![]() ![]() Paul Auster’s New York Trilogy, published in the mid-eighties remains a classic of postmodern writing, although notably absent is the quality of absurd playfulness that the postmodern is often accused of employing to make nothing much matter. And yet at the same time, the cool, measured voice of the narrative continues, unruffled, indomitable, because even when stories don’t work out and solutions can’t be found, there are still things to say. Whereas the classic piece of crime fiction prides itself on solving puzzles, finding answers and producing meaning, these postmodern versions watch truth, identity and storytelling fall apart. In each story, the lone male protagonist takes on a quest to find, protect or observe another person, and in each case they become so obsessed with their prey, so hollowed out from projecting themselves into the fantasy outlines of another, that their own identity shivers on the brink of implosion. ![]() ![]() In these three long short stories, Paul Auster takes the formulas and conventions of the detective story and gives them a good shaking. ![]()
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