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.