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Paul Auster published his first prose work, the autobiographical The Invention of Solitude, in 1982; since then his fiction has gained ever growing popular and critical acclaim. This book is a stimulating pioneering study of eight works that make up the Auster canon: The Invention of Solitude, the three novellas that comprise The New York Trilogy, and the novels In the Country of Last Things, Moon Palace, The Music of Chance, and Leviathan. Focusing on the quest – which she sees as the master narrative of all of Auster’s novels – Shiloh examines Auster’s writing in a multi-layered context of literary and philosophical paradigms relevant to his practice, such as the American tradition of the «open road,» the generic conventions of detective fiction, postmodernist concepts of the subject, Sartre’s and Camus’s existentialist theories, and Freud’s and Lacan’s psychoanalytic models, all of which offer enriching and insightful perspectives on Auster’s poetics. «Through the exhaustiveness with which she traces the quest theme, and the ingenuity with which she synthesizes contextual materials, Shiloh makes a strong and reliable contribution to our knowledge of a major figure in contemporary American letters.» (Brian McHale, Eberly Family Distinguished Professor of American Literature, West Virginia University) «A rich multifaceted book on Auster’s poetics is long overdue. Ilana Shiloh has given Auster’s readers the serious critical attention that he deserves.» (Hana Wirth-Nesher, Professor, Department of English and American Literature, Tel Aviv University)...
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