The Question Of Genre in Paul Austers The New York Trilogy: Detective Fiction or

Self-Discovery Novel?

By turning the mystery novel inside out, Auster

may have initiated a whole new round of storytelling.
The Village Voice (USA)

1. ABSTRACT
The aim of this work is to analyze the question of genre in Paul Asters The New
York Trilogy, and explain how the topics of detective fiction, self-discovery and postmodern
mystery are portrayed in the novel. Our theoretical background is based on Swales and
Bhatias characterization and definition of genre.

2. INTRODUCTION
The New York Trilogy is a series of novellas by Paul Auster. It was published
sequentially as City of Glass (1985), Ghosts (1986) and The Locked Room (1986), and
later in one volume for the first time in 1988 in England and in 1990 in the U.S. The stories
of The New York Trilogy have been described as meta-detective-fiction, mysteries about
mysteries, a working of the detective novel, hardboiled detective story, and a metamystery.
This may classify Paul Auster as a postmodern writer whose works are influenced by the
"classical literary movement" of American postmodernism [i] through the 1960s and 70s.
The aim of this paper is to analyze the trilogy in the light of the definitions of genre
postulated by Swales and Bhatia and how the different and main characteristics of
detective fiction, self-discovery novel and post-modern mystery appear in the text. We
would like to demonstrate why we consider the novel as a group of constellations (Bhatia:
2004) in which we consider each genre as a constellation in itself.
The analysis of this paper is developed in three sections. The first is Self-discovery
novel, the second Detective Fiction and finally Post-modern mystery. Sections one and
two intend to explain how each genre is transgressed and consequently the novel could be
read in a different light: as a hybrid. Section three will try to explore some of the
stereotypical features of post-modern mystery and how they apply to the novel.

[i] A number of trends or movements in the arts and literature developing in the 1970s in reaction to or rejection
of the dogma, principles, or practices of established modernism.
3. METHODS
In order to analyze the question of genre in Austers trilogy, we base our work upon
Swales and Bhatias definition and characterization of genre and generic integrity
respectively. To begin with, we define each of the characteristics of Detective Fiction, Self-
discovery novel and Post-modern mystery. In order to prove our hypothesis, we explore
the novel taking into account: the development of the plot, the characters and their
imaginary world, and the themes and motifs.

4. THEORETICAL BACKGROUND
According to Webster's Third New International Dictionary a genre is a distinctive
type or category of literary composition. Today this concept is quite easily used to refer to
a distinctive category of discourse of any type, spoken or written, with or without literary
aspirations. In spite of the great amount of work that has been done to define genre, it is
still a fuzzy concept.
Some of the theories that attempted to define genre were carried out by specialists
of distinctive fields like literature, linguistics, sociolinguistics among others. However we
would like to point out four approaches which we consider to be paramount for our
interests.
Firstly, we would like to mention Swales working definition of genre, in which he
posits that a genre is a class of communicative events, the members of which share some
set of communicative purposes. These purposes are recognized by expert members of the
parent discourse community, and thereby constitute the rationale for the genre. This
rationale shapes the schematic structure of the discourse and influences and constraints
choice of content and style. In addition to purpose, exemplars of a genre exhibit various
patterns of similarity in terms of structure, style, content and intended audience.
Secondly, we want to consider, among the literary studies mentioned by Swales,
Todorovs theory on Transgression as a source of genre generation. He claims that The
fact that some works disobey their genres does not mean that those genres necessarily
disappear. Transgression, in order to exist, requires regulations to be transgressed. The
norms only retain visibility and vitality, by being transgressed. This is the process of genre
generation (Swales: 1990).
An appreciation of genre is necessary if not sufficient- condition for appreciation of
literature. Thirdly, Fowler stresses the value of genre to the writer and he says that Far
from inhibiting the author, genres are a positive support. They offer room, one might say,
for him to write in a literary matrix by which to order his experience during composition ()
the writer is invited to match experience and form in a specific yet undetermined way
(Swales: 1990). From our point of view, Paul Auster transgressed many of the Detective-
fiction genre features to create a new genre.
Finally, we would like to mention Bhatia's generic integrity theory which is a
concept that allowed us to determine the kind of work Auster wanted to achieve in relation
to the internal and external aspects of the genre in question. Bhatia states that generic
integrity is a socially constructed typical constellation of form-function correlations
representing a specific professional, academic or institutional communicative construct
realizing a specific communicative objective of the genre in question. (Bhatia: 2004)
In the light of all these theories we want to show our view and our analysis on Paul
Austers The New York Trilogy.

5. THE NEW YORK TRILOGY ANALYSIS

5.1 Self-discovery novel
A strong theme of identity runs through the three novelle of The New York Trilogy,
something particularly important in post-modernism. But, unlike an ancient hero, who set
out to a voyage in which he dared to face many challenges in order to find his true identity,
Austers hero struggles to make his life meaningful by de-centering his self or disguises
himself by alienating his own identity. When this illusory world collapses down and faces
his real self, he realizes that the world in which he lives is nowhere but a waste land.
Quinn, for example, in City of Glass seems to have a fluid identity, becoming by turns
William Wilson, Max Work and Paul Auster. In Ghosts identity seems arbitrary and
superficial. All of the characters are named after colours, suggesting that their names and
identities are simple and unimportant, as superficial as a colour, in a world where Black
may indeed turn out to be White. The theme of identity is similarly explored in The Locked
Room with the narrator publishing Fanshawes work, which many people believe to be his
work, and moving in with his wife, seemingly taking over his life and identity.

In City of Glass is a detective writer who once lost his family and eventually, his
psychological unity. Therefore, he thinks nothing makes sense in his life any more.

A part of him had died, he told his friends, and he did not want it coming back to haunt
him. It was then that he had taken on the name of William Wilson (Auster,1990: 4).
 He escapes his own identity in order to not to remember the memories once he
had. He uses a pseudonym of William Wilson. Here, Quinn tries to make his life
meaningful by living in invented names, characters, and world.

His private-eye narrator, Max Work, had solved an elaborate series of crimes, had suffered
through a number of beatings and narrow escapes, and Quinn was feeling somewhat
exhausted by his efforts. Over the years, Work had become very close to Quinn. Whereas
William Wilson remained an abstract figure for him, Work had increasingly come to life. In
the triad of selves that Quinn had become (Auster,1990: 6).

A wrong telephone number then sets Quinn out to a new fractured subjectivity in
which he disguises himself as a private detective named Paul Auster. Since he isn't who
he is, it is so easy for him to become someone else. He always longs to behave like Max
Work and this is a good opportunity to escape from Quinns meaningless life by using a
false identity named Paul Auster. Quinn progresses through the boundaries between
reality and delusion.

Quinn is so immersed into solving Stillmans affair that he lives in a garbage can to
follow Stillmans each step. These lines show that Quinn alienates to his own self as not to
know his own image at the mirror.

He had been too busy with his job to think about himself, and it was as though the
question of his appearance had ceased to exist. Now, as he looked at himself in the shop
mirror, he was neither shocked nor disappointed. He had no feeling about it at all, for the
fact was that he did not recognize the person he saw there as himself. He thought that he
had spotted a stranger in the mirror(Auster,1990: 117)

When the case is over, his own world is reduced to nothing. He ceases to exist as
Paul Auster and when he steps into his own apartment, he realizes that everything has
changed. There is nothing left belonging to Quinn. The apartment was hired to someone
else.

In the second novella we are introduced to Blue, a student of Brown, who has been
hired by White to watch for Black. From a window of a rented room on Orange Street, Blue
keeps watch on his subject, who is across the street staring out his window. However,
Blue is hired to observe nothing. Actually there is no case to solve. The whole story is
occupied by Blues day to day observations of Black.
 Paul Auster gives us hint that all the characters are nothing more than ghosts
without the other. So the more Blue enters into the world of Black, the more he falls into
the black pitch of his self. Just how Stillman makes Quinns life meaningful, Black does
the same for Blue. There is something common in both: they lose their selves in other
identities

For in spying out at Black across the street, it is as though Blue were looking into a mirror,
and instead of merely watching another, he finds that he is also watching himself.
(Auster,1990: 142)

He picks up the papers he has stolen, hoping to distract himself from these thoughts. But
this only compounds the problem, for once he begins to read them, he sees they are
nothing more than his own reports. There they are, one after the other, the weekly
accounts, all spelled out in black and white, meaning nothing, saying nothing, as far from
the truth of the case as silence would have been. (Auster,1990: 185)

In the third novella, The Locked Room, the central character embarks on a search
for a good friend, Fanshawe, who has gone missing, and is slowly drifted into his life as he
begins to document it. As the story develops, the narrator moves in with Fanshawes wife,
marries her and adopts his child, at the same time, he finds out that Fanshawe is not dead,
but alive. Moreover, he realizes that his actions have been exactly what Fanshawe wanted
to happen and eventually they meet. This is the only novella in the book to be written in the
first person and therefore the search for identity appears even more obvious here.

The nameless narrator establishes Fanshawe as his doppelgnger at the beginning

of the novella:

It seems to me now that Fanshawe was always there. He is the place where everything
begins for me, and without him I would hardly know who I am. We met before we could
talk, babies crawling through the grass in diapers, and by the time we were seven we had
pricked our fingers with pins and made ourselves blood brothers for life. Whenever I think
of my childhood now, I see Fanshawe. He was the one who was with me, the one who
shared my thoughts, the one I saw whenever I looked up from myself. (Auster,1990:195)

Fanshawe and the narrator are just like twins. Even their physical appearance is
almost the same. When Fanshawes mother sees the narrator, she says:
You even look like him, you know. You always did, the two of youlike brothers, almost
like twins. I remember how when you were both small I would sometimes confuse you
from a distance. I couldnt even tell which one of you was mine. (Auster,1990:256)

The more he thinks of Fanshawe, the more he exists. Like Quinn, Blue, His search
of Fanshawes traces takes him to his own demise, his own nothingness.

Each story begins with the detectives quest for a case imposed by external forces,
gradually transforming to a quest for self-discovery, revealing the true nature of the case
as one of reversal of roles and ultimately reveals the impossibility and futility of explanation
and rationalization in a practically multiple, and versatile world, as expressed by the
nameless character of The Locked Room:

In general, lives seem to veer abruptly from one thing to another, to jostle and bump, to
squirm. A person heads in one direction turns sharply in mid-course, stalls, drifts, and
starts up again. Nothing is ever known, and inevitably we come to a place quite different
from the one we set out for. (Auster, 1987: 251)

5.2 Detective fiction

When scanning The New York Trilogy, the reader could believe that it is a pure
detective story, that it fulfills most of its characteristics. However, after a deeper reading, it
becomes evident that most of these features are flouted; it cannot be an exemplar of the
detective genre. Nevertheless, we still recognize some of them which hold the readers
attention throughout the novel.
The Encyclopedia Britannica defines a detective novel as a type of popular
literature in which a crime is introduced and investigated and the culprit is revealed. This
basic condition is not met in The New York Trilogy. In each part of the trilogy, there is
someone who is asked to observe somebody or to look for a person, but in neither case
has a crime been committed. The crime must be significant and believable, and introduced
early in the novel. It can be a murder, blackmail, a great theft, or any other crime that
justifies the detectives effort to solve it. It must be worth the readers attention and if it is
not something that could really happen, the reader may feel disappointed. Nobody cares
who stole the cookies from the cookie jar.
The plot is crucial, it must come first and each point has to be plausible; indeed, the
aim of any reader of a detective novel is to discover something, to solve a crime. The
structure of this plot is not the canonical one with a beginning, a conflict, a resolution and
an end. Of course, this does not mean that nothing happens in the story, but rather that
the structure of the plot is continually foiled. In the different novellas of Austers trilogy, the
character that plays the role of the detective transcribes events and traces marks, but his
conclusions lead to no final illumination, no discovery at all. The following are some
instances in which we see this lack of resolutions:
He had nothing, he knew nothing, he knew that he knew nothing (City of Glass)
He has learned a thousand facts, but the only thing they have taught him is that he
knows nothing (Ghosts)
What I had done so far amounted to a mere fraction of nothing at all (The Locked
Room)
By concentrating on the figure of the detective, we consider that it does not follow
the ordinary detective role; it does not fully fit the schemata that readers possess. On the
one hand, the people selected for the tasks in City of Glass and The Locked Room are not
detectives but writers, and even the subject in Ghosts is not witty enough as to help being
tricked. On the other hand, by trying to unravel the mysteries of another mans mind, they
set on a journey of self-discovery triggered by the analyses of the people they are
observing, pondering upon how the others actions relate to and affect them. Characters in
detective novels tend to work simply for justice, whereas in Austers trilogy the characters
embark on the task with a personal aim. At the beginning of City of Glass, the reader
learns that the protagonist agrees to take the case because he has not got much going on
in his life, and in The Locked Room it is the nostalgia for an old friend that leads to the
decision to help find Fanshawe. Hence, from the start the focus is not on the crime but on
what happens to the detective. In fact, none of the situations are solved by the end. The
detectives in The New York Trilogy are not in control of the situations, and as they
advance in the cases they become more disjointed, which means that not only are they
incapable of solving the mysteries, but they are also incapable of discovering their own
selves either.
In a detective novel, the protagonist is faced with dangers and events that put at
stake his moral integrity. This characteristic is present in The New York Trilogy, each of
these instances being an occasion for the subject to perform an introspective analysis. In
the end, there is a personal cost to the protagonist in each of the parts of the novellas,
since the detectives are always changed after the investigation.
 In addition, one of the basic features of a detective story is that the detective must
be memorable. This character must be clever and possess an outstanding characteristic
that sets him apart from the crowd. By contrast, in Paul Austers trilogy the characters end
up being the victims. The detectives in the trilogy are never after the right people but nor
are they able to approach the right person. Each story begins with a case imposed by
external forces, gradually transforming the investigation into a self-discovery quest.
Another characteristic of detectives, in general, is that they preserve their
anonymity throughout the novel, but this is not the case for all the protagonists in The New
York Trilogy. Quinn, the investigator in City of Glass, is the only character that actually
protects his anonymity, he preserves his identity: when he writes his detective novels, he
uses another name and when he plays the role of the detective in Stillmans case, he uses
Paul Austers name. Additionally, Quinn adopts the name and appearance of other people
to approach the suspect. The same happens with Blue, the protagonist of Ghosts, but
conversely, he collapses by the end and reveals his identity to Black.
The detective must solve the case using rational and scientific methods. As a
consequence, the solution must be logical and obvious. When the detective reveals how
he has managed to solve the crime, the events should unfold in a natural way. It has to be
clear how all the pieces of the jigsaw puzzle fit together. In The New York Trilogy, the
pieces remain loose and no case is resolved; on the contrary, more uncertainty is created.
A very important element in this type of fiction is the clues. All the clues that are
discovered by the detective along the narration must be available to the reader too, since
the latter must be given the same opportunity to solve the crime. Of course red herrings
are allowed, as long as the detective is similarly deceived by them. Analyzing clues and
trying to solve enigmas are clearly one of the basic strategies of this kind of writing. A clear
example can be found when in the first novella Quinn is disillusioned because he is unable
to solve the case and recalls what he thinks is important for a good detective: He had
always imagined that the key to good detective work was a close observation of details.
The more accurate the scrutinity, the more successful the results. (City of Glass) Then he
starts tracing the movements Stillman had made during his wanderings through the park,
to see if he could find a clue to solve the case or to know the suspects following step.
Through the analysis of Stillmans routes, Quinn discovers that the mans wanderings
formed some letters that eventually formed a word. Through this example, we can see the
importance of how clues are basic elements in detective writing.
 Both, the detective and the culprit, must be introduced early in the novel: the
detective as the protagonist, and the criminal, or all the suspects. So that the reader can
analyze from the beginning the possible suspects including the culprit. This will generate
some kind of mental contest between the reader and the detective in the race to solve the
crime, which must also be introduced early since it is what calls the readers attention and
what motivates him to continue reading.
The culprit is not a common person but a worthy opponent who has been capable
of committing the crime. The reader must believe the villains motivation and must be
impressed by his intellect and skills. The revelation of the culprit must be left to the very
end of the novel. Readers seek to find out by themselves whodunit that is their purpose.
If the culprit is revealed too early, then the reader will have no reason to continue reading
and he might put the book aside.
Generally, the private eye in detective novels sees the world from the perspective
of the average citizen, rather than from an educated one. This is typical of a genre born
from the phenomenon of modern urbanization. The city in The New York Trilogy has a
major prominence since it is the scenario in which the characters move and hide from one
another. Unlike what happens in typical detective novels, the private eye is not a flaneur
since he does not just observe the city and its characters, but he seems to be immersed in
a labyrinth which at times turns against the protagonist.
Following the previous reasoning, when the problems are beginning to be tackled,
new possibilities emerge, new mysteries arise preventing the reader from uncovering the
whole story. While the novellas should become clear and transparent in the end, they
become darker as each of the protagonists life and the reader only ends up with more
questions than answers. Nothing is discovered and each of the three stories ends at a
point which can serve as a new beginning. In other words, in the three stories, the process
of discovering clues to the cases becomes futile. For instance, in City of Glass, just as
Quinn thinks he is sure he has found Stillman, another man precisely like Stillman appears
so that he cannot determine the identity of the true one. By the end of the story, he is not
certain whether he has followed the right person. Likewise, in Ghosts, Blue finds that he
has been the object of Blacks intentions. Even in The Locked Room, Fanshawes friend
discovers that he has taken the path already determined for him by Fanshawe.
Even though it is possible to establish parallels between Austers work and the
hard-boiled detective story, the deviations from the prototypical exemplar of the genre are
too numerous and too essential for The New York Trilogy to be considered a typical
detective fiction.

5.3 Postmodern mystery

As we have seen, The New York Trilogy challenges traditional detective fiction and
does not seem to fit neatly into one category. However, this novel has been described as
the pure and essential essence of a postmodern work of fiction as it resembles much of
the characteristics of this new genre in terms of structure and content. The classic
detective story increases the suspense of the narrative by excluding some details that the
detective has already grasped and comprehended until the final resolution of the plot.
However, postmodern fiction deals with the overthrow of the traditional customs of the
detective story so as to transcend the intrigues of the mystery plot.

In contrast to detective fiction, postmodern fiction rejects the notion of universal

truths and plays with the possibilities of interpretations, multi-perspectives, uncertainties
and contradictions. Postmodern novels touch the subjectivity of human consciousness so
the reader finds multiple, shifting, overlapping truths. Postmodernism remains
contradictory, offering only questions, never final answers. There is no actual crime, but
we discover a whole world of clues along the way.

When it comes to structure, postmodern literary work does not profess to be a

coherent whole and subverts both the expectations of narrative closure and of the
disclosures previously provided by the narrator. We do not see the prototypical structure of
a detective novel: a beginning, a conflict, a resolution and an end. Instead, we see new
possibilities emerge as the mysteries are beginning to be solved. Nothing is ever known
and each novella concludes in a place that is different from the one it sets out for. The
three stories seem to leave the reader with more questions than they originally had. All
these features concerning structure challenge the prototypicality of the traditional detective
fiction genre.

As regards content, we can find many of the features commonly associated with
postmodern mystery:

1) It is a metafictional work: a theory of writing fiction through the practice of writing

fiction. The reader must keep in mind that what he reads is only a plot and not
reality. In Ghosts, for instance, the reader may find it difficult to decipher whether
the writer of the story is Auster himself as the author of the book, or Black and Blue
as characters writing in the fiction itself.

2) A postmodernist text renders the reader an active participant during the reading
process in which the reader is the one who makes sense of the text.

3) Another characteristic of postmodern mystery that is also present in the first

novella, City of Glass, is the appearance of the author as one of the characters
when Quinn meets the man whose identity he had taken since the beginning.

4) There is no crime, but plenty of clues. Quinn follows Stillman and he realizes that
the mans erratic wanderings resemble the following letters: OWEROFBAB. Quinn
relates these letters with The Tower of Babel, but nothing from these clues is finally
discovered, because there is actually no crime to be investigated.

5) The heroic qualities of the detective are undermined. In City of Glass, Quinn
pretends to be a private detective but actually he knows nothing about crime: Like
most people, Quinn knew almost nothing about crime. He had never murdered
anyone, had never stolen anything, and he did not know anyone who had. He had
never been inside a police station, had never met a private detective, had never
spoken to a criminal. Whatever he knew about these things, he had learned from
books, films, and newspapers. (Auster: 1988)

6) There is a focus on intertextuality. In City of Glass, Quinn writes his works under
the name of William Wilson. William Wilson is a short story by Edgar Allan Poe. It
was published in 1839, with a setting inspired by Poe's formative years on the
outskirts of London. The tale follows the theme of the doppelgnger. The
word doppelgnger is often used in a more general sense to describe any person
who physically or behaviorally resembles another person.

7) We do not meet real detectives in this book; instead, we find writers who get
caught up in strange mysteries. In City of Glass, the first novella in the trilogy, the
protagonist is a writer of detective fiction who finds himself involved in an adventure
after being mistaken for a real private investigator. In The Locked Room, a failed
author becomes obsessed with a successful novelist who disappeared and devotes
his life to tracking him down.
6. CONCLUSION

7. BIBLIOGRAPHY
Auster, P (1988). The New York Trilogy. Great Britain: Faber and Faber Limited.
Bhatia, Vijay K. (2004), Worlds of Written Discourse. A genre-based view. Chapter
1: Perspectives in Written Discourse, pp 3-26; Chapter 5: Generic Integrity, pp
112-152. London, Continuum.
Swales, John M. (1990), The concept of genre, Chapter 3. In: Swales, John M.,
Genre Analysis: English in Academic and Research Settings. London: Cambridge
Applied Linguistics.
Merriam-Webster (10 ed.).(1993). Springfield, MA: Merriam-Webster
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