49 pages • 1 hour read
Paul AusterThe New York Trilogy
Fiction | Novel | Adult | Published in 1985A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.
Symbols & Motifs
Solitude
Solitude is a recurring motif in The New York Trilogy, affecting each of the three protagonists and connecting the loneliness of the writing process to the exploration of the inner self. In City of Glass, Quinn, a writer, is a lone figure. Haunted by the loss of his loved ones, Quinn leads a solitary life writing detective novels. He finds comfort in the fictional protagonist of the novels, Max Work, who becomes “his comrade in solitude” (6). Quinn finds a new sense of purpose in the Stillman case, but its outcome isolates him even more. Unable to solve the mystery, Quinn stakes out the Stillmans’ apartment, avoiding other humans as he realizes “the true nature of solitude” (118). In the end, he returns to the solitude of the writer, sequestering himself in a room and writing in the red notebook.
In Ghosts, the protagonist, Blue, is a detective unaccustomed to being alone. However, when White hires him to watch Black, his newfound solitude causes him to turn inward, and he realizes that his inner self is unknown to him. Over the course of the story, introspection transforms his character. He begins to write stories but does not experience writing as an “escape”; rather, he feels “condemned […] to experience life only through words, […] only through the lives of others” (171-72). He becomes more and more disconnected from reality as he watches Black and writes about him, but it isn’t until he runs into his former fiancée that he realizes how solitude has changed him. When Blue enters Black’s room in hopes of finally understanding the mystery, he sees it as “a no man’s land” (187), proof of Black’s statement that “writing is a solitary business” (178).
The narrator in The Locked Room longs for solitude while he works on Fanshawe’s biography. For him, solitude is a consequence of his desire to understand a man’s life. Fanshawe, a writer, is also a solitary figure who connects to the world only through his writing. Studying his letters, the narrator realizes that for Fanshawe “[s]olitude became a passageway into the self, an instrument of discovery” (278), and this contributes to his success as a writer. Ultimately, solitude connects to the idea of the “locked room,” alluding to the inaccessible self and the process of exploring human life through writing.
The Red Notebook
The red notebook is a motif that first appears in the City of Glass and recurs in The Locked Room. The red notebook represents the writer’s tool and contains fragments of thoughts, observations, and literary inventions. More broadly, the red notebook represents the attempt to create a coherent meaning from a series of random, absurd events.
In City of Glass, Quinn feels the urge to buy a new notebook as “a separate place to record his thoughts, his observations, and his questions” (38). He is drawn to the red notebook, feelings that its “unique destiny in the world was to hold the words that came from his pen” (38), and it becomes increasingly important to him as he tries to make sense of Stillman’s movements. The red notebook is also a structural tool in the narrative. It helps Quinn keep his mind concentrated on Stillman and “[offers] him salvation” (62). While Quinn is following Stillman around New York, he notices that the old man also writes in a red notebook. Quinn records every detail of Stillman’s movements in the red notebook, but “the meaning of these things [continues] to elude him” (58). Quinn writes as he walks and the notes become hard to decipher, “worthless” to him. The red notebook reappears at the end of the story, as Quinn sequesters himself in the empty apartment room, writing until the notebook’s pages end. Quinn’s endeavor remains incomplete, hindered by the constrictions of the writer’s tools.
The red notebook reappears at the end of The Locked Room. Fanshawe gives a red notebook to the narrator as the only explanation to his life’s story. The narrator feels a “great lucidity” as he reads the notebook but ultimately it doesn’t offer him the understanding he seeks. The story remains “unfinished” and “open.” The narrator tears out its pages, marking the end of the trilogy.
New York
Throughout the trilogy, New York City represents the postmodern Western landscape, where identity exists in fragments. In City of Glass, New York is described as “an inexhaustible space, a labyrinth of endless steps” (3). Quinn wanders around the city to escape his inner self. Even though New York is a familiar space to him, it simultaneously feels alienating, always leaving Quinn “with the feeling of being lost” (4). It contributes to Quinn’s isolation and individualism. For Quinn, “New York [is] the nowhere he [has] built around himself” (4). Stillman also describes New York as a postmodern space, a city where “the brokenness is everywhere, the disarray is universal” (78). Ultimately the city’s fragmentation leads to Quinn’s loss of identity.
In Ghosts, Blue’s despair over his isolation leads him to wander around the city. Leaving the room, Blue finds pleasure walking around the neighborhood and discovering parts of the city he never noticed before; the city streets provide a welcome respite from his thoughts on Black’s case. Still, the city is not an altogether positive space. The narrator in The Locked Room delineates New York as a New World country with “slow skies, […] chaotic streets, […] bland clouds and aggressive buildings” (287). New York remains an ambivalent setting that disrupts identities, reflects the characters’ fragility, and their feelings of alienation.
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