The New York Trilogy

"The New York Trilogy" by Paul Auster was another book on my classical literature list. It is a collection of 3 inter-linked detective novels. Auster writes really well and does a great job of developing a plot. In all three novels, you really get inside the head of the main character, so much so that when the character becomes dark (and this happens in all three novels), you understand it because you have progressed and changed along with the character. All three novels are set in New York, which provides a perfect setting for unique and complicated personalities.

After reading all three novels, I was somewhat disappointed because they all were anti-climatic. All three were narrated in such a way that the reader expects something really big or dramatic to happen, but the endings always leave you disappointed that not much really comes out of the multiple possibilities to which Auster alludes. However, the more I think about it, the more I appreciate this type of writing because it resembles real life. So many of us believe that something great or dramatic is going to happen in our lives. We all want to believe that our random movements through life are actually building to a dramatic end. The truth of the matter is that life is not like that. The everyday stuff of life is the drama and we are never able to fully appreciate the climax of our life because we will never be sure of when it occurs.