City of Glass

The protagonist of City of Glass, Daniel Quinn, assumes various identities throughout the novel, blurring the boundaries between self and other. Some of the identities Quinn assumes are fairly straightforward. For instance, he writes under the pseudonym William Wilson—a reference to a famous Edgar Allan Poe story about a doppelgänger. However, other identities he assumes make matters more complicated. For instance, he takes on the identity of Paul Auster after receiving a…

City of Glass is an unconventional detective novel in which knowledge is hard to come by. In fact, by the end of the novel, Daniel Quinn learns very little about the case he is investigating, as he has trouble discerning truth from conspiracy. In place of knowledge, Quinn ends up with a substantial number of coincidences that may reveal everything or nothing at all. For instance, Stillman Sr. takes walks that, when traced on a…

City of Glass is a novel that reflexively explores the value of literature and interpretation. This theme appears explicitly in the scene where Quinn visits Paul Auster, and the two discuss Auster’s current writing project: an essay on Don Quixote. Don Quixote (published in two parts in 1605 and 1615) is often called the first modern novel. Scholars and literary critics have commented on Don Quixote for hundreds of years, always managing to…