Neon Lit: Paul Auster's City of Glass [Paperback]

Paul Auster (Author), Paul Karasik (Author), David Mazzucchelli (Author, Illustrator), Bob Callahan (Editor), Art Spiegelman (Designer)

Book Description

Publication Date: August 1, 1994

From the creator of the highly acclaimed, widely successful graphic novels Maus and Maus II comes Neon Lit, an innovative series of graphic crime novels. First in the series is City of Glass, universally praised as a contemporary classic upon its publication in 1985. A film based on the novel is currently in pre-production.

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review

I cannot possibly offer enough praise for David Mazzucchelli and Paul Karasik 's adaptation of City of Glass. While some critics found it to be a dry choice of books to turn into a comics, I think the interplay between image and text only heightens the original metafictional narrative. The treatment of the first speech by the crazy antagonist, Peter Stillman--in which the word balloons trail from random objects such as a broken television and a bottle of ink--is brilliant. Neon Lit: Paul Auster's City of Glass deftly illustrates why comics is a perfect format for exploring fictions about text: the words become visible objects of the story.

From Publishers Weekly

Auster's acclaimed novel City of Glass , a dreamlike meditation on language and fiction in the form of a detective novel, has been translated into comics form to stunning effect. And while Karasik's faithful adaptation of Auster's crisp prose partially obscures its author's sly allusions to the act of writing itself, Mazzuchelli's black-and-white illustrations capture and expand on Auster's precise documentation of place, psychological development and pedagogical improvisation with unusual style, simplicity and graphic facility. This combination story, lecture and literary deconstruction begins when New York City detective novelist Daniel Quinn answers a wrong number. Donning the personas of both the detective he created and his own creator, Auster himself, Quinn attempts to protect a young man, who as a child was kept without light or language for nine years as his lunatic academic father tried to discover "God's Language." In Quinn, the roles of fictional detective and creator/novelist are interchangeable; and the processes by which these two carry out their investigative work--the fanatical collection of random detail, obsessive observation and recording, and an almost monastic introspection--serve as sublime indications of the serendipitous mix of chance, language and invention at root of the art of fiction. This is a masterful addition to the growing library of serious comics works.
Copyright 1994 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Product Details

• Paperback: 144 pages
• Publisher: Avon Books; First Edition edition (August 1, 1994)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 038077108X
• ISBN-13: 978-0380771080
• Product Dimensions: 8.4 x 5.4 x 0.4 inches
• Shipping Weight: 8.8 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 4.8 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (5 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,228,890 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

9 of 9 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Brilliant adaptation stands shoulder-to-shoulder with novel, February 28, 1999

By A Customer

This review is from: Neon Lit: Paul Auster's City of Glass (Paperback)

The real magic here is that, in reworking Paul Auster's original novel, Karasik and Mazzucchelli have done what so many had deemed impossible: they have produced a true literary adaptation in comics form. This is no "Classics Illustrated"; this is a comic that strengthens its source material rather than diminishing it. The original book's concern with the gap between language and meaning is given further depth and resonance in the comic, which finds a visual language equivalent, and does it in a way that no other medium could have. This is no mere illustrated text, but comics as a formidable language and medium in itself. Interestingly, when the original book and the comic are read together, the comic itself almost becomes a physical character, another in the story's proliferation of literary doubles.

3 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars it's come full circle, January 16, 2001

By 

Orrin C. Judd "brothersjudddotcom" (Hanover, NH USA) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)    (REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Neon Lit: Paul Auster's City of Glass (Paperback)

I don't know how Neon Lit fared with the rest of the project, but this graphic novel version of City of Glass by Paul Auster is terrific. In a sense it brings the story full circle, because in the original novel Auster used the conventions of the private eye story to explore the issues implicit in film noir : identity, fate, good and evil, randomness, etc. Since many of the great hard boiled dicks first appeared in pulp fiction, it seems only natural to have this most modern (or post-modern) riff on the genre end up back in comic book form, however glorified.

Actually, Auster himself indulges in so many games with language, shifting identities and allusions to other works that the comic book format is especially well suited to his playfulness. And, like William Goldman's Princess Bride, that sense of fun serves to lighten what can often be most ponderous in post-modern literature, the way in which its practitioners act as if their metafictional techniques are revolutionary and profound. This work is such a throwback that it unabashedly wears its antecedents on its sleeve; never mind the obvious nod to mysteries of the 30's and 40's, it even goes so far as to discuss Cervantes and his metafictional innovations in Don Quijote.

I tend to doubt that Paul Auster's brand of existential musings will appeal to all tastes and I'm sure some will simply find the idea of reading a comic book to be beyond the pale. But if you're an Auster fan, a private eye or noir enthusiast, or just haven't outgrown comics generally, it's well worth tracking down a copy. I realize it says more about me than I should be comfortable revealing, but I actually think the best part of the book is the section on the criminally insane Professor Stillman's religious theses--they're frighteningly close to my own views and make for quite compelling speculation, adding to what is already a fun and unusual reading experience.

GRADE : A

1 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Example of the search for meaning, March 23, 2004

By 

ASB (Rochester, Minnesota United States) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Neon Lit: Paul Auster's City of Glass (Paperback)

I thought that this was a very well written thoughtfull book about the questions we must answer living in a postmodern society. This book deals with questions about how everyday life can become meaningless and how once we find meaning in something it can distract us from the reality which surrounds us.