Re: RARA-AVIS: Auster's *City of Glass*

elliott vanskike (elliott@inav.net)
Thu, 27 Nov 1997 12:47:45 +0000 Hi all:

The Auster autobio is pretty bad (pick up *Invention of Solitude* if you
want a good Auster memoir). It only makes up about 90 pages of the
book--the rest is his previously published detective novel *Squeee Play*
(as others on the list have noted), a baseball flip card game, and three
early plays. I'm a pretty big Auster fan, and I didn't find much of it
interesting or well written (it's for huge fans and scholars only, I'd
say). *Squeeze Play* is the best part--a pretty good straight mystery
novel. But the bio fits more into the so-what writing of *Mr. Vertigo*
and *Country of Last Things*. For me Auster is either very impressive
(as in the *New York Trilogy*, esp. *City of Glass*) or just ho-hum. A
note on the graphic novel version of *City of Glass*. It's good but
it's no substitute for the novel, which sinks you much more deeply into
the existential dread of the main character.

Special to Michael Sharp: Curious to hear more of your experiences
about teaching Auster, as I'm writing about him now and am designing a
course now that would include the *New York Trilogy*.

Elliott Vanskike
Univ. of Iowa

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