I have to say, I was a little wary of the book at first, but I absolutely love it so far. I guess instead of commenting, I'll ask some of my questions. What is the significance of Auster incorporating his own name into the story? Why does Still man ask for Paul Auster, and why does Quinn assume Paul Auster's identity. I tried and tried to think of possible symbolism, and I couldn't. Also, why is Work capitalized? Clearly, it is to show a certain amount of importance and I feel it is almost to make it personified, but I don't see much of a point. That's all for now

Quinn assumes Paul's identity in order to try and remove himself from his own reality. It is for similar reasons that he publishes under a different name and identifies with the detective in his novels. If he imagines that he is someone else then he is able to at least temporarily forget or repress memories of his life before the death of his wife and son. He is also bored with his routine of writing mystery novels and wandering around New York, activities which he sees as devoid of purpose. Taking on the role of Paul Auster gets him one step closer to the detective character in his novels, which he has created only through second hand accounts of detecting, and may perhaps give him an activity that he finds rewarding.

I agree, a reason Quinn assumes the identity of the detective is to be the smooth detective he writes about and wishes to be. Quinn writes mystery novels and his fictional character actually gets to live them!

As Quinn becomes the character he created, the novel's real author "Paul Auster" becomes a character. In order to create a believable character a writer has to really get into his character's head. Could it be that the real Paul Auster became so consumed with creating the world within the novel that he got zapped into this mystery? Or maybe he was just being vain and wanted to put his name in the novel and get to play the great detective.

I think Quinn is this detective because he makes himself believe that he is Paul Auster at times. I think this says something about identity. Something along the lines of: you are who you think you are. If he believes he is this detective, he will think, act, and live like Paul Auster and eventually his new identity will become his reality and his life as quinn will be behind him.

I was thinking today about how Quinn's "quest" as a detective was Quixotic, with the end seeming to be a mirror for what would have happened to Don Quixote in postmodern times.

Then I remembered a comment Josh had made in class: he found Auster's inclusion of Don Quixote arrogant, as if by including Cervantes, Auster was foisting himself into the canon to be recognized alongside his literary "peers." I think the inclusion of Don Quixote and the literary criticism of Cervantes in City of Glass actually did the opposite. Instead of highlighting his own originality, Auster reminded us that the first Western novel ever written questioned the ideas of truth and reality. Auster therefore shows us that his novel is just a permutation of the same problems with authorship, ownership, language, and reality that have been debated since people have had language, especially written language, and that he is not particularly original for having those thoughts.

Hmmm...this is my 1st time checking in, but I do want to ask anyone's (or everyone's) opinion about something...Any chance that Quinn is Auster? That all that endless repetition about a wrong number or switched wires is just the literary version of protesting too much?
All of the Don Quixote comments in class (and in-book) were stewing in my mind so I was struck by the similarities between the two writers when they met. (ok, ok, I do acknowledge Auster could just be the equivalent of Sancho Panzo, a chronicler, but...)
It seems to me that the character of the 'real' Auster is the Ideal-Quinn, or even just Quinn before the Fall, (or should I say prelapsarian?!) The Fall I'm talking about is the loss of his wife and son which were the embodiment of Paradise for Quinn. Now he is totally lost and so benumbed by despair that he will so anything to put off the moment of reckoning when his body and psyche come back together. Clearly he has done anything, from taking on multiple identities to ultimately denying his own true name, Paul Auster, when he is called on the phone at the start of the story. The ultimate escapism- become somebody new- Quinn the Twin, the shredded remnants of Auster's life. Coupled with all of the discussion in class about the name William Wilson being from a Poe story about a man with a doppelganger and all of the references within the book to opposites and doubles...it all seems to come together to portray the before and after version of the same man.

i was somewhat disoriented with auster's use of 'the fall' as mythic in some shape or form. i immediately thought of joyce's finnegans wake, but maybe i just dont much about biblical lore. i know of a 'fall from grace' in which man loses divinity in becoming human, ergo an imperfect being or species, which would then make sense of stillman's quest to repair or return to a state of being prior to this 'fall.' in finnegans wake the fall is more than certainly a falling into language as we now know it and see it; once more: this idea ties into stillman's quest.

I tend to side towards Larissa's views on some matters. The book tries to subtly mask the connection, but there is so much circumstance and direction towards the singularity of all the characters.

Also, I wanted to point out the concept of "invisibility" in society, as coined by Ellison in "Invisible Man." It seems to be an over-arching theme that can be related to Quinn's ability to find a reason to exist (Tower of Babel syndrome heh). Does the author try to question our roles in life and society?

it is interesting that Faryan mentions invisibility: quinn assumes the identity of one that does become just this, and all he himself tries to see is a person that never shows up - even obsessively, to the point of becoming a bum just waiting to see stillman. and i want to dicuss the ending here too (if you've gotten there you know what im talking about) but i will refrain from doing so until the thread tells me not to.

Something interesting to point out with regard to the Don Quixote connection: Daniel Quinn has the same initials as Don Quixote. In light of our class discussion on the book, I doubt this is coincidental.

The idea of invisibility is interesting, especially in light of the fact that now we can stay in touch with current events via email, internet based news sites, radio, tv, and even cell phones and blackberries. It is hard to believe that we can even be out of touch, but I am sure that all of us have gone on vacation or just spaced out for a few days and missed a major event. In this light it is easy to see how Quinn missed the event at the end of the book, but it is not easy to see how he got to the point where he allowed himself to be so invisible for so long without the temptation of knowing what was going on in the world. Most of us are so attached to the technology and means of communication that are available today, even unconsconsiously so because it has become a part of our daily routines, that we can not fathom being as out of touch or invisible as Quinn becomes and for as long.

This seems to be one of the very human elements in the novel. We follow the course of a man's life for a short period of time, and even though we do not know him intimately at the outset, we know he has suffered a great tragedy and has found an at least partial way to cope with his pain. Some of the events that we witness through his records in the red notebook show that he is reminded of his past life and his loss through fleeting triggers to his memory. It is not until the intermediate stage of his life in the novel where he deals with his denial and detachment from his old life. It is not until his second major loss -- that of the Stillman case, which gave him an alternative life to live -- that he is able to accept his initial, real loss and realize the consequences of being detached from his contemporary society. It is at this point that he appears to come to terms with his situation and know that when he comes to the end of his red notebook he must either rejoin society and resume his life as Quinn,or else fade again into invisibilty.

Auster plays with names throughout the novel, and one statement in particular caught my attention. In his declaration approximating, "This is my name, this is not my name," I can only assume that he is attempting some grand statement on the ambiguously defined boundaries of the self.

However, putting forth the idea that I could somehow be Darrell Forbes whilst not being Darrell Forbes is exactly as it appears: ludicrous. Auster seeks to collapse the binary of self and other. He seeks to banish the name as an indicator of self, because the term "self" refers only to a bundle of perceptions whose edges are blurred and blended with those of its surroundings.

The entire known world behaves in this fashion, suspended in a web of binaries. The very human habit of categorization (into selves, others, these and those) entails making divisions in indivisible space, of valuing one sort of feature over another. For example, a beauty contest makes no mention of the cholesterol level of each entrant. Those attributes which are irrelevant to the category lie beyond the border between category and noise, and it is unclear to which group the border itself actually belongs.

None of this allows Auster to have a name whilst not having it. Either he is a bundle of perceptions, or there is no self. In the former case, he is named Paul Auster. In the latter, there are no people, and maybe not even minds exist.

Isn't that exactly what Auster is getting at in pages 89-90 with the whole "word play" with Quinn's name? Within the context of the voice of crazy Stillman Sr., Auster is able to address the concept of the name or an idea as simply being a signifier and not a word or grouping of sounds that has an inherent meaning or ability to succinctly define the character of a certain person.

Darrell...I see what you are saying, and you express yourself in a way that makes me feel totally inarticulate, but let me ask you (and everyone) one important thing.
You said that it is 'ludicrous' to somehow be both Darrell Forbes whilst not being Darrell Forbes.
Aren't you missing one major thing...the overriding concept that you are absolutely not your name?
Just in case I am not being as clear as I should, let me illustrate.
If I ask you, 'who are you?' and your reply is, 'Darrell Forbes.' I would then respond, 'no, D.F. is your name. I didn't ask your name, I asked who you are...'
What then could you tell me? What could anyone? You are not your name and neither is anyone else. If those two words encompassed everything about you, then there wouldn't be any other human being with that first and last name. There couldn't be, because the entire essence of you would be summed up in the name: Darrell Forbes. Just like the part in the book about Adam in the Garden naming creatures/things. The name he spoke was what that animal/thing truly was, not just an approximation of sounds to represent the idea of a thing.
This is what Dr. MGK was getting at in class, with the whole cat thing. Because there are millions of cats in the world, but what about a specific cat, like someone's pet? Again, if pressed, one might tell you the cat's name, but does that name truly equal the being of that cat? It's individual personality and history and temperment, etc.? If we were what we are called, then our names alone would not just represent the idea of us, but the entirety of all that we are and will be.

Larissa, your reply reminds me of a Borges story called "Funes the Memorious." The object of the story, Ireneo Funes, has a memory of unlimited depth and power. As a result of his filmic recall, Funes finds it ridiculous to suggest that a dog viewed from the side and then, seconds later, viewed from the front, is even the same animal. He has no need of categorization, as he can consume and regurgitate every unit of his perception without having to distinguish between signal and noise.

Funes makes the habit of calling his every acquaintance by their full name. In conjunction with his refusal to acknowledge identity in what is, for him, a necessarily undifferentiated gestalt of perception (i.e. experience), this behavior indicates that, though Funes does not view the world as continuous or interconnected, he is willing to play by its rules for the practical purposes of interacting with other people. In reciting the full name, however, Funes demonstrates that he resists the simplistic human tendency to categorize so that one might forget some details while equivocating on others.

Basically, you're right. I am not a symbol, and in our attempt through language to achieve consensus about our referents, we often make the mistake of assuming identity, or being too free in our assignment of it. The name as an indicator is as useless a datum as any other characteristic of our selves that does not contain in it the whole of our existence and influence. However, such a great containing-word cannot be other than an infinite string of symbols, nearly as rich and complex as the person it fails to describe.

Ack!!
Once more, Darrell, you leave me feeling utterly unable to express myself with any real skill.
You must write brilliant papers. :)
Borges, huh? I've never read anything by him but will definately check him out.