Synopsis & Review | Ghosts from the New York Trilogy by Paul Auster, Faber and Faber, 1992 (Originally Published in 1986)

Summary Synopsis

A private detective, Blue took a riddle case by White. The request is to watch a mysterious man, Black. But, Black did not do anything. He just sat beside the window, write something, read Walden by Henry David Sorrow and took a brief stroll. To watch and to think about Black, Blue felt complex feelings mixed up friendship, calmness, worry and hostility, and a feeling to watch like a Doppelgänger. Blue searched Black by some measures, but the case didn’t make progress. About one year passed by, Black’s life didn’t vary. A summer day, Blue followed Black, Black took a seat at a lounge of a hotel, and Blue shared the table with Black. Then Black said “I’m a private detective. My current job is to watch someone. He doesn't do anything…"

Book Review

Ghosts is a novelette by Paul Auster and the second volume of his New York Trilogy. And the most symbolic and representative work of the trilogy. This novel is to be said “postmodernist literature”, but the expression and the description are plain, yet to understand the veritable meanings of content and theme is difficult. The style of this novel is unique and particular, and the description is minimal and metaphorical. This novel is a psychological and philosophical story that uses the form and style of a detective story or mystery story, describes the lack of human existence, the question for self, the emptiness of contemporary routine life and the impossibility of writing a novel or a story. Also, it’s a novelette to deconstruct the form and the significance of story or grand narrative.

Blue was requested by White, to watch and investigate Black and to send weekly reports. But Black only did his routine in solitude more than one year, and to watch Black, Blue felt a dilemma between friendship or pity and impatience or anxiety, and to watch his Doppelgänger or looking-glass self. And Blue couldn’t act freely, he was in a closed and limited situation, he reflected on his life and tormented the strange existence of Black. So this novel is a detective story without an incident and a mystery without a murder, and no significant incident occurred until the end. Half of this novel describes the contemporary sober and monotonous life and its emptiness. I think one theme of this novel is the lack of self and real existence of people live in contemporary society, and to escape from the monotonous routine life.

Characters of this novel are named by colors. It has an effect the world of this novel appears monotonous, colorless and blur to a reader. Colors are signifiers or surficial meanings of things and persons, it implies today’s people and things have no reality, soul and content. The names of colors strengthen the world of this novel become monotonous.

And the word ghost in this novel means traces or spirits of persons who passed away, and a metaphor of men of emptiness such as writers, detectives and the state of today’s people spent a vacant life. Writers and detectives think out, make up or trace others’ stories or plots, they don’t live a story of themselves. On the other hand, today’s people live in story or discours made by others or society. I think this novel splendidly succeeded to describe the nothingness and the impossibility of writing story itself by describing a novel.

In this novel, White's request is impossible at first and his aim was ambiguous. So Blue and readers seek an incident and an enigma themselves. In the other words, they seek the story and the meanings to follow.

In the end, Blue found a pile of paper in Black’s room was Blue’s weekly reports. This implies the story and the world of this novel are operated by Black. Blue was controlled by Black, also readers are controlled by him. And the story can’t be said as a proper story, it’s vain and nothing had happened. Then Blue read Black’s manuscript and he knew it was Blue’s story, Black’s biography is identical to Blue’s life or this novel Ghosts itself that we read. This novel is a novel about a novel. And, so, this novel is also a story that deconstructs and breaks out of the modern subjective structure of story.

This novel is also a story of many excellent, vivid and skillful citations and cited episodes. Citations are Blue’s aspiration in his head and his wish to escape from dull Black’s case and the unexciting life. Also, the story is made up of parts and fragments, it's the thought about the literature of Paul Auster. By Auster’s thought, a story is only built by others’ fragments and data for better or worse. And writer or novelist doesn’t write by his subjectivity.

Paul Auster deconstructed the proper story by writing a novel, and he succeeded to write a story of the nothingness or the nihilism as today’s problem of there’s no story and its meanings, the impossibility of writing by writing the nothingness itself causes the impossibility of writing a story.

I think this novel is today's existentialist novel which describes the sufferings of existence as today’s people have no self and real existence. There’s no proper, positive and subjective story. We must live in the world of emptiness, nothingness and that stories are deconstructed.

The later part of this novel is the beginning of the end, Blue said. I think this novel is Paul Auster’s end of the beginning. His beginning is this radical and brilliant deconstruction of story or novel, then his true novelist career and veritable his own grand story begun from following works.

Details of the Book

The New York Trilogy
Paul Auster
Faber & Faber, London, 2 Jun 2011
320 pages, £5.99
ISBN: 978-0571276554
Contents:

  • City of Glass
  • Ghorsts
  • The Locked Room

Related Posts and Pages

Note | Ghosts

Synopsis & Book Review | City of Glass

Note | City of Glass

Synopsis & Book Review | The Locked Room

Works of Paul Auster

Literature / littérature / Literatur Page

YouTube Paul Auster Commentary Playlist

YouTube Literature & Philosophy Channel

Best Classical Recordings
Playlist
on YouTube

Best Classical Recordings
Playlist
on Spotify

Jean-Michel Serres Apfel Café Music QR Codes Center English 2024.

Book Review | First Person Singular by Haruki Murakami, Bugeishunju, 2020

First Person Singular is a short story collection book by Haruki Murakami, originally published in 2020. This book is consist of eight short stories.

Descriptions of each of the stories are wrote by simple first person singular noun and its view. So the stories appears to be made by real personal experiences, and their mysterious occurrences and unexpected plots have certain realities and worths. I think readers should read these stories are Murakami’s real experiences. And I felt the purity of Murakami by the voice or connotation of BOKU (僕) the Japanese first person singular noun of which boys and men use and speak. (Only First Person Singular is described by WATASHI (私), the first singular noun of women and serious adult men.)

I enjoyed to read this book, but I couldn’t find new things. There are many frequently appeared motifs and storylines of Murakami’s works. For example, miserable and mysterious woman and her vanishment (Naoko in Norwegian Wood), strange old man like the God suggests a precept or gives a salvation (Colonel Sanders in Kafka on the Shore), longing for lost things (the Spaceship Pinball Machine in Pinball, 1973), black long haired beautiful girl (Naoko, the 100% perfect girl in On Seeing the 100% Perfect Girl One Beautiful April Morning), support for weak and minor things (American literature in Norwegian Wood), ugly or fat but fascinating woman (pink daughter of the docter in the End of the World), to talk with non-human beings (Commendatore in Killing Commendatore) and to wear suit rarely (Wind-Up Bird Chronicleand Murakami’s some essays). All eight stories, I feel I’ve already read in novels and essays of Murakami. It’s a kind of déjà-vu.

Yet, this book is fine and interesting, and some descriptions are beautiful or wonderful. I think the stories are one of variations of Murakami’s works. But they are splendid variations, and excellent and skilful short stories written by the great veteran novelist. So I recommend this book for lovers of Murakami’s books also first-time readers will enter the world of Haruki Murakami.

Product Details

First Person Singular (一人称単数)
Haruki Murakami
Bungeishunju, Tokyo, 18 July 2020
236 pages, JPY 1500
ISBN 9784163912394
Contents

  • On a Stone Pillow
  • Cream
  • Charlie Parker Plays Bossa Nova
  • With the Beatles
  • The Yakult Swallows Poetry Collection
  • Carnaval
  • Confessions of a Shinagawa Monkey
  • First Person Singular

First Person Singular: Stories
Haruki Murakami (Author), Philip Gabriel (Translator)
Knopf, New York City, New York, 6 April 2020
256 pages, $28.00
ISBN 9780593318072

Related Posts and Pages

Synopsis | First Person Singular

Book Review | Novelist as a Profession

Note (EN) | Novelist as a Profession

Book Review | Abandoning a Cat, When I Talk About My Father

Note (EN) | Abandoning a Cat, When I Talk About My Father

Timeline of Haruki Murakami

Works of Haruki Murakami

Literature / littérature / Literatur Page

YouTube Haruki Murakami Commentary Playlist

YouTube Literature & Philosophy Channel

French Readers and French Books List in Order of Difficulty

“Short Stories in French for Beginners (Teach Yourself Short Stories)” by Olly Richards & Richard Simcott, Teach Yourself

“French: Short Stories for Beginners” by Frederic Bibard, CreateSpace Independent Publishing Platform

“Easy French Reader” by R. de Roussy de Sales, McGraw-Hill Education

Easy French Reader by R. de Roussy de Sales is an very plain and a first French reader for beginners. This book consists of three parts ordinary conversations, French concise history and French short stories. You can learn effectively and enjoyably French by reading aloud these texts again and again. This book doesn’t contain English translations (Important words and expression of French translation are wrote.) and comments of grammar. Nevertheless, you can learn French by heart to read sentences while referring to your dictionary. And you can download MP3 files of first and third parts (120 minutes). That are very useful to confirm pronunciations and to memorize texts. I recommend this excellent reader to every French beginners.

“French Short Stories for Beginners” by Lingo Mastery, CreateSpace Independent Publishing Platform

“Le Pendentif, Short Stories in Easy French” by Sylvie Lainé, CreateSpace Independent Publishing Platform

“French: Short Stories for Intermediate Level” by Frederic Bibard & Manuela Miranda, CreateSpace Independent Publishing Platform

“Histoires à lire le soir” by Marc Thil, CreateSpace Independent Publishing Platform

“Intermediate French Short Stories” by Lingo Mastery, CreateSpace Independent Publishing Platform

“C’est la vie!, A French Reader” by Evelyne Amon, McGraw-Hill Education

« Le petit prince (Folio Junior) » de Antoine de Saint-Exupéry, Editions Larousse

The most efficientive learning foreign languages I think, is reading in practice. I think French leaners should read book by French from children’s stories while referring to your French dictionary or the English edition, rather than to keep ‘studying French’ endlessly. Reading books by French makes you memorize and learn words, phrases and grammar in contexts and contents.

Le petit prince by Antoine de Saint-Exupéry is the most famous French children’s story has a deeper insight than other average children’s books, also be suitable for adults. And another good point is there’re the audiobook and the English edition of this book. Reading the book with audiobook, hearing the audiobook makes you learn correct pronunciation of French and grasp the story profoundly. A only difficult point of this book is past sense described by the simple past tense…

This story is a beautiful, cherish and precious but painful story from the viewpoint of a child. It was described by the sensibility of a child, but therefore the little prince’s words resonate your heart.

« Petite Histoire de France, De Vercingétorix à nos jours » de Jacques Bainville

Petite Histoire de France is a highly evaluated french history book for children written by french. Also, there is audiobook edition, so you can use them as a french reader and a listening learning material.

“Short Stories in French: New Penguin Parallel Text” by Richard Coward, Penguin Books

« Le petit Nicolas » de Jean-Jacques Sempé & René Goscinny, Editions Flammarion

I recommend this children’s story to French beginners by the same reason above. There’re the audiobook and the English edition of this book which useful for beginners. There’s also the movie. This book is consists of 19 short stories and a good read for French beginners. You can increase your vocabulary and ability to read French. Also you can learn the real ordinary colloquial French expressions.

Le petit Nicolas by Jean-Jacques Sempé & René Goscinny is the stories of ordinary life of French schoolboys. They are funny and charmed but sometimes bitter. Experiences of boyhood are common to the all over the world!!! You’ll remember your sweet memories of boyhood! My favourite episode is the last episode, ‘Je quitte la maison’ which describes a common boy’s dream and ambition you also might have.

And also I recommend following series of Le Petit Nicolas, especially Les vacances du Petit Nicolas.

« La grande histoire du monde » de François Raynaert, Livre de Poche

La grande histoire du monde is a present highly reputed world history book in France. It describes the entire world history includes culture and thoughts, Asia, Africa and America concisely and neither too much nor too little. Also the audiobook version is easy to listen and useful for French learning.

« Toute l’histoire du monde: de la préhistoire à nos jours » de Jean-Claude Barreau & Guillaume Bigot, Le Livre de Poche

My recommended way to learn and grasp foreign languages is reading world history and European history books. The descriptions on history books are plain, essential and easy to understand. You should have the knowledge of history learned by schools and heard by any books or TV programs. So you would read history books in foreign languages easily. In a history book, you can partially grasp and understand descriptions in a paragraph or a chapter, rather than a novel or a philosophy book. Besides connecting knowledges among some languages are exciting and enjoyable. And… history seems to be the root and essence of story. In French, the word ’histoire’ has the means of both ’story’ and ‘history’.

Toute l’histoire du monde: de la préhistoire à nos jours by Jean-Claude Barreau and Guillaume Bigot is the plain, interesting and instructive world history book. The title is ’whole world history’, in fact this book is chronological digests of major events in world history. So you can read easily and understand.

A flaw of this book is that is described by a francocentric view. Descriptions of some incidents and great persons of French is very long! For example, Charles le Grand, Jeanne D’arc, Louis ⅩⅣ, the French Revolution, Napoleon and the French Empire, and Charles de Gaul in the Second World War. Undoubtedly France has played a principal role in the world history… Despite there are any disappointing points, this book is a great read for French learners.

“First French Reader: A Beginner’s Dual-Language Book” by Stanley Appelbaum, Dover Publications

« Profession romancier » de Haruki Murakami, Éditions Belfond

« L’Histoire du monde pour Les Nuls » de Philippe Moreau Defarges, First Editions

L’Histoire du mode pour les nuls by Philippe Moreau Defarges is a French world history book, easy but affluent in information including trivia. ’Pour les nuls’ series is the French version of ‘For Dummies’ series. But this about 500 pages book is not only a beginners guide, but also a great work to grasp the general picture of whole world history. Also space between the lines of this book is wide as for French book. So I recommend this book as a reader to French beginners and intermediates.

« Discours de la méthode » by René Descartes, Editions Flammarion

Discours de la méthode by René Descartes is a great introduction to philosophy by the greatest philosopher, a masterpiece and the milestone of the modern philosophy and science. It’s also a starting point and milestone of modern French language like Martin Luther’s Bible. There’re some important notions and topics, common sense (part 1), the principal rules of the scientific method (part 2), the rules of moral (part 3), the method of doubt, the proof of God and the soul, ‘Cogito ergo sum.’ (I think, therefore I am.) and the Cartesian dualism (part 4).

To read book is useful and valuable for all people especially students, including considering and criticizing the Descartes’ thinkings. And you can learn and memorize important terms of philosophy, religion and science. And this book is the Descartes’ autobiography of his intellectual career like an adventure. So you read this book enjoyably.

The description of this book is not particularly the way of thinking and the style of writing of French language. The paragraphs and sentences are long as for French. I think the style of thinking of this book is from Latin language. Despite this book is very worth for the people of today and interesting, so I recommend this book to all French advanced learners. Also there’re audiobook and the English edition.

« Pensées » de Blaise Pascal

« Essais » de Michel de Montaigne, Larousse Editions

« Mythologies » de Roland Barthes, Édition du Seuil

Roland Barthes was a French critic, semiologist or ‘écrivain’ (writer). His one of the representative works is Mythologies. The former part of the book is a collection of essays taken from a magazine, in which the essays appeared serially. The essays introduce and examine modern cultural myths in France and modern societies. Barthes picked up various things from French daily things (wine, beef steak, soap and detergent), products (Citroën, toys and plastic), music, social effects of photography, sports (wrestling and Le tour de France), political symbolism to ways of criticism (Critique muette et aveugle and La critique Ni-Ni). You will experience the vivid and keen écriture and analysis by Barthes. Each essays are very short (2 to 5 pages, except Le monde où l’on catche and Le Tour de France comme épopée).

The later part Le myths, aujourd’hui is a brilliant essay of general social mythology analysis applying Ferdinand de Saussure’s theory of semiology. The good point of this essay is a criticism to signs and the system of daily life, which resulted in a criticism or mention to the latent cultural ’politics’ in/by a entire social system.

I recommend this book to French advanced learners. Because it’s exciting and you can feel way of thinking by French language (sticky argument and keen logic, neither syllogism or paragraph writing) by it. And there’re the audiobook and the English edition.

« Bonjour Tristesse » de Françoise Sagan, Presse Pocket

« L’étranger » de Albert Camus, Éditions Gallimard

« L’Éducation Sentimentale » de Gustave Flaubert, Éditions Gallimard

« La nausée » de Jean-Paul Sartre, Éditions Gallimard

Related Posts and Pages

Top 30 French Textbooks and Readers for Beginners to Advanced Learners

16 Recommended French Primers in a Reasonable Order of Study