Hi Mark,
I'm a big fan of Auster, and was glad to see you mention the
NY Trilogy here. As you pointed out, he takes conventions of
detective fiction and makes something very new of them. The
investigation is into meaning itself, how it can (or can't)
be constructed in narrative, and how the meaning we find (or
fail to find) is tied to metaphysical concerns. There are two
other authors, both French, who seem to have heavily
influenced this vein of Auster's work: Alain Robbe-Grillet,
and Georges Perec. Robbe-Grillet's THE ERASERS is a book you
might really enjoy, and is readily available in English. If
it were avaiable in a good a translation, you would probably
love Perec's LA DISPARITION. I loved it so much I wrote my
entire dissertation on it. It's a roughly 300 page mystery
without the letter "e." Some see it as a gimmick, but I think
it's a deeply metaphysical work, about the relationship
between transcendent knowledge and mortality. It exists in
one very bad translation as A VOID (couldn't be called THE
DISAPPEARANCE since "e" is off limits), but word was, a
couple of years back, that a new translation was
forthcoming.
Best,
Shannon Clute
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