City Of Glass

4 Pages 1006 Words

Who’s Talking?

In Paul Auster’s modern novel, City of Glass, an unlimited narrator is used to allow the reader to draw their own conclusions or ideas about what is truly going on in the story. The “all-knowing” narrator is almost similar to a God, knowing things that a single person could not possibly know. They know thoughts, ideas and personal information of several different characters. Auster leaves many details open about the story and forces readers to incorporate their own thoughts into the novel. City of Glass can be compared to an abstract work of art in which the “idea” is in the eye of the beholder. Two different people can read this novel and come up with two different ideas as to what happened in the end. Auster’s use of an unlimited narrator effectively involves the reader and prevents readers from just simply coming to the end to have it all explained, leaving no options to use their imagination and analysis.
The unlimited narrator speaks as several different characters interchangeably throughout the book. First, the introduction is spoken directly to the reader, almost a one-on-one between reader and author. Auster writes, “ The question is the story itself, and whether or not it means something is not for the story to tell.” Immediately we are give a personal introduction of the future events. The ending, “…it is not for the story to tell.”, indicates that the audience is the one to tell or the one to decipher the actual happenings in the plot and they are in fact involved with “the story itself”. Another role that is taken on by the narrator is introduced as Daniel Quinn. A significant amount of the book is described from his point of view. The narrator brings us through his daily routines, from following around Stillman, to using the bathroom. He uses extreme detail on his activities. Another role taken on by the narrator is of the mysterious man who recently returns from ...