New York Trilogy by Paul Auster

These three short novels first present themselves as typical mysteries, perhaps in the tradition of Raymond Chandler, but it soon becomes apparent that they are not in any way traditional, and that, in fact, the mystery is not what is contained in the plot but what in the world the author is intending to impart to the confounded reader.

The novels, essentially, all tell the same story, just with different protagonists and different scenarios: An investigator becomes so immersed in another person's life that he loses himself, becoming the other person in his mind. In this regard, Auster includes discussion of Don Quixote, which recounts how an immersion in stories of knights and deeds of chivalry can lead a reader to retreating into another life.

The first novel, City of Glass, tells the story of an author, a writer of mysteries under a pseudonym, who receives a mis-directed phone call to a detective (named Paul Auster) and then pretends to be that detective. He is hired to shadow a father just released from prison, convicted of imprisoning his son for years without human contact to allow him to develop his own language.

The second novel, Ghosts, is more obviously metaphoric, with the detective Mr. Blue being hired by Mr. White to watch Mr. Black, for an undisclosed reason.

In the third novel, The Locked Room, a failed fiction writer is drawn into the world of his childhood friend, who has disappeared. Receiving a note from the disappeared man, the protagonist becomes obsessed with finding him.

These "detective" novels all become absurdist novels, with the protagonists performing inexplicable obsessive actions. All involve writing, often in a red notebook. All involve a loss of selfhood. All involve, I think, a quest for meaning in life. The good news is that the last novel seems to indicate the love and family can provide that meaning. (Who knows? The meaning is elusive. I could be mis-interpreting according my preconceived values.)

I will have to admit that this kind of book is not my favorite. I generally like a good immersive story with a minimum of pretentious flourishes and open-ended conclusions. This was interesting, but I will never read it again.