND MENTAL LIFE: SPIRITUAL AND way of consumption. Media is not a traditional propaganda ETHICAL CRISIS tool, it can not only endow the products a variety of meaning, but also induce the desire of consumer and produce endless A. Consumption: Systematic Act of the Manipulation of consumer demand through the spreading of concept and Signs significance. The simulation world is constructed through the Jean Baudrillard argues that the capitalist society has media, like TV and film. What the media present us is the entered consumption-oriented society since 1960s, “There is “true lies” or “false real”, what people see is the processed all around us today a kind of fantastic conspicuousness of simulation, like what the prisoners see in the cave. consumption and abundance, constituted by the Advertisements set up the real stage for simulacra, as multiplication of objects, services and material goods, and advertisements for “Pall Malls and shopping malls, Milton this represents something of a fundamental mutation in the Berle and Burl Ives, Ivory soap and Aunt Jemima pancake”, This paper is a part of project: PXY-BSQD-2018019, and sponsored by which is well illustrated by Baudrillard‟s remarks Pingdingshan University. Copyright © 2017, the Authors. Published by Atlantis Press. This is an open access article under the CC BY-NC license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/). 662 Advances in Social Science, Education and Humanities Research, volume 142 “advertising is perhaps the most remarkable mass medium of Regardless of the size of the city, their performances are very our age” [4]. Facing and living in the simulacra since very popular. “Most of the work took place in and around young, Willy realizes the unreality of life. In his identity Chicago, but some bookings came in from as far away as construction, the food and soap labels and advertisements Minneapolis, Detroit, and Cleveland.” The venues varied plays an important role, which marches through his brain like “ranged from nightclubs to hotel suites, from warehouses “long-lost brethren”. and brothels to office buildings and private homes.” The audience sometimes “consisted of about a hundred For Willy, simulacrum resulted from consumption is spectators” and sometimes “just one (repeated on ten omnipresent and omnipotent, therefore, Willy managed to separate occasions for the same man).” They performed both make adjustment within the simulation. In his college days, on larger gatherings (bachelor parties, birthday celebrations) he tried to escape from everything through ingesting in drugs, and the smaller groups. The contents of the acts varied and then he returned to his mother‟s apartment. One day, it according to the wishes of the clients, “Sometimes Hector was two-thirty in the morning; a vision on TV enabled his and Sylvia put on little plays…based on the most transmission into his own simulacrum. In his vision where he conventional erotic daydreams”. saw Santa Clause talking to him through the TV set. The shopping on Christmas Eve is a carnival and feast of the The incest, usually taken as an aberration, a crime against consumption culture in city. Willy knew Santa was fake for God, nature, humanity, has been considered as one of the Christmas on the street, let alone on TV. But out of curiosity most widespread cultural taboos. In Invisible, Walker states or he wanted to make sure he wasn‟t having another his incest story with his sister in second person narrative in a breakdown, Willy turned the television back on and he found book written for his college friend, Jim, now a famous writer. Santa Clause, the simulated hero figure he watches on the Walker and his sister were in New York, they are no longer screen, lectured for frightened and bewildered Willy, Willy the floundering, ignorant puppies they were on the night of wept his eyes out as he begged for mercy and promised to the grand experiment, and what they are doing now is “a mend his ways. Finally, he creates the meaning and aim in monumental transgression, a dark and iniquitous thing his life. Willy‟s vision becomes “more real than the real”. according to the laws of man and God”. In Invisible, incest Having decided to turn himself into a saint, Willy quickly has not been an abiding theme anymore, especially in city changes his last name to Willy Christmas and has himself life. Auster turns his attention to the cultural meaning of tattooed with a picture of Santa Clause early morning next memory and trauma. Walker and his sister Gwyn have day. Therefore, Willy creates his own simulacra within the trauma caused by their family life and the death of their simulacrum of TV. While Baudrillard puts forward his brother. Auster brings to the forefront the relationship theory of simulacra in consumer society, the novelist Auster between the protagonist‟s traumatic experience and literature. takes his theory further in his novel. In Timbuktu, readers The literary study of incest in Invisible can sharpen our enter into a simulacrum created by Auster, “where, dogs tell awareness of trauma not only as a personal, but also as social stories and think, where Santa Clause could speak to people and cultural experience. Oracle Night is set in Brooklyn, from inside the TV set, where the dead people move to a New York. As Auster argues in an interview, “Oracle Night place called Timbuktu in which dogs can also speak just like is also a dark book” [6]. Orr wrote the relation, incest human beings” [5]. between Trause and Grace: first in Portugal, then in New York before Orr and Grace get married, and during the B.
Load more

Recommended publications
  • A Case Study on the Two Turkısh Translatıons of Paul Auster's Cıty Of
    Hacettepe University Graduate School of Social Sciences Department of Translation and Interpretation A CASE STUDY ON THE TWO TURKISH TRANSLATIONS OF PAUL AUSTER’S CITY OF GLASS İpek HÜYÜKLÜ Master’s Thesis Ankara, 2015 A CASE STUDY ON THE TWO TURKISH TRANSLATIONS OF PAUL AUSTER’S CITY OF GLASS İpek HÜYÜKLÜ Hacettepe University Graduate School of Social Sciences Department of Translation and Interpretation Master’s Thesis Ankara, 2015 iii ÖZET HÜYÜKLÜ, İpek. Paul Auster’ın Cam Kent adlı Eserinin İki Çevirisi üzerine bir Çalışma. Yüksek Lisans Tezi, Ankara, 2015. Bu çalışmanın amacı, Paul Auster’ın Cam Kent romanının iki farklı çevirisinde çevirmene zorluk yaratacak öğelerin çevirmenler tarafından nasıl çevrildiğini Venuti’nin yerlileştirme ve yabancılaştırma kavramları ışığı altında analiz ederek çevirmenlerin uyguladıkları stratejileri tespit etmektir. Bunun yanı sıra Venuti’nin çevirmenin görünürlüğü ve görünmezliği yaklaşımları temel alınarak hangi çevirmenin daha görünür ya da görünmez olduğunu ortaya koymak amaçlanmıştır. Bu amaç doğrultusunda, çevirmenler için zorluk yaratan öğelerin sıklıkla kullanıldığı ve postmodern biçemiyle bilinen Paul Auster’a ait Cam Kent adlı eserin Yusuf Eradam (1993) ve İlknur Özdemir (2004) tarafından Türkçe’ye yapılan iki farklı çevirisi analiz edilmiştir. Bu eserin çevirisini zorlaştıran faktörler; özel isimler, kelime oyunları, bireydil, dilbilgisel normlar, tipografi, gönderme ve yabancı sözcükler olmak üzere yedi başlık altında toplanmış olup Cam Kent romanının iki farklı çevirisinde tercih edilen çeviri stratejileri karşılaştırılmıştır. Bu karşılaştırma, Venuti’nin çevirmenin görünmezliği yaklaşımı temel alınarak hangi çevirmenin daha görünür ya da görünmez olduğunu incelemek üzere yapılmıştır. İki çevirinin karşılaştırmalı analizinin ardından, iki çevirmenin de farklı öğeler için yerlileştirme ve yabancılaştırma yaklaşımlarını bir çeviri stratejisi olarak kullandığı sonucuna varılmıştır.
    [Show full text]
  • Pastiche in Paul Auster's the New York Trilogy
    qw Advances in Language and Literary Studies ISSN: 2203-4714 Vol. 7 No. 5; October 2016 Australian International Academic Centre, Australia Flourishing Creativity & Literacy Pastiche in Paul Auster’s The New York Trilogy Maedeh Zare’e (Corresponding author) Islamic Azad University, Tehran Central Branch, Iran E-mail: [email protected] Razieh Eslamieh Islamic Azad University, Parand Branch, Iran Doi:10.7575/aiac.alls.v.7n.5p.197 Received: 17/06/2016 URL: http://dx.doi.org/10.7575/aiac.alls.v.7n.5p.197 Accepted: 28/08/2016 Abstract This article is a Jamesonian study of Auster’s The New York Trilogy in which one of Fredric Jameson’s notions of postmodernism, pastiche, has been applied on three stories of the novel. This novel is one of Auster’s outstanding postmodern works to which Jameson’s theories of postmodernism, in particular, pastiche can be applicable. Pastiche has been defined by Fredric Jameson as an imitation of a strange style and contrasted to the concept of postmodern parody. This article indicates that theory of pastiche can be applied on both the form and content of three stories of the above mentioned novel. Keywords: Pastiche, Parody, Depthlessness, Historicity 1. Introduction Paul Benjamin Auster (1947) is one of the most influential American postmodern authors, whose works mostly mix realism, experimentation, sociology, absurdism, existentialism and crime fiction. Pastiche, intertextuality, aesthetic dignity and Auster’s own appearance in his works, such as City of Glass (1985), are also some of the features of his works. The search for identity and self-discovery can be found in his works such as The New York Trilogy (2015)1, Moon Palace (1989), The Music of Chance (1990), The Book of Illusions (2002), and The Brooklyn Follies (2005).
    [Show full text]
  • Download Article (PDF)
    Advances in Social Science, Education and Humanities Research, volume 289 5th International Conference on Education, Language, Art and Inter-cultural Communication (ICELAIC 2018) A Review of Paul Auster Studies* Long Shi Qingwei Zhu College of Foreign Language College of Foreign Language Pingdingshan University Pingdingshan University Pingdingshan, China Pingdingshan, China Abstract—Paul Benjamin Auster is a famous contemporary Médaille Grand Vermeil de la Ville de Paris in 2010, American writer. His works have won recognition from all IMPAC Award Longlist for Man in the Dark in 2010, over the world. So far, the Critical Community contributes IMPAC Award long list for Invisible in 2011, IMPAC different criticism to his works from varied perspectives in the Award long list for Sunset Park in 2012, NYC Literary West and China. This paper tries to make a review of Paul Honors for Fiction in 2012. Auster studies, pointing out the achievement which has been made and others need to be made. II. A REVIEW OF PAUL AUSTER‘S LITERARY CREATION Keywords—a review; Paul Auster; studies In 1982, Paul Auster published The Invention of Solitude which reflected a literary mind that was to be reckoned with. I. INTRODUCTION It consists of two sections. Portrait of an Invisible Man, the first part, is mainly about his childhood in which there is an Paul Benjamin Auster (born February 3, 1947) is a absence of fatherly love and care. His memory of his growth talented contemporary American writer with great is full of lack of fatherly attention: ―for the first years of my abundance of voluminous works.
    [Show full text]
  • An Analysis Of" City of Glass" by Paul Auster in Terms of Postmodernism
    International Journal of Languages’ Education and Teaching Volume 5, Issue 1, April 2017, p. 478-486 Received Reviewed Published Doi Number 17.01.2017 16.02.2017 24.04.2017 10.18298/ijlet.1659 AN ANALYSIS OF CITY OF GLASS BY PAUL AUSTER FROM A POSTMODERNIST PERSPECTIVE1 Mehmet Cem ODACIOĞLU 2 & Chek Kim LOI3 & Fadime ÇOBAN4 ABSTRACT This study analyzes City of Glass, a postmodernist detective novella (or anti-detective) of the New York Trilogy by Paul Auster in terms of postmodernist elements and techniques such as metafiction, parody, intertextuality, irony. In doing so, some information about Auster’s life and the plot of the work are also offered to the reader to make the analysis more concrete. Last but not least, this study is also thought to be useful for students enrolled in English Language and Literary Departments for them to understand the movement of postmodernism. Key Words: City of Class, postmodernist detective fiction, anti-detective, metafiction, parody, irony, intertextuality, pastiche. 1.Short Biography of Paul Auster Paul Auster is an American-Jewish essayist, novelist, translator, poet, screenwriter and memoirist, who was born in Newark, New Jersey on February 3, 1947. Auster lived in a middle class family and spent some of his childhood in the Newark suburbs of South Orange and Maplewood. However, in 1959, his family moved into a large Tudor house. Auster's uncle, Allen Mandelbaum was a translator and left his books for him to read there when he decided to make a journey to Europe. Auster read all of these books which encouraged him to be interested in writing and in literature.
    [Show full text]
  • Notes On/In Paul Auster's Oracle Night
    RSA Journal 14/2003 PIA MASIERO MARCOLIN Notes on/in Paul Auster's Oracle Night Encountering a footnote is like going downstairs to answer the doorbell while making love. Noel Coward I tried to use certain genre conventions to get to another place, another place altogether. Paul Auster Paul Auster's twelfth novel, Oracle Night, is the account of nine days in the life of Sidney Orr told by himself twenty years later. The nine days, starting "on the morning in question — September 18, 1982— " (189) span a (retrospectively) crucial moment in the life of the protagonist/narrator who, while recovering from a near-fatal illness is won back to his job — writing — by a close friend of his, the acclaimed writer John Trause, and by the spellbinding power of a newly acquired blue Portuguese notebook. John Trause (and the new notebook) intrigues him into trying to write a variation of an episode in Hammett's The Maltese Falcon in which a man walks away from his wife and disappears after going through a near-death experience. Almost halfway through the book, the novel progresses on a double track: on the one hand, Sidney Orr's therapeutic walks, his everyday life with his beloved wife Grace and his friend John, and on the other, Nick Bowen's story, his flight to Kansas City, his friendship with a retired taxi-driver, Ed, whom he helps in the heavy 182 Pia Masiero Marcolin job of reorganizing his collection of phone-books in a deserted underground warehouse in which he eventually gets trapped.
    [Show full text]
  • Prophecy and Ontology in Paul Auster's Oracle
    The Burden of Proof: Prophecy and Ontology in Paul Auster’s Oracle Night A thesis submitted to the faculty of San Francisco State University In partial fulfillment of The requirements for The degree Master of Arts in English: Literature by Maximilian Rankenburg San Francisco, California May, 2005 The Burden of Proof: Prophecy and Ontology in Paul Auster’s Oracle Night Maximilian Rankenburg San Francisco State University 2005 The Burden of Proof: Prophecy and Ontology in Paul Auster’s Oracle Night is a structuralist reading of Auster's text. By examining the relationship between the structures of the text, and of its protagonist-narrator, I reveal, primarily and specifically, the complex narrative surrounding the question of identity, and formally, the strange border between structuralist and post-structuralist approaches to literature. The essay is in three parts. I begin my investigation with analysis of the concept of an oracle. What does the idea of prophecy do to a normal definition of narrative? I use throughout my essay, more as a heuristic and test-site for my investigation than analogy, the figure from Delphi in Oedipus the King. The second theme, rising from Oedipus's difference with Jocasta – meaning is ab extra; meaning is ab intra – concerns structuralism, or the reassemblage of narrative-parts in an effort at revealing the intelligible function of the whole. The third theme concerns the shortfall of a structuralist view. I do not go so far as to compare my approach to a post-structuralist one; but I make it clear that Sidney Orr's project at memoir, and Oracle Night, indict a form of structuralism.
    [Show full text]
  • The Embodied Author: Problems of Authorship in the Work of Paul Auster
    The Embodied Author: Problems of Authorship in the Work of Paul Auster 1 Larissa Schortinghuis 3602249 1 Drawing by M.C. Escher, Drawing Hands (1948). 1 Acknowledgments It took quite a lot of effort to work out the ideas for this thesis and I would like to credit the people who have helped me enormously while I was working on it. First I would like to thank my thesis supervisor, Susanne Knittel, for making this a fun experience and being just as excited about the ideas as I was. Secondly, I would like to thank Marloes Hoogendoorn for the idea of putting Escher’s drawing on my front page and general support. Thirdly, I want to thank Victor Louwerse heartily for putting up with all my ranting and excitement when I figured out all the arguments and for giving me the final criticism when I needed it. Lastly, I would like to thank Japke van Uffelen, Annemarie Sint Jago and Laura Kaai for being my personal cheerleaders when things didn’t go so well. 2 The Embodied Author: Problems of Authorship in the Work of Paul Auster In 1968 Roland Barthes declared that the Author was dead. No longer was there one overruling interpretation that critics could find by going on a scholarly treasure hunt (Barthes, The Death of the Author 1325). The figure called the Author, that was presented as the God of his work and whose intentions were the key to deciphering his text, had now lost his authority. The reader was empowered and the author’s reign was over.
    [Show full text]
  • “Then Catastrophe Strikes:” Reading Disaster in Paul Auster's Novels and Autobiographies « Then Catastrophe Strikes
    Université Paris-Est Northwestern University École doctorale CS – Cultures et Sociétés Weinberg College of Arts & Sciences Laboratoire d’accueil : IMAGER Institut des Comparative Literary Studies Mondes Anglophone, Germanique et Roman, EA 3958 “T HEN CATASTROPHE STRIKES :” READING DISASTER IN PAUL AUSTER ’S NOVELS AND AUTOBIOGRAPHIES « THEN CATASTROPHE STRIKES » : LIRE LE DÉSASTRE DANS L’ŒUVRE ROMANESQUE ET AUTOBIOGRAPHIQUE DE PAUL AUSTER Thèse en cotutelle présentée en vue de l’obtention du grade de Docteur de l’Université de Paris- Est, et de Doctor of Philosophy in Comparative Literature de Northwestern University, par Priyanka DESHMUKH Sous la direction de Mme le Professeur Isabelle ALFANDARY et de M. le Professeur Samuel WEBER Jury Mme Isabelle ALFANDARY , Professeur à l’Université Paris-3 Sorbonne Nouvelle (Directrice de thèse) Mme Sylvie BAUER , Professeur à l’Université Rennes-2 (Rapporteur) Mme Christine FROULA , Professeur à Northwestern University (Examinatrice) Mme Michal GINSBURG , Professeur à Northwestern University (Examinatrice) M. Jean-Paul ROCCHI , Professeur à l’Université Paris-Est (Examinateur) Mme Sophie VALLAS , Professeur à l’Université d’Aix-Marseille (Rapporteur) M. Samuel WEBER , Professeur à Northwestern University (Co-directeur de thèse) In memory of Matt Acknowledgements I wish I had a more gracious thank-you for: Mme Isabelle Alfandary , who, over the years has allowed me to experience untold academic privileges; whose constant and consistently nurturing presence, intellectual rigor, patience, enthusiasm and invaluable advice are the sine qua non of my growth and, as a consequence, of this work. M. Samuel Weber , whose intellectual generosity, patience and understanding are unparalleled, whose Paris Program in Critical Theory was critical in more ways than one, and without whose participation, the co-tutelle would have been impossible.
    [Show full text]
  • Paul Auster's Travels in the Scriptorium and Philip
    Review of International American Studies VOL. 3.3–4.1 WINTER 2008 / SPRING 2009 ISSN 1991–2773 EDITORS EDITOR -IN -CHIEF: Michael Boyden ASSOCIATE EDITOR : Paweł Jędrzejko and Cyraina Johnson-Roullier RIAS IT AND DTP TEAM IT ADVISORS: Tomasz Adamczewski and Wojciech Liber (SFH) GRAPHIC DESIGN AND DTP ADVISOR: Michał Derda-Nowakowski (ExMachina) EDITORIAL BOARD Theo D’haen, Anders Olsson, Liam Kennedy, Sieglinde Lemke, Giorgio Mariani, Ian Tyrrell, Helmbrecht Breinig, Rosario Faraudo, Djelal Kadir TYPESETTING ExMachina Academic Press / Wydawnictwo Naukowe ExMachina (Poland) www.exmachina.pl Review of International American Studies ( RIAS ), is the electronic journal of the International American Studies Association, the only worldwide, independent, non- governmental association of American Studies. RIAS serves as agora for the global network of international scholars, teachers, and students of America as hemispheric and global phenomenon. RIAS is published three times a year: in the Fall, Winter and Spring by IASA with the institutional support of the University of Silesia in Katowice lending server space to some of IASA websites and the electronic support of the Soft For Humans CMS Designers. Subscription rates or RIAS are included along with the Association’s annual dues as specified in the “Membership” section of the Association’s website (www.iasaweb.org). All topical manuscripts should be directed to the Editor via online submission forms available at RIAS website (www.iasa-rias.org). General correspondence and matters concerning the functioning of RIAS should be addressed to RIAS Editor-in-Chief: University College Ghent Department of Translation Studies Groot-Brittanniëlaan 45 B-9000 Ghent Belgium e-mail: [email protected] On the RIAS cover we used the fragment of “Security”, a work by CarbonNYC licensed under Creative Commons Attribution 2.0 Generic.
    [Show full text]
  • Writing the 9/11 Decade
    1 Writing the 9/11 Decade Charlie Lee-Potter A dissertation submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements of the degree of PhD ROYAL HOLLOWAY UNIVERSITY OF LONDON 2013 2 Declaration of Authorship I Charlie Lee-Potter hereby declare that this thesis and the work presented in it is entirely my own. Where I have consulted the work of others, this is always clearly stated. Signed: ______________________ Date: ________________________ 3 Charlie Lee-Potter, Writing the 9/11 Decade Novelists have struggled to find forms of expression that would allow them to register the post-9/11 landscape. This thesis examines their tentative and sometimes faltering attempts to establish a critical distance from and create a convincing narrative and metaphorical lexicon for the historical, political and psychological realities of the terrorist attacks. I suggest that they have, at times, been distracted by the populist rhetoric of journalistic expression, by a retreat to American exceptionalism and by the demand for an immediate response. The Bush administration’s statement that the state and politicians ‘create our own reality’ served to reinforce the difficulties that novelists faced in creating their own. Against the background of public commentary post-9/11, and the politics of the subsequent ‘War on Terror’, the thesis considers the work of Richard Ford, Paul Auster, Kamila Shamsie, Nadeem Aslam, Don DeLillo, Mohsin Hamid and Amy Waldman. Using my own extended interviews with Ford, Waldman and Shamsie, the artist Eric Fischl, the journalist Kevin Marsh, and with the former Archbishop of Canterbury Dr. Rowan Williams (who is also a 9/11 survivor), I consider the aims and praxis of novelists working within a variety of traditions, from Ford’s realism and Auster’s metafiction to the post- colonial perspectives of Hamid and Aslam, and, finally, the end-of-decade reflections of Waldman.
    [Show full text]
  • In Search of Self: Explorations of Identity in the Work of Paul Auster
    In Search of Self: Explorations of Identity in the Work of Paul Auster THESIS Submitted in fulfilment of the requirements for the Degree of MASTER OF ARTS in the Department of English at Rhodes University, Grahamstown, South Africa by Andrew Edward van der Vlies 1998 II ABSTRACT Paul Auster is regarded by some as an important novelist. He has, in a relatively short space of time, produced an intriguing body of work, which has attracted comparatively little critical attention. This study is based on the premise that Auster's art is the record of an entertaining, intelligent and utterly serious engagement with the possibilities of conceiving of the identity of an individual subject in the contemporary, late-twentieth century moment. This study, focussing on Auster's novels, but also considering selected poetry and critical prose, explores the representation of identity in his work. The short Foreword introduces Paul Auster and sketches in outline the concerns of the study. Chapter One explores the manner in which Auster's early (anti-),detective' fiction develops a concern with identity. It is suggested that Squeeze Play, Auster's pseudonymous 'hard-boiled' detective thriller, provided the author with a testing ground for his subsequent appropriation and subversion of the detective genre in The New York Trilogy. Through a close consideration of City of Glass, and an examination of elements in Ghosts, it is shown how the loss of the traditional detective's immunity, and the problematising of strategies which had previously guaranteed him access to interpretive and narrative closure, precipitates a collapse which initiates an interrogation of the nature and construction of ideas about individual identity.
    [Show full text]
  • The Physicality of Writing in Paul Auster's White Spaces and Winter Journal
    Angles New Perspectives on the Anglophone World 2 | 2016 New Approaches to the Body The Physicality of Writing in Paul Auster’s White Spaces and Winter Journal François Hugonnier Electronic version URL: http://journals.openedition.org/angles/1801 DOI: 10.4000/angles.1801 ISSN: 2274-2042 Publisher Société des Anglicistes de l'Enseignement Supérieur Electronic reference François Hugonnier, « The Physicality of Writing in Paul Auster’s White Spaces and Winter Journal », Angles [Online], 2 | 2016, Online since 01 April 2016, connection on 28 July 2020. URL : http:// journals.openedition.org/angles/1801 ; DOI : https://doi.org/10.4000/angles.1801 This text was automatically generated on 28 July 2020. Angles. New Perspectives on the Anglophone World is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution- NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License. The Physicality of Writing in Paul Auster’s White Spaces and Winter Journal 1 The Physicality of Writing in Paul Auster’s White Spaces and Winter Journal François Hugonnier “If it really has to be said, it will create its own form.” Paul Auster (1995: 104) 1 White Spaces is a short matrix text written by the poet, novelist and film-maker Paul Auster in the winter of 1978-1979. This meditation on the body, on silence, language and narration is Auster’s immediate reaction to his “epiphanic moment of clarity” (2012: 220, original emphasis) which happened during a dance rehearsal in New York. Initially entitled “Happiness, or a Journey through Space” and “A Dance for Reading Aloud”,1 this hybrid piece of poetic prose was retrospectively considered as “the bridge between writing poetry and writing prose” (1995: 132), and “the bridge to everything you have written in the years since then” (2012: 224).
    [Show full text]