City of Glass Paul Auster & Midnight Cowboy James Leo Herlihy
Wednesday, August 29th, 2007“[T]he tremendous claustrophobia of the city is designed to hide what the city really does, which is to divorce us from a sense of reality and to divorce us from each other.”(James Baldwin) Both Paul Auster’s City of Glass and James Leo Herlihy’s Midnight Cowboy consider the impact that
Part one of Midnight Cowboy introduces Joe Buck and provides details, by way of flashback, of his early life and his maturity into a libidinous cowboy. He is brought up by three women: ‘He had been raised by various blondes, one of whom was his real Mother. The first three, who brought him up to the age of seven, were young and pretty’ (Herlihy 1965 12) Joe did not distinguish between the three women “never certain which of them was which.” (Herlihy 1965 12). Joe does not have much in the way of male influence in his early life, and then without warning he is given into the care of Sally Buck, his grandmother, who worked long hours and left him in the care of “various cleaning women.” (Herlihy 1965 14). Sally had many “beaus” who “were ranchers who wore Western hats.” (Herlihy 14 1965). Most of them ignored Joe but one, Woodsy Niles, “taught him how to ride and a little of what Joe came to believe being a man was all about. However, like Sally’s other beaus he left “and Joe was left to pine for him as for a gone away father.” (Herlihy 1965 15). The text is making the point that a boy needs a male role model and if there is not a Father around then a boy will mimic whatever male gains his affection or respect and mimic that person: ‘But surely it was in this time of Woodsy Niles that Joe had begun to see himself as some sort of cowboy’ (Herlihy 1965 15) In contrast we learn nothing of Daniel Quinn’s early life. On the first page the text erroneously dismisses its relevance: ‘As for Quinn, there is little that need detain us. Who he was, where he came from, and what he did are of no great importance.’ (Auster 1985 1). Quinn did have a wife and son who are now both dead. The main protagonists of each text have experienced the loss of family, as has Rico Rizzo. Auster by avoiding any back story concerning Quinn focuses on the effect
‘He had to have some advice, that was all there was to it. The thought became an obsession: He wouldn’t do another thing in town until he’d found someone who knew the ropes and could give him some advice.’ (Herlihy 1965 119) As Oliver Twist had the Artful Dodger so Joe eventually meets Rico Rizzo. However, like Quinn, at this point Joe is living in
Quinn writes detective fiction as Max Work, he has no friends and only works for six months of the year. The blurring of identity, that is so fundamental to postmodern literature, begins with the use of a pseudonym to publish his books. This is highlighted when Daniel Quinn pretends to be Paul Auster and believes he is accepting an assignment from the wife of Peter Stillman. This split personality that develops, echoing works like Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde by Robert Louis Stevenson, is almost the sine qua non of what is now a clichéd postmodern device. This idea is again explored when Quinn goes to Grand Central Station. Quinn arrives early in order “to study the geography of the place,” (Auster 1985 50). The station is crowded and Quinn observes that Stillman could disappear “without much trouble” (Auster 1985 50). It is in this scene at the railway station, in a confined space amongst “the press of oncoming bodies” (Auster 1985 50) that the text explores the claustrophobic effect of crowds upon identity but not the idea that it is concealing a deeper, more malevolent purpose as
He follows him around New York, making a map of his walks and seeks to divine meaning from them; there is a possible reference to The Tower of Babel and the text here is considering the idea of De Carteau (1988) that walking is itself like language and that the way a person walks and where that person walks has meaning, that the city is defined by the places that people go. Auster appears to discard this idea when it transpires that the person in question has a fascination with eggs and is possibly insane. After three meetings with Stillman, at which Quinn is disguised, he discovers that Stillman has disappeared. The power of the city to engulf identity and, as
‘Stillman had gone now. The old man had become part of the city. He was a speck, a punctuation mark, a brick in an endless wall of bricks. Quinn could walk through the streets every day for the rest of his life, and still he would not find him. Everything had been reduced to chance, a nightmare of numbers and probabilities. There were no clues, no leads, no moves to be made.’
(Auster 1985 91)
The contrast between the indoor life of Daniel Quinn, as Max Work, and the real life of a detective as Paul Auster is shown here. Detectives solve mysteries; they follow leads, examine clues and interpret events and the actions of people to provide meaning. The failure of Quinn to find any real meaning in the case undermines his sense of identity and reality. From this point in the text his identity begins to unravel. Quinn believed that he “could return to being Quinn whenever he wished” (Auster 1985 62). He stakes out Stillman Junior’s apartment, hiding and sleeping up an alley. He is completely isolated; upon leaving the alley one day, to obtain money, he sees himself in a mirror and does not recognize the reflection:
‘He did not recognize the person he saw there as himself…He tried to remember himself as he had been before, but he found it difficult.’ (Auster 1985 142)
The text is overtly saying that the claustrophobic conditions within which Quinn was living in the alley divorced him from all sense of reality. He has become like the homeless people he had observed in the city:
‘The transformation in his appearance had been so drastic that he could not help but be fascinated by it. He had turned into a bum.’ (Auster 1985 121)
The city and its claustrophobic environment removes all sense of reality and so identity and leads to isolation for Quinn. This is confirmed when upon returning to his apartment he finds it is no longer his home: he has nowhere to return to:
‘He had come to the end of himself. He could feel it now, as though a great truth had finally dawned in him. There was nothing left.’ (Auster 1985 126).
At the end of the novel the narrator states that “It is impossible for me to say where he is now.” (Auster 1985 133)
The self conscious cleverness of Auster’s style in City of
In contrast Midnight Cowboy is an examination of both childhood influence and environment. Joe Buck’s identity as a cowboy is derived from Woodsy Niles, not the women who brought him up or the city of
The text emphasizes Rizzo’s childhood experiences; he, like Joe Buck, has also lost his Father and family but it is the deterioration in his health that is caused by
‘He saw himself being drained and robbed and swindled in a thousand impossible ways: Every smile cost him some ungodly sum, and every time he nodded in assent to a stranger, a vital substance was extracted from him. If a clock ticked or a breeze blew or a wheel turned in his presence, within range of his senses, it seemed somehow to have stolen his energy to fuel itself.’ (Herlihy, 1965, 203)
Joe realizes, when referring to the clock and wheel, that the city is draining him of life. Rizzo’s health deteriorates to the point at which he may be unable to walk. The unforgiving nature of
‘I mean what do they uh, you know – do with you – if you can’t, uh..Agh, shit!’ (Herlihy, 1965, 209)
The answer is implied as nothing. So Rizzo changes from confident street-smart trickster to being unable to walk at all and scared. On the bus to Florida Joe realizes he cannot live like Rizzo, he must get a job. He confirms his rejection of the cowboy, saying he wants:
‘…a change of shoes!’ Cause I am so sick o’ lookin’ at these goddam boots. I am! I’m gonna throw ‘em in the ocean! Watch me. I want ever’thing new.’ (Herlihy, 1965, 246)
Rizzo’s death, symbolizes the death of
2000
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