Hello Gentle Reader
The whodunit of the mystery fiction is something of quite popularity. Who could forget Crime Scene Investigation (CSI) set in Las Vegas, then Miami, and then New York. The way the scientific facts of how to solve a crime, are done, became something of great interest to everyone. Soon everyone saw everything, of how a crime can be solved. They saw how fingerprints can make a difference. How a simple strand of hair can become evidence, and solve a crime. How all the evidence can eventually cause the killer to then, confess to the crime that they had. Though of course, it became common knowledge after a while, that this was just fictional of course. That a crime cannot be solved in such a short time. In fact, hair analysis is costly and is usually not the most preferred way to find DNA. Yet still, families everywhere, sat with their dinners at the television, watching the bright colours, and the scientific methods of how blood is analyzed, how murders are caught, and how justice is served. But the fun part was between commercial breaks, everyone was trying to figure out who committed the murder. But before Crime Scene Investigation: Las Vegas; Miami, and New York – there was Sherlock Holmes, Hercule Poirot, and of course there was C. Auguste Dupin, the ((arguably) first detective of the ((arguably) first detective story by Edgar Allan Poe.
A Nobel Laureate in Literature T.S. Eliot called Wilkie Collins novel “The Moonstone,” “the fist, longest, and the best of the modern English Detective novels . . . in a genre invent by Collins not by Poe.” But the Golden Age of the Gentleman Detective novel, changed to the Private Eye novel, championed by Raymond Chandler with his private investigator Philip Marlowe. Of course from there, the detective novel and stories evolved into police procedurals and the psychological thriller that Patricia Highsmith herself, championed with her shadowy world, of moral ambiguity especially with her anti-hero Tom Ripley. From there the great detective and the crimes committed by men and women; had shifted and turned into great different novels, over the years. “The Name of the Rose, “ by Umberto Eco features William of Baskerville (“The Hound of the Baskervilles anyone?) who is a Catholic (specifically Franciscan) Friar, and takes on the job of solving the murder case. For the younger readers there always was “The Hardy Boys,” and “Nancy Drew,” who solved mysteries.
It should not come to a surprise that before I got into the great literature – I started to read classics when I was young; that I read some mystery and crime fiction. The thrill of reading the chase, how the case was solved – and of course the fun of trying to solve it one’s self, was the great fun of the detective fiction. But when I discovered Michael Slade, the pen name of a few authors – Jay Clarke, John Banks, Lee Clarke, Richard Covell, and Rebecca Clarke; however Jay Clarke is the predominate author of the team. With his novels “Swastika,” “Deaths Door,” “Burnt Bones,” and others – with their brutal violence, and interesting perspective into the psychological horror of the criminally insane mind, I found a group of books that I thought would be possible to love forever. However eventually they too, proved to be following the same formula, which eventually lead to the abandonment of even Michael Slade.
“City of Glass,” by Paul Auster – the first novel in his “New York Trilogy,” felt like a, homage to the detective novel and the genre that through the years and the ages, has evolved and become something of its own character. Even the way the book was written. The minimalist surface details of the day to day mundane routine had the same aspect of the character Daniel Quinn. A routine, that after careful observation are acutely in place for the main character to avoid grief over his loss of his wife and son. Daniel Quinn the main character of this novel, is a writer. He writes under a pseudonym William Wilson.
Daniel Quinn, in his earlier years had written poetry and other works of literature, but now under the pseudonym of William Wilson, he writes detective fiction, with his fictional detective Max Work. The death of his son and wife, is what caused the change from Daniel Quinn’s serious literary output to, that of a writer who writes under a pseudonym, producing a detective novel once a year, for finical reason.
As by chance and coincidence, late at night the phone rings to Daniel Quinn’s home, and he answers the phone. On the other, the person asks to speak to the private investigator Paul Auster. Daniel Quinn, can only tell them, that they have the wrong number. But the caller is persistent in their pursuits of wanting to talk to Paul Auster. This continues time after time, and eventually out of curiosity – and slight irony Daniel Quinn takes the identity of Paul Auster, and decides to become a private investigator, and agrees to the appointment and to meet his client.
Upon meeting his appointment – the Stillman’s, Daniel Quinn, meets some odd characters. Virginia Stillman, is a beautiful woman, and immediately arouses sexual longing in Daniel Quinn playing the charade of Paul Auster. Quinn then meets, Peter Stillman. An odd character if anything, who speaks absolute nonsense in a monologue, about his father, a deeply deranged man, and his absence and isolation from human society and human contact other than his father, who after his wife’s death, decided to prove some deranged theory of language with an experiment with his son. It becomes apparent then Peter Stillman, the senior, is being released from an asylum for the criminally insane. It then becomes Quinn’s – or who they believe as Paul Auster; duty to protect Peter Stillman, the junior.
What happens next is a surreal and confusing twist and turns of philosophical puzzles and the nature of language and the linguistic zeal and the theory of the pure language that Adam and Eve, had spoken in the Garden of Eden, that Paul Stillman, the senior, wished to show existed with his cruel experiment with his son, which later turned him into a feral child. While reading Peter Stillman’s theory of language and his experiment that issued social isolation of his son, reminded me of a feral child known as “Genie.” For the first thirteen years of her life, this child “Genie,” was isolated from the rest of the world, by her parents. Restrained to a toilet training chair, and indications express that she was beaten whenever she made noise. Through the critical stages of her childhood she never learned to speak. However in nineteen-seventy, November the fourth, Genie was discovered – the social worker who first saw her thought she the child was six or seven years old. Her father committed suicide after he discovered that Genie had been rescued. After her rescue Genie was placed in the care of the state, doctors and scientists tried to get the young child to talk. But their efforts proved to be a success in some areas, but after a while, she could no longer go on. Genie eventually lost funding for the project, and she was placed in numerous foster homes. It’s become known that she has since relapsed into her earlier state of a coping mechanism, and chooses silence, after the beatings and harsh treatment of the foster homes. Her current whereabouts and now current name have not been disclosed.
But the feral child that is more or less alluded to in this novel is the feral child Victor of Aveyron.
Days of trailing Peter Stillman senior lead to nothing – and after slowly confronting the man, does Quinn learn much about the Peter Stillman. However, when he loses Stillman one day Quinn begins a decent into madness. He finds Paul Auster – but Auster is not private detective at all, but rather a writer as well, who is familiar with Quinn’s earlier work – his poetry to be more specific. However, Auster proves to have everything that Quinn wished he had. A wife and a child. Quinn leaves in worst shape then he came there too.
What happens next is the slow psychological downfall of a man whose psyche was not all there in the beginning. Quinn’s precious routine, is soon falling apart. Unable to cope with the thought of letting Peter Stillman the junior die or get hurt by his father, Quinn takes extraordinary and insane measures to make sure he has complete watch over his clients. What ensures are surreal events. Quinn learns numerous aspects of the case, and eventually finds his entire life has fallen apart around him.
The ending leaves one with quite a twist and a sense of an empty ending. A wondering of what happened. What had one just experienced? It leaves one feeling a bit empty at times, with the thought of what had just been through with the main character. It was unsettling and the ending hit quite the punch at the end.
However there were some problems in my opinion with the novel. It sat a lot of the time heavily on a very minimalist style, which can give the prose a very lifeless feel to it. There were not a lot of descriptive scenes. It almost felt like everyone should know their way around New York, which after a while felt a bit like a pity. I wish there were some landscape descriptions of the apartments, and the surrounding city, it would give a much better feel to the place. Because of the way it was written, it often felt a bit cold, and a bit lifeless. But the twist and the turns, and the layering of reality and identity was good.
Thank-you For Reading Gentle Reader
Take Care
And As Always
Stay Well Read
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