Penguin Books, 2006 - Cover Art: Art Spiegelman
BOOKS READ 19: THE NEW YORK TRILOGY BY PAUL AUSTER
Jane and I were looking through bookstores and she was searching for this book, she said that she loved the cover for it and made it sound like it would be really great, and when I finally got around to seeing it, I…didn’t like it.
At the time I found it cheesy, almost on the verge of being crappy.
But there were elements of the book that I liked, the author’s name, hype around the author, and the title.
The book always remained in the back of my mind as a present to possibly give to Jane for her birthday, and so I always kept an eye out for it whenever I was in a used bookstore. Having the book on my mind, nagging at me at times, I developed a fondness for the said crapiness of the cover and grew to like that quality. There is something endearing about crapiness, and if it comes from a genuine place, I like it. And really, what’s crappy to me might be the greatest thing to you, and there’s something to be said for that and to be considered.
Then there was the closing of Duthie’s Books, and everything in the store was 50% off. Everyone and their dog was at the store, and the books had been pretty picked over, but this book and a couple of copies of it were left.
Why not.
I can tell that this book is smart. Although, I can’t say I completely understood it or got all of the nuances and the connections being made, especially in the first two stories of this book, “City of Glass” and “Ghosts”, but I can tell you that it was easier to get invested with each story, I really enjoyed, “The Locked Room” (the last story in the novel) and it was the first time in a long time where I read something and the author had put words to things that I’ve felt but couldn’t really ever place or make concrete and kind of just let slip away, but I felt it. And that’s why I say the book is smart, it expanded what I knew, more ideas are available to me now and I can describe them with more clarity.
And that’s what you want right? To explain yourself and to be understood.
To love and to be loved!
(Something to live by)
