City of Glass

The novella City of Glass is told from a close third-person point of view. Unlike the distant third-person perspective, which primarily describes external actions rather than internal thoughts and feelings, the narrative focuses intensely on protagonist Daniel Quinn’s interior life—his memories, thoughts, feelings, and observations—ironically, despite the character’s efforts to distance himself from that interior life. This intense focus reveals Quinn’s fragmented sense of self, including the three separate aspects of his identity: the writer Daniel Quinn, the pseudonym William Wilson, and the “private-eye” character Max Work. These three aspects are interconnected and interdependent. On a practical level, the pseudonymous author and fictional detective cannot exist without the actual living person, Quinn. However, the narrative also makes clear that Quinn himself also cannot exist, or at least function, without William Wilson and Max Work, who act as textual intermediaries with the world around him. They exist on paper, in words and text, making them concrete in ways that Quinn himself no longer is on his own.

Through this fragmented and literary triad, the narrative introduces the theme of Identity as Constructed and Contingent. Quinn constructs his identity through language, textual representation, and narrative. He reinforces the way he uses textual forms of identity as an intermediary in Chapter 3, when he receives the retainer payment from Virginia Stillman in the form of a check. Virginia writes the check to Paul Auster, which means that Quinn can never cash it, but it also creates a layer of separation between his assumed identity (Paul Auster) and his “true” identity (Quinn) to keep him safe. However, the narrative also clarifies that each identity is not inherent to him but rather contingent upon the role he is playing, inspired by the texts around him and the stories he tells himself.

Quinn’s story begins with a telephone call. The opening line makes clear the importance of this telephone call, which pulls Quinn into the Stillmans’ case and kicks off the plot. Throughout the narrative, telephone calls form a motif that moves Quinn through the plot while simultaneously contributing to his sense of disorientation. Ironically, though Peter Stillman is the one who places the first telephone call and presents the case to Quinn, he has little bearing on the narrative. He provides Quinn with the conflict and motivation in Chapter 2 and then never appears again. Instead, Virginia Stillman becomes an important secondary character, stepping in for Peter to give Quinn the necessary information for the case. Quinn reports his progress and findings to her, but the narrative withholds any glimpses into either her or Peter’s thoughts, feelings, or motives. At no point does the reader see or know more than Quinn himself, and the novella uses this opacity to create confusion and disorientation.

The first chapter also introduces the setting of New York City and its maze of streets, which are of pivotal importance to the plot and themes. The narrator characterizes New York as “an inexhaustible space, a labyrinth of endless steps” (4), where Quinn’s primary hobby is walking aimlessly, enjoying the sensation of being lost. This sensation forms the emotional core of the second major theme, Invisibility in a Postmodern City. New York City is a postmodern space in City of Glass; it is a surreal, dreamlike landscape, constantly changing and moving, where the characters of the story lose themselves. One by one, each character is made invisible, either on purpose or by accident, fading into the landscape of the city.

City of Glass also relies heavily on literary allusions, popular in postmodern literature, to construct its narrative, atmosphere, and themes. The primary literary allusion is to the detective genre, which the narrative both adheres to and subverts. Quinn, under his pseudonym, William Wilson, writes pulp detective novels about his character, Max Work. As previously seen, these personas are important aspects of his identity. However, the narrative also plays loosely with genre tropes from pulp detective fiction, including the private investigator character archetype, represented both by the fictional character Max Work and by the presumed PI Paul Auster, whom Peter was initially trying to contact. Quinn then assumes this role out of curiosity and boredom, allowing him to enter the detective narrative and play out its many tropes. Another popular trope in pulp detective fiction is the archetypal femme fatale, mysterious, seductive, manipulative, and morally ambiguous, portrayed by Virginia. Quinn is instantly attracted to Virginia, and more importantly, she kisses him at the end of Chapter 3, presumably to inspire loyalty and determination. In detective novels, the femme fatale character routinely seduces the detective/private investigator protagonist to distract them from either their goal or the femme fatale’s involvement in the crime.