Listen free for 30 days
Listen with offer
-
The New York Trilogy
- Narrated by: Joe Barrett
- Length: 12 hrs and 41 mins
Failed to add items
Add to basket failed.
Add to wishlist failed.
Remove from wishlist failed.
Adding to library failed
Follow podcast failed
Unfollow podcast failed
£0.00 for first 30 days
Buy Now for £25.99
No valid payment method on file.
We are sorry. We are not allowed to sell this product with the selected payment method
Summary
Paul Auster's brilliant debut novels, City of Glass, Ghosts, and The Locked Room brought him international acclaim for his creation of a new genre, mixing elements of the standard detective fiction and postmodern fiction.
City of Glass combines dark, Kafka-like humor with all the suspense of a Hitchcock film as a writer of detective stories becomes embroiled in a complex and puzzling series of events, beginning with a call from a stranger in the middle of the night asking for the author - Paul Auster - himself. Ghosts, the second volume of this interconnected trilogy, introduces Blue, a private detective hired to watch a man named Black, who, as he becomes intermeshed into a haunting and claustrophobic game of hide-and-seek, is lured into the very trap he has created.
The final volume, The Locked Room, also begins with a mystery, told this time in first-person narrative. The nameless hero journeys into the unknown as he attempts to reconstruct the past, which he has experienced almost as a dream. Together these three fictions lead the reader on adventures that expand the mind as they entertain.
As an added bonus, when you purchase our Audible Modern Vanguard production of Paul Auster's book, you'll also get an exclusive Jim Atlas interview that begins when the audiobook ends.
Critic reviews
What listeners say about The New York Trilogy
Average customer ratingsReviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.
-
Overall
- Secret leader
- 22-05-18
Stylish, and superbly crafted.
Really great read, complex but not to challenging. The plots are delicately interwoven and can pleasantly catch you by surprise, a very accomplished trilogy. Will read more Paul Auster.
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
You voted on this review!
You reported this review!
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- Andrea Edan
- 18-06-20
An original take on the detective story
I think that Paul Auster is probably a Marmite sort of writer. Personally, I love his books and this trilogy of stories, published in 1987 is almost an academic exercise. Certainly the second story is, whereby the characters have colour names and are given very little depth other than their position in the "story". Although these stories can certainly serve as basis for literary debate, they are, nevertheless, good readable stories with a beginning, middle and end. Essential for any story, really. The loose link between the stories is enjoyable.
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
You voted on this review!
You reported this review!
7 people found this helpful
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- markjhall
- 12-07-24
Good narrator, I liked third story a lot
Good narrator, I liked third story a lot
Good narrator, I liked third story a lot
Good narrator, I liked third story a lot
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
You voted on this review!
You reported this review!
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- Ms T
- 30-12-18
Old school private investigation
I really like Paul Auster’s writing style - detail heavy and full of intricacies and nuance - and this book of three stories is no exception. The three tales are loosely connected which adds another dimension to the overall complexities. Unusual and highly engaging, I really enjoyed these old school private investigation stories.
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
You voted on this review!
You reported this review!
2 people found this helpful
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- Anonymous User
- 08-05-22
Could have been a short story
Though the mood of the novels is well created, I found myself wishing the novel to be over when I was half way through. The same theme could have been explored in a shorter piece and by the third novel I found myself having little curiosity for the outcome, and wanting to speed up to finish so I can move on to a more interesting story.
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
You voted on this review!
You reported this review!
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- Sararara
- 16-12-20
It’s all very meta but is it a good read?
City of Glass- the first book in the trilogy- is loosely divided into three parts.
The opener reminds me of Haruki Murakami and is fairly lucid, albeit a detective story viewed through the looking glass.
The middle part is more Umberto Eco with lots of word play and literary references.
The final part I found less engaging as the plot disintegrates, becoming a rumination on the nature of being.
Many people have written essays on the book’s postmodern brilliance, since it was published in 1985.
However, I would have liked a really clever resolution that subverted established literary forms but also, importantly, provided a satisfying conclusion.
And now I need some light relief before diving into the next two books.
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
You voted on this review!
You reported this review!
5 people found this helpful
-
Overall
- Maria
- 17-02-11
Simply remarkable
This is probably one of the hardest text to read, yet it is superbly done as an audio book! Paul Auster's brilliant writing is coming alive thanks to this fantastic rendition.
Well done, thank you!
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
You voted on this review!
You reported this review!
4 people found this helpful
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- A. J. Lovell
- 03-04-24
the strange dreamlike quality
I very much liked the first book though it ended a little unclearly, and the second left me a little cold, perhaps too experimental, to the point i almost stopped listening, but the third really tied everything up and was quite awe inspiring in places, left me with images and ideas rolling around in my mind for days. the whole was also made clearer by the excellent interview at the end, which has left me keen to read/listen to everything else by Mr Auster.
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
You voted on this review!
You reported this review!
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- annie
- 28-11-21
Delicious
A delightful read - clever, imaginative and beautifully written.
I agree with a previous reviewer who likened Auster to Marmite - you are seldom indifferent. Well, as my first Auster experience it took a couple of chapters but then it quickly became addictive! And it will require a second read to 'get' some of the nuances.
And... I rate books rather critically, and 5 stars are rarely given, the book has to be exceptional. So don't be put off by my rating it at only 4 stars; this is a 'nearly exceptional' book. And the narrator reads it beautifully - very sympathetic to the spirit and character of the novel.
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
You voted on this review!
You reported this review!
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- Angus Jenkinson
- 30-05-23
Twisted aspects of identity and truth claims
There are 3 novellas in this volume. They all involve twisted aspects of identity and truth.
The first, City of Glass, is the best. It is a rather bizarre work whose full plot should not be revealed. That the novel is intentionally interwoven with Cervantes’ Don Quixote, with it's surreal and performatively mad play of fictions further elaborates the joys of the text. It purports to be a detective tale but is reminiscent of Kafka, Borges, or Hesse’s Glass Bead Game in its portrayal of mirrored uncertainty and unfolding mystery, even madness. At the end, I laughed at the twisting jokiness of it. A good reason not to reveal the plot is that it only means what it does in the context of the journey of reading or listening to the novella itself. But a few elements can be highlighted. An author of detective fiction is commissioned to observe a suspect who may be planning to do harm. The origin of the method of commissioning oh something to a real life event that happened to the author, Auster. (We learn this in the interesting supplementary interview with him included in the package.) The source of the authorial voice is never disclosed although the true author becomes a fictioned (sic) character in the novel. The protagonist is a detective who takes on a persona and within that persona masks himself in various other characters. He spends forever observing someone who seems to be doing nothing much but what it is turns out to be the crux of the tale although how and why is never explained fully. The circumstances however may have something to do with events in the other novellas.
The third, The Locked Room, is intriguing but has an unconvincing moment that turns the novel . That said, people are always doing things they simply shouldn’t, things that should be utterly unconvincing. Life it is said can be a stranger than fiction. Mind you, this deus ex machina event is only one of a series of highly unconventional behaviours leavened by the ongoing ordinary. A not very successful writer is commissioned by an assumed dead man to inspect his writings and if they are any good arrange their publication. The missing man’s ‘widowed’ wife and his mother play play key roles in the unfolding and unravelling story.
Ghost, the middle yarn — for these are intellectually adroit yarns I think — also concerns a detective commissioned to observe a suspect. The characters are called Black, Blue, Brown, and White and the action takes place on Orange Street. What is truth?
All the novellas engage with themes of identity and the nature of reality and fiction.
The ‘detective’ is a parable for the search for truth we all doge or dive into. Madness is an ever present outcome, but what is sanity? The novels are born in the era immediately following the developing awareness of reflexive consciousness, contextual response, cybernetic self-regulation and R.D. Laing’s sanity in an insane society. But this intellectual verve is conveyed in a straightforward and down-to-earth narrative. The Audible voice reflects this. The narrator is an Audible regular, a New York voice with direct diction. I listened on slightly quickened tempo.
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
You voted on this review!
You reported this review!