Information of the Book
The third long novel of Paul Auster published in 1987, and the last book of the New York Trilogy.
Form, Style & Structure
The description is written by the viewpoint of the first-person. Different to former two novels, City of Glass and Ghosts, this novel doesn’t borrow the form of detective stories. But this story sought Fanshawe’s whereabouts, solves the riddle of him and find his true intention. And true theme of this novel is questions about writing a novel, today’s people’s identity and the meaning of life.
Background of Author
The episodes and the histories of the narrator and Fanshawe resemble Paul Auster’s real experiences, he wrote in an autobiographical book, The Art of Hunger. I think this novel is an autobiographical novel in certain amount, and a novel for self-reflection.
Synopsis
Fanshawe was the best friend of mine. He was smart, sophisticated and striking but excellent normal boy. Dropped out of Harvard, he became a crew of an oil tanker, then wandered around Paris and South France. And he wrote much of writing such as novels, poetry, dramas and notebooks. But he didn’t want to publish them.
He got back to the United States, then he married Sophie. But he suddenly disappeared from her, after three or four months he had promised he would publish the manuscripts within a year.
Sophie requested me to publish Fanshawe’s manuscripts. Then the Fanshawe’s books earned a great reputation and sold well, so we got a certain amount of money from the books. And I became a kind of agent of his books and wrote articles and reviews about him. I got the job to write a biography of Fanshawe, so I went to Paris and South France for searching the traces of him. Then I lost myself in searching for and thinking about Fanshawe…
Timeline
The narrator and Fanshawe had been blood close friends from their infancy in New Jersey. (§ 1)
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When they were five, six or seven years old, in the first or second grade, the party in a friend’s house, Fanshawe gave the present was carried by his mother, to Dennis Walden who had nothing. (§ 2)
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From his childhood, Fanshawe was composing little stories. (§ 2)
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By the time Fanshawe was thirteen or fourteen, he became a kind of internal exile. (§ 2)
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When the narrator and Fanshawe were about fifteen, they spent a weekend in New York and roamed the street. (§ 2)
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A month or two after the roaming, Fanshawe took the narrator to a brothel on the Upper West Side, New York. (§ 2)
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In the sophomore year, Fanshawe was picked a member of the varsity baseball them. He had did a very good job for several weeks, but he suddenly resigned. (§ 2)
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When Fanshawe was sixteen, his father passed away. (§ 2)
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From the time they were 17 years old, Fanshawe and the narrator had never met again. (§ 1)
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After dropped out of university after two years, Fanshawe was working on a oil tanker or a freighter. (§ 1)
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Fanshawe lived in France for several years. First in Paris for three years. (§ 1) He did various jobs as a translator of art books, an English tutor for lycée students, a switchboard operator at the New York Times office and an assistant of a movie producer. During the period, he sent many letters to his sister, Ellen. (§ 6, 7)
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Between May and September 1971, he moved to South France, became the caretaker of a farmhouse. (§ 1, 7)
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At the time he backed in America in 1972, before more than eight or ten months and three years before Fanshawe’s disappearance, he and Sophie got to know at a Manhattan bookshop. (§ 1, 7)
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Fanshawe had no regular work, his each job was temporary. (§ 1)
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Fanshawe and Sophie began to live together. Then he didn’t work at well, and devote himself to writing. (§ 1)
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A day, about three or four months before his disappearance, Fanshawe offered a compromise gesture to Sophie. He promised he would do something about the manuscripts within a year, or would left all of his manuscripts to her at the time Sophie had became pregnant. (§ 1)
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A day in April, Fanshawe disappeared. (§ 1)
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In July or August, Ben was born.
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On November, Seven years before (from the current time), the narrator got a letter from Sophie Fanshawe. (§ 1)
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Around the day of the promise between Fanshawe and Sophie, on November 26 1976, Sophie invited the narrator to her tenement and explained the conditions about Fanshawe to him. The narrator accepted the request by Sophie that he publish the manuscripts written by Fanshawe. (§ 1)
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Several days later, the narrator opened the suitcases and sorted out manuscripts of Fanshawe, it spent about a week. (§ 3)
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The narrator and Sophie had dinner at a fashionable French restaurant. He began to have a romance with her. (§ 3)
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The narrator offered to an editor, Stuart Green publishing Fanshawe’s books. At once, the publisher decided to publish Fanshawe’s novel Neverland. (§ 3)
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The narrator visited directors and interested them in Fanshawe’s dramas. Then three one-acts were put on a small downtown theatre when six weeks after Neverland was published. And he wrote an article on Fanshawe, it appeared two months before the publishing of Neverland. (§ 3)
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At narrator’s thirtieth birthday, he and Sophie went to a performance of Boris Godunov at Metropolitan theatre. They got more intimate, they passionately kissed and… (§ 3)
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From several months ago, the narrator had been spent every night in Sophie’s apartment. (§ 4)
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At the time after about three weeks by the plays had opened. The narrator got a letter from Fanshawe, so he knew Fanshawe was still alive. (§ 4)
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A few more days later, November 26 1977, the narrator asked Sophie to marry him on the day after just a year when they had first met. (§ 4)
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On November 27, they went to Birmingham, Alabama, and registered their marriage at there. (§ 4)
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By the first week of December, they were back in New York. (§ 4)
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On December 11, they held their wedding ceremony at the City Hall. (§ 4)
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In February 1978, the narrator and Sophie moved to an apartment on Riverside Drive. (§ 5)
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In March, they started to get royalties of Neverland. (§ 5)
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The narrator and Stuart Green had lunch, and Green suggested to the narrator that he write a biography of Fanshawe. (§ 5)
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The narrator asked Sophie how she think of he write a biography of Fanshawe, and she said a positive answer. (§ 5)
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In June 1978, Sophie, Ben and the narrator went to see Fanshawe’s mother, Jane in New Jersey. Mrs Fanshawe set his son’s materials on his desk in order. (Then they went back to New York.) (§ 6)
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Four days later, Mrs Fanshawe called the narrator and told that she would go to Europe for a month and he might copy the letters of Fanshawe right away. (§ 6)
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Only the narrator visited Mrs Fanshawe and copied Fanshawe’s letters. They talked about the suffering of Fanshawe and his family, and Mrs Fanshawe wept. Then they slept together in Mrs Fanshawe’s bed. (§ 6)
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(…)
Characters
the narrator – A up-and-coming critic and writer. He was not thirty years old yet, but already had something of a reputation. But his wish was to become a novelist. He had wrote a great many paltry articles, but the work was to earn a livelihood. He accepted the request by Sophie that he publish the manuscripts written by Fanshawe. So he became a kind of agent of Fanshawe’s books and wrote articles and reviews about Fanshawe, then he couldn’t write his own novel. By the current time of this novel (May 1984), he had written two novels City of Glass, Ghosts, and he was writing “this novel”. The model might be Paul Auster himself. The narrator and Fanshawe had been lived in New Jersey by the time they entered collages. (The family of the narrator moved to Florida.)
Fanshawe – The best friend of the narrator in the childhood. A precocious, smart, brilliant, fascinating and ideal “normal” boy was full of voluntary goodwill. The narrator sometimes admired Fanshawe’s characteristics and sometimes felt Fanshawe was alien to him by the excellence. He would talk to the narrator about the importance of “tasking life” such as making things hard for yourself and searching out the unknown. From his childhood, Fanshawe was composing little stories. He sent his difficult poetry to his younger sister, Ellen was suffering mental breakdowns every two or three months. He thought the poetry he sent made his sister worse, so he dropped out of Harvard University, and he had worked on an oil tanker, he had been lived in France for several years. First he lived in Paris for three years, then he moved to South France. When the stringent life in country and its solitude gave him a sage way into a self and an instrument of discovery, he became a prominent writer. Novels, Blackouts and Miracles were written in Paris. The long sequence of poems Ground Work was written in the country. After he had backed in US, lived in New York, and never had regular job because money didn’t mean much to him. When Fanshawe and Sophie began living together, Fanshawe didn’t work and begun to devote himself to write novels, dramas, poetry and so on, but he didn’t try to publish. And they made a promise that he would publish his manuscripts within a year. But he disappeared after three or four months from the day they had made the promise. He stayed in the South and the Southwest of US. When he stayed in New Mexico, he knew his book was published. He backed to New York and watched the narrator, Sophie and Ben for six to eight months, and he want to put an end to the narrator. And he became a crewman of a Greek freighter. Then he got back US and stayed in Boston as the name of Henry Dark. He left a hundred poems, three novels (two novelettes, Miracles, Blackouts and a long novel, Neverland), five one-act plays and thirteen notebooks (They were written during 1963 and 1976). Also, the model of Fanshawe might be Paul Auster himself.
Sophie Fanshawe – The wife of Fanshawe, a beautiful, thin and average height woman with long brown hair and dark intelligent eye. She taught music in a private school.
Ben – The son of Fanshawe and Sophie. When the narrator first met him, he had been born just three and a half months ago.
Robert Fanshawe (Father of Fanshawe) – He passed away when he hadn’t reached 50 years old, and Fanshawe was 17 years old.
Jane Fanshawe (Mrs Fanshawe) (§ 6) – Fanshawe’s mother and Ben’s grandmother. She was fifty years old in 1978.
Ellen Fanshawe – The 27 years old (in 1978), younger sister of Fanshawe went through a long series of mental breakdowns, lived in a halfway house.
Quinn (§ 1, 7, 9) – A private detective, Sophie hired to search and find Fanshawe. He found Fanshawe two times, in New York and the South. But he was threaten by Fanshawe, Fanshawe made him didn’t report on the whereabouts.
Dennis Walden (§ 2) – A friend of the narrator and Fanshawe in their childhood.
Stuart Green (§ 3, 4, 5, 9) – An editor at one of the larger publishing house to whom the narrator offered publishing books by Fanshawe. His younger brother, Roger was a classmate of the narrator and Fanshawe.
Ivan Wyshnegradsky (§ 7) – An old Russian composer, nearly eighty years old, owned a quarter-tone piano, whom Fanshawe saw many times in Paris.
The movie producer (§ 7, 8)
the Dedmons (§ 7, 8) – The American husband and wife, Fanshawe got to know in Paris, they lend him their country house.
Paul Schiff (§ 7) – An acquaintance of Fanshawe in Harvard.
Otis Smart (§ 7) – An oil tanker shipmate of Fanshawe.
Jeffry Brown (§ 7) – The assistant cook on the tanker, a co-worker of Fanshawe.
Anne Michaux (§ 8) – A girlfriend of Fanshawe in Paris.
A peculiar little man of about forty (§ 8) – Fanshawe’s closet neighbour in the Ver.
A Tahitian nineteen or twenty beautiful girl (§ 8)
Paul (§ 9) – The son of the narrator and Sophie.
Locations
New York
New Jersey – Fanshawe’s mother lived in.
Paris – Fanshawe lived in Paris for three years. The narrator flied across Paris to seek the traces of Fanshawe.
South France – Fanshawe stayed at the Dedmons’ country house in the Var.
Boston – In 1982, Fanshawe lived in Boston.
Key Elements, Key Words & Key Phrases
construction sites (§ 2, p. 216), cardboard box (§ 2, p. 222) – Playing around construction sites and playing in a cardboard box imply Auster’s writing policy like the method of bricolage. The episode Fanshawe was deep in a cardboard box connects his solitude in the locked room of the country house.
Neverland (§ 3) – The title of a novel by Fanshawe. It was Fanshawe’s masterpiece and the only long novel.
whether or not a writer has a real life anyway. (§ 4, p. 238) – I think this phrase signifies the most important theme of this novel as the meaning of writing. Fanshawe and the narrator also Paul Auster pursued a real life of a novelist. Fanshawe condemned to the solitude in the locked room, he found a sage way into a self. The narrator sought Fanshawe, but he had been swayed by Fanshawe and his life and he lost himself and ruined his family. Then he overcame the shadow of Fanshawe by he wrote “this novel”.
By definition, a thought is something you are aware of. (§ 5, p. 244)
the paradox of desire (§ 5, p. 245)
Miracles (§ 5, p. 245)
Blackouts (§ 5, p. 245) – Fanshawe’s earliest novel.
Biography of Fanshawe (§ 5, 6, 7) – To write Fanshawe’s biography was paradoxical thing and act. The act made solid also erased and terminated the existence of real Fanshawe, and the narrator created a story about Fanshawe without Fanshawe’s agreement. So the narrator was troubled about it, and was swayed with the shadow of Fanshawe.
Letters written by Fanshawe (§ 6, 7) – Letters by Fanshawe from the tanker and France were a literary form or method of Fanshawe to leave and tell his memories and history. Usually letters made real experiences private messages. Fanshawe sent letters to his sister Ellen, but actually, his mother checked and stocked them, and they remained his traces and history.
detective (§ 7, p. 283) – Different to the former two novels of the New York Trilogy, City of Glass and Ghosts, this novel is not a story modelled detective stories, but the narrator searched Fanshawe like a detective. And this novel owns the structure of “hide and seek” and searching riddles. And the theme and the structure of this novel resembles City of Glass and Ghosts.
a locked room (§ 8, p. 292) In a locked room of a country house in South France, Fanshawe condemned to a mystical solitude, he found a sage way into a self and wrote his works. The narrator realized Fanshawe still lived there and the locked room was located inside the narrator’s skull.
the red notebook written by Fanshawe (§ 9, pp. 311 – 314) – Fanshawe said he wrote his history and details on this notebook, but the narrator thought “their final purpose was to cancel each other out” (§ 9, p. 313) from the notebook also he felt one of great lucidity. A red notebook appeared on Auster’s first novel City of Glass. Daniel Quinn wrote informations and cues about the case of Peter Stillman on the red notebook. Later, Auster published the book titled “The Red Notebook” was consisted four autobiographical stories.
Cultural Things on This Novel
Robinson Crusoe (§ 2, p. 211)
Poe, Stevenson (§ 2, p. 216)
movie about Marco Polo (§ 3, p. 230)
Twilight Zone (§ 3, p. 230)
La Chère (§ 5, pp. 252 – 253)
Lorenzo Da Ponte (§ 5, pp. 253 – 255)
M. M. Bakhtin (§ 5, p. 255)
Peter Freuchen (§ 5, p. 256)
Raleigh’s History of the World (§ 7, p. 277)
The Journey of Cabeza de Vaca (§ 7, p. 277)
Herman Melville (§ 8, p. 294)
Impressive Scenes & Important Descriptions
"We all want to be told stories, (…) no one can gain access to himself.” (§ 5, p. 249) – I think, on this part, Auster mentions the question and the meaning to make a story, writing and human identity as the theme and the essence of this novel.
Episode of a temporary job as a census-taker in Harlem and the narrator’s disguises of names (§ 5, pp. 249 – 252) – To write a story is to create a fiction. This episode is self-referring to this novel and signifies Auster’s literal thought like postmodern philosophy.
Descriptions about the stormy lives of La Chère and Lorenzo Da Ponte (§ 5, pp. 249 – 256)
Episode of a quarter tone piano and a refrigerator (§ 7, pp. 264 – 276)
The narrator’s reflection on writing and his novels (§ 8, p. 294) – On this paragraph the narrator said he had written City of Glass and Ghosts, was writing this novel, The Locked Room and they are finally the some story and outputs of his awareness in each time. And he said story is awareness of things happened and words came out, and process of struggle by them, and the struggle is important.
Thought about story and Fanshawe (§ 9, p. 301)
Riddles & Questions
Why Fanshawe disappeared from his family ?
The contents of Fanshawe’s writings.
Is Fanshawe in chapter 8 the actual person ?
Interpretations, Remarks & Analysis
The title The Locked Room means a locked room of a country house in South France (§ 8, p. 292), where Fanshawe had shut himself up. The room is the metaphor of Fanshawe’s locked true intention and mind, and it also was located in the narrator’s mind.
Different to Auster’s former two novel, this novel doesn’t modelled on detective stories. But this novel is a story of “hide and seek”, to search Fanshawe’s whereabouts and riddles. And the narrator said his act was like a detective. (§ 7, p. 283)
The main and exterior story of this novel is to seek Fanshawe’s whereabouts and true intention. But the true theme of this novel is philosophical questions to what are today’s human identity and the meaning and the meaninglessness of life and writing, and considerations on to create a story and its difficulty. It think this novel is a novel about writing which is composed by written by writing novels and texts by Fanshawe and the narrator.
I think this novel is autobiographical novel of Auster. Episodes and histories of the narrator and Fanshawe resemble his real experiences appeared on his autobiographical essay the Art of Hunger. So I think Auster reflected his past real experiences on two ambivalent characters Fanshawe and the narrator. So Fanshawe is young Auster and the narrator is Auster as a writer.
In this novel there are many elements of self parody and self reference. Fanshawe’s personal history resembles Auster’s one, the narrator wrote City of Glass, Ghosts and The Locked Room, names of colors the narrator named were the same as the characters appeared on Ghosts and so on.
Fanshawe was the alter ego or the other self of the narrator. The more the narrator pursued for and thought about Fanshawe, he felt difficulty and complexity like looking at himself or his doppelgänger. And Auster reflected himself on the two characters. So I think this complexity might be arose from the self-referring act as Auster sees Auster himself.
Letters and biography are comparative literary methods in this novel. To write a biography is to consist a consistent story of a person, to write other’s story, to pass and erase a real personal life, and to make private life, personality and informations public, but also a paradoxical act in which the author doesn’t exist and Fanshawe’s biography would be a story of a story-teller, inspire of the narrator was a writer and wanted to write his original novel. Also the narrator’s act of which he tried to write Fanshawe’s biography and his seeking for Fanshawe was also a seeking for his own identity and made him consider about philosophy of writing. To write letters is to tell one’s life and experiences to a private person or family as a private massage. Though Fanshawe used to write letters as a method to consist his own story, the letters are a record of footprints of Fanshawe, and he resisted for his biography be written by the narrator.
I think there’s a triple self-affirmation or self-reflection and story-telling structure was constructed by each one of Fanshawe, the narrator and Auster. The narrator described things about Fanshawe. Auster described things about the narrator (and Fanshawe). By this self-reflection structure, this novel expresses an answerless question of what are writing and the self.
This novel is slippery one. For example, there’s no description of content of Fanshawe’s writings, and there are no answer, result and destination. Also this novel is a writing about writing or a novel about writing novel. And words of Fanshawe’s red notebook was “their final purpose was to cancel each other out“ (§ 9, p. 313), also the notion can apply to this novel, the content of this novel is to cancel each other out. So there was no answer and solution, and only a state of contradiction was remain. No answer should be the answer of this novel and the consequence of the New York Trilogy. I think, in this novel, by his excellent self-reference method and storytelling style, Auster succeed in expressing a question and a problem about to write a novel via to write this novel.
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
Synopsis & Book Review | The Locked Room
Synopsis & Book Review | City of Glass
Synopsis & Book Review | Ghosts
YouTube Paul Auster Commentary Playlist
YouTube Literature & Philosophy Channel
