Spoilers ahead

Daniel Quinn writes mysteries under the pseudonym William Wilson. An unknown voice on the telephone is now begging for his help, drawing him into a world and a mystery far stranger than any he ever created in print.

Honestly, I find this book difficult to review because it goes against everything a mystery novel is. The detective, Daniel Quinn, isn't a detective. He's a writer of detective fiction. He is hired to protect Peter Stillman from his father, but the father isn't after Stillman. Stillman doesn't need protecting. There isn't a mystery. There isn't a conspiracy, but Quinn acts as if there should be. He spends days and months trailing Stillman Sr, who spends his days walking around New York City and picking up various broken things. That's it. He's not out to hurt his son. He's just an insane old man. But Quinn continues to trail him and when he can't because Stillman Sr seems to have disappeared, he camps out in front of Peter Stillman's house, rarely sleeping and eating very little in order to maintain constant surveillance. He keeps expecting Virginia Stillman, Peter's wife, to become the infamous femme fatale, which she doesn't because this isn't a standard work of detective fiction.

And if that doesn't defy your expectations enough, there's the issue of identity in this book. Daniel Quinn is an empty character. He doesn't have much motivation or thoughts. He writes one or two mystery novels a year, under the name of William Wilson, and that's about it. However, when he is asked to take on the Stillman case, he decides to emulate Max Work, his idol, and also the fictional detective in his novels. In a sense, Quinn becomes a false detective both in name and occupation since he's not really a detective and he's not really on a case.

It's an odd book and a hard one to review. Looking back on my own review, I don't think I make it look very desirable to read, but I do encourage you pick it up and give it a try. It's fairly short and reads quickly. Even if you don't try to read too much into it, the surface story is fairly interesting as well. ( )

Das schlechteste Buch, das ich je gelesen habe: Weil mein Freund Reich-Ranicki zu diesem Buch den Kommentar abgab "...der Auster ist immer interessant. Ein geistreicher Schriftsteller!" habe ich dieses Buch gelesen.
Null Handlung bis zum bitteren Ende, ständig erwartet man, dass es jetzt ja bald mit einer wahnsinnigen Wende losgeht...Reich-Ranicki hat's ja gesagt...Fehlanzeige bis zur letzten Seite.

Ein Privatdetektiv, der nicht weiß, wer er ist und sich deshalb wie der Buchautor nennt, läuft 170 Seiten planlos durch ein surreales New York, lebt dann als Penner und endet nackt in einer leeren Wohnung.

Erinnerte mich an Kafkas "Verwandlung", wo der Hauptdarsteller glaubt, er sei eine Riesenkakerlake.

I have to admit, I find "City of Glass" to be a very difficult book to review. From the very beginning it deviates from the expectations of a detective novel by the fact that the protagonist, Daniel Quinn, is not an actual detective, but rather an author of pulp detective fiction... though even that isn't cut and dry as he writes his detective novels under the pen name of William Wilson, an empty persona he created for himself after his original life as a serious writer came crashing down with the death of his wife and child (referenced, but never explained in the book). Quinn identifies more with the protagonist of the detective series, Max Work, than he does with William Wilson, so when he gets a series of phone calls, seemingly to a wrong number, for a Detective Paul Auster, he decides to create yet another persona, this time based on his fictional character Max Work, and take the case.

If that seems complex, wait until you read the book. However, be warned, if you are expecting an actual detective story, as I was when I looked at the cover and picked it up, you should look elsewhere.

After claiming to be Detective Paul Auster and agreeing to help the troubled man on the phone, he heads to the man's apartment the following morning. There he meets Peter Stillman, a sort of a puppet of a man. You see, as a child, Peter Stillman had been imprisoned for 9 years in a dark room by his father (also named Peter Stillman), convinced that if raised in isolation the child would eventually begin speaking in God's language, the true language of creation, which was spoken througout the world before the fall of the Tower of Babel. Since being freed from that captivity Peter has managed, somewhat to function as an actual human. However, his father is to be released from the assylum the following day and he asks Auster (Quinn) to protect him. While the story begins in the guise of a standard detective story, after about the first hundred pages it veers off into existenialism as Quinn plummets into madness while following the case.

While I honestly was disappointed by the fact that I hadn't picked up an actual mystery and wasn't prepared for where the book took me, I have to say I was really fascinated by a number of the conversations that took place within the book. The conversations between Quinn and Peter Stillman (Jr. & Sr.) were truly amazing. The son talks as one who dances around words he is unable to find truth in. "I am Peter Stillman. That is not my real name. Thank you very much." The talks with his father delve into the power and indeterminate nature of language. Going back to "God's Language" from an earlier chapter, we learn that "Adam's one task in the Garden had been to invent language, to give each creature and thing its name. In that state of innocence, his tongue had gone straight to the quick of the world. His words had not been merely appended to things he saw, they had revealed their true essences, had literally brought them to life A thing and its name were interchangeable. After the fall this was no longer true." Later in the book, in one of his conversations with Quinn, he uses an umbrella to demonstrate this:

"When I say the world 'umbrella' you see the object in your mind. You see a kind of stick, with collapsible metal spokes on the 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 the umbrella, in that it serves a function. 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 get drenched. Is it possible to go on calling this object an umbrella? In general, people do. At the very limit, they 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."

This and other passages really engaged me as I was reading the story. At other points in the novel Quinn manages to track down the only Paul Auster in the city... and rather than being a detective, it turns out he is a writer. If that name hadn't caught your attention earlier, take a look at the author of "City of Glass". Hmm... it appears he inserted himself into the book and is now talking with his protagonist. At another point Quinn writes amazingly insightful observations on the ranks of homeless in the city... shortly before he becomes one of them himself. Elsewhere he ponders the true meaning behind the "It" in "It is raining" or "It is dark." What is this "It"?

These are the things that kept me reading the novel... I was personally disappointed in the actual story. That is partly because I was expecting a detective novel, but also because I'm also not a big fan of existentialist literature. I wanted however, to show that I did find a lot of stimulating material within the book... but I don't believe I will go on to read the other 2 books that make up "The New York Trilogy". Because of my false-expectation when I started reading the book, which lead to disappointment, I won't be giving a star rating.

Post-modern, metafictional identity crisis. Who is this protagonist? Is he Daniel Quinn (who shares initials with Don Quixote), bereaved father and widower, or is he William Wilson, and which Wilson - Mets ballplayer or mystery writer? Does he channel the fictional detective, Max Work, or the real author, Paul Auster, who is mistaken for a detective in his own book? And all those father-son duos with mix-and-match names - the two Peter Stillmans, Sr and Jr, Daniel and Peter Quinn, Paul and Daniel Auster. Don't forget the 17th century pamphlet writer, Henry Dark (who shares initials with Humpty Dumpty.)

"In the good mystery there is nothing wasted, no sentence, no word that is not significant. And even if it is not significant, it has the potential to be so - which amounts to the same thing. The world of the book comes to life, seething with possibilities, with secrets and contradictions. Since everything seen or said, even the slightest, most trivial thing, can bear a connection to the outcome of the story, nothing must be overlooked. Everything becomes essence; the center of the book shifts with each event that propels it forward. The center, then, is everywhere, and no circumference can be drawn until the book has come to its end." (15)

"Quinn was deeply disillusioned. He had always imagined that the key to good detective work was a close observation of details. The more accurate the scrutiny, the more successful the results. The implication was that human behavior could be understood, that beneath the infinite facade of gestures, tics, and silences, there was finally a coherence, an order, a source of motivation. But after struggling to take in all these surface effects, Quinn felt no closer to Stillman than when he first started following him." (105)

I place this item on a none-too-tiny list of literary Rorschach tests. Unconvinced? Please sample any ten of my fellow reviewer's estimates of the "meaning" of this book.
The best parts of this book are the hero's various meetings with the two Peter Stillmans, father & son. The dialogs between Quinn and these two grotesques are very amusing. Interesting use of the author as character in his own fiction -- though not as entertaining as other masters of this specialty: Roth (P.), Vidal, Mailer. ( )