- Paperback: 144 pages
- Publisher: Picador USA; Reprint edition (1 July 2004)
- Language English
- ISBN-10: 0312423608
- ISBN-13: 978-0312423605
- Product Dimensions: 21.1 x 14.1 x 0.8 cm
- Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars See all reviews (1 customer review)
- Amazon Bestsellers Rank: 458,974 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
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Customer Reviews
Most Helpful Customer Reviews
1 of 1 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
Why City of Glass? Well, from what I've read about this project, it was formed all those years ago (1994!) under the aegis of a Mr Art Spiegleman (if you don't know, you'll never know) to take on a comic strip adaption of Paul Auster's novel of the same name...a notoriously non-visual, cerebral novel....certainly not movie adaption material (as Spiegleman notes in his introduction, it was related to him by Auster himself that attempts had been made to turn the novel into a workable screenplay, but they had all failed, DISMALLY).
Yet somehow it was done. Somehow, two of the best analytical brains in US comics (and one of the best graphic artists !) managed to succeed where others had failed. I don't know how they did it, and whilst part of me would like to know, there's another part of me that thinks the mystique is all so apposite...delicious!
If you want a cerebral "graphic narrative" you're in the right place. There remains something impenetrable at the core of City of Glass (I'm still struggling through Don Quixote-the parallels are fairly exquisite)-some inherent mystery that can never be decoded no matter how many times you return to the book.
I must confess that i came to this glorious tome as a Mazzucchelli fan, not an Auster fan, although I have read a couple of his books (including the source novel) so I can say that this truly enriches his ouvre, adds to it in ways which Auster himself could surely not have imagined.
So, to the glorious Mazzucchelli art, then....I encapsulated it pretty well there, I think-GLORIOUS. Whilst the style displayed bears a passing resemblance to his more well-known Batman: Year One linework Mazzuchelli has evolved in leaps and bounds, a truly restless, questing artist...indeed as I write I gingerly await the arrival of what promises to be his magnum opus, Asterios Polyp, but that, as they say, is another story...!
Mazzucchelli's drawings here are functional, cartoony, even-restricting himself to the "standard" 9-panel grid layout seems to entice a rigour from the cartoonist, a formality, which I would like to see him explore further...what we have in City Of Glass is a Comic Artist FULLY coming to terms, and getting to grips with, the NARRATIVE possibilities of his chosen medium, and for that reason alone I think that the importance of this work cannot be overstated...Mazzuchelli's line is rugged, it feels spontaeneous and marries in nicely with the "baseline style" the artist has referred to himself utilising for this stunning piece.
I gather that the novel was "broken-down", "layed-out", whatever you want to call it, by Paul Karasik. Karasik is not known as a draftsman. What he does posess, however, is a keen sense of how to wring the upmost permutations of a given story out of a page, a panel. To City Of Glass he has bought a scalpel-keen incisiveness which pares away the graphically extraneous to boil down the grid into it's barest iconographic essence-clean, easily-deciphered compositions where before (in the novel) existed pure, almost philosophical, fairytale-like storytelling dealing with pretty complex ideas:the nature of fiction as document, the nature and mutability of identity, the falsehoods of narrative...Karasik's "graphic fingerprints" are maybe not as visible to the naked eye as Mazzuchelli's but are no less effective for that...they both deserve equal credit.
I have thrown away my copy of the novel.
I no longer need it.
(No disrespect to Paul Auster intended.)
With this book, Karasik and Mazzuchelli have produced a beautiful example of how a almost-seamless synergy between words and pictures can be achieved. A beautiful marriage.
I can't praise "City Of Glass:the graphic novel any higher.
Yet somehow it was done. Somehow, two of the best analytical brains in US comics (and one of the best graphic artists !) managed to succeed where others had failed. I don't know how they did it, and whilst part of me would like to know, there's another part of me that thinks the mystique is all so apposite...delicious!
If you want a cerebral "graphic narrative" you're in the right place. There remains something impenetrable at the core of City of Glass (I'm still struggling through Don Quixote-the parallels are fairly exquisite)-some inherent mystery that can never be decoded no matter how many times you return to the book.
I must confess that i came to this glorious tome as a Mazzucchelli fan, not an Auster fan, although I have read a couple of his books (including the source novel) so I can say that this truly enriches his ouvre, adds to it in ways which Auster himself could surely not have imagined.
So, to the glorious Mazzucchelli art, then....I encapsulated it pretty well there, I think-GLORIOUS. Whilst the style displayed bears a passing resemblance to his more well-known Batman: Year One linework Mazzuchelli has evolved in leaps and bounds, a truly restless, questing artist...indeed as I write I gingerly await the arrival of what promises to be his magnum opus, Asterios Polyp, but that, as they say, is another story...!
Mazzucchelli's drawings here are functional, cartoony, even-restricting himself to the "standard" 9-panel grid layout seems to entice a rigour from the cartoonist, a formality, which I would like to see him explore further...what we have in City Of Glass is a Comic Artist FULLY coming to terms, and getting to grips with, the NARRATIVE possibilities of his chosen medium, and for that reason alone I think that the importance of this work cannot be overstated...Mazzuchelli's line is rugged, it feels spontaeneous and marries in nicely with the "baseline style" the artist has referred to himself utilising for this stunning piece.
I gather that the novel was "broken-down", "layed-out", whatever you want to call it, by Paul Karasik. Karasik is not known as a draftsman. What he does posess, however, is a keen sense of how to wring the upmost permutations of a given story out of a page, a panel. To City Of Glass he has bought a scalpel-keen incisiveness which pares away the graphically extraneous to boil down the grid into it's barest iconographic essence-clean, easily-deciphered compositions where before (in the novel) existed pure, almost philosophical, fairytale-like storytelling dealing with pretty complex ideas:the nature of fiction as document, the nature and mutability of identity, the falsehoods of narrative...Karasik's "graphic fingerprints" are maybe not as visible to the naked eye as Mazzuchelli's but are no less effective for that...they both deserve equal credit.
I have thrown away my copy of the novel.
I no longer need it.
(No disrespect to Paul Auster intended.)
With this book, Karasik and Mazzuchelli have produced a beautiful example of how a almost-seamless synergy between words and pictures can be achieved. A beautiful marriage.
I can't praise "City Of Glass:the graphic novel any higher.
Most Helpful Customer Reviews on Amazon.com (beta)
Amazon.com:
18 reviews
14 of 15 people found the following review helpful
Exceptional, Horrific and Beautiful Fiction
23 Mar 2006
Format:Paperback
City of Glass is the story of Daniel Quinn, a poet turned mystery writer, who is called one night by a person urgently seeking a detective. After several nights of "Sorry, wrong number," Quinn decides to impersonate Paul Auster, the detective the person wants to hire. Accepting the assignment leads to his ultimate ruin.
This story is primarily about Quinn's descent from depression into outright obsession and madness. Horrific abuse based on misinterpreted religion plays a big part in the book, as does the threat of murder. The perceived danger eventually disappears and the case fades away, but Quinn cannot return to his former life, and ends up completely delusional.
City of Glass is a book of unusual subtlety. Much of the tension is implicit, but is sensed through sections of extensive dialogue. The sparse artwork of the book, finally, highlights the dialogue by moving it along and filling it out, rather than distracting the reader from what is being said.
This is an exceptional work of fiction, even for readers unaccustomed to graphic novels.
This story is primarily about Quinn's descent from depression into outright obsession and madness. Horrific abuse based on misinterpreted religion plays a big part in the book, as does the threat of murder. The perceived danger eventually disappears and the case fades away, but Quinn cannot return to his former life, and ends up completely delusional.
City of Glass is a book of unusual subtlety. Much of the tension is implicit, but is sensed through sections of extensive dialogue. The sparse artwork of the book, finally, highlights the dialogue by moving it along and filling it out, rather than distracting the reader from what is being said.
This is an exceptional work of fiction, even for readers unaccustomed to graphic novels.
8 of 8 people found the following review helpful
Pictures of some kind of Hell. . . .
31 July 2004
Format:Paperback
Having not read Paul Auster's original novel I can't compare it with the graphic novel, but I can certainly assume it must be an excellent book since it provided the source for this excellent work. I also can't say that I fully understand everything that goes on in this deceptively simple-looking little book; there are multiple layers, and the more times you read it the more questions it answers...and the more questions it asks.
A widower named Quinn lives in New York City with nothing to do but write detective novels. They fill the time, but they don't mean much to him. He walks around the city and likes to feel lost. He is so alone that his loneliness has actually become his companion. One night his phone rings: a wrong number. The caller wants something. He has no reason, but he goes along because it provides a direction, something he has been sorely lacking for years. He becomes involved in a case that has nothing to do with him and he lets it become an obsession. He imagines himself a detective, like the hero of his novels. He imagines that New York is his cocoon, protecting him from the real world, when actually it could be his Hell. He may be losing his mind.
Who is Quinn? Are the other characters in the novel parts of himself, or are they real? Is he looking for a reason to go insane, or is the world really this way? And what parts of Quinn belong to the novel's author, Paul Auster, who also appears in the novel? What is being said here about writing, about loneliness, about language, about growing old, about families, about faith? Questions upon questions. Some are answered in repeated readings, some are never answered. They are for you.
An absolutely mind-boggling piece of work with a thrilling story, a deeply personal perspective, and wonderfully evocative images that at once recall old Bogart films, nightmares, and great comics from the past. I wish more artists would attempt what Paul Karasik and David Mazzucchelli did here: not merely to translate, but to re-imagine a novel into an entirely new form. Bravo!
A widower named Quinn lives in New York City with nothing to do but write detective novels. They fill the time, but they don't mean much to him. He walks around the city and likes to feel lost. He is so alone that his loneliness has actually become his companion. One night his phone rings: a wrong number. The caller wants something. He has no reason, but he goes along because it provides a direction, something he has been sorely lacking for years. He becomes involved in a case that has nothing to do with him and he lets it become an obsession. He imagines himself a detective, like the hero of his novels. He imagines that New York is his cocoon, protecting him from the real world, when actually it could be his Hell. He may be losing his mind.
Who is Quinn? Are the other characters in the novel parts of himself, or are they real? Is he looking for a reason to go insane, or is the world really this way? And what parts of Quinn belong to the novel's author, Paul Auster, who also appears in the novel? What is being said here about writing, about loneliness, about language, about growing old, about families, about faith? Questions upon questions. Some are answered in repeated readings, some are never answered. They are for you.
An absolutely mind-boggling piece of work with a thrilling story, a deeply personal perspective, and wonderfully evocative images that at once recall old Bogart films, nightmares, and great comics from the past. I wish more artists would attempt what Paul Karasik and David Mazzucchelli did here: not merely to translate, but to re-imagine a novel into an entirely new form. Bravo!
4 of 4 people found the following review helpful
William Wilson
17 Oct 2008
Format:Paperback|Amazon Verified Purchase
In all the reviews I am surprised no one has mentioned Poe's short story "William Wilson," the very definition of doppleganger in literary prose. Here in "City of Glass' we have the same thing, even Auster uses the name William Wilson.
This novel brings back true literature in a culture devoid of anything that smacks of indepth thinking on the part of the reader. Allusions, allegory, symbol, puns, linguistic twists, irony, shifting narrators...it's all here. The play on initials between Don Quixote and Danial Quinn is exquisite; the continual movement of Stillman and the paradox of his name speaks volumes about the craft of the author; the quick syntax of detective fiction when Quinn is Auster is beautifully reminiscent of Phillip Roth; the Socratic philosophical dialogue between Stillman and Auster makes me smile with joy that an author encapsulated the form so subtlely and let the audience 'get it' on their own.
As a reader, the beauty of the style and form shines through without me having to be told by the author what he is doing. That is priceless in a contemporary literary world where stunted, choppy, rough prose has eclipsed mastery. I am so glad I have a copy of City of Glass; it is the best book I have read in years.
This novel brings back true literature in a culture devoid of anything that smacks of indepth thinking on the part of the reader. Allusions, allegory, symbol, puns, linguistic twists, irony, shifting narrators...it's all here. The play on initials between Don Quixote and Danial Quinn is exquisite; the continual movement of Stillman and the paradox of his name speaks volumes about the craft of the author; the quick syntax of detective fiction when Quinn is Auster is beautifully reminiscent of Phillip Roth; the Socratic philosophical dialogue between Stillman and Auster makes me smile with joy that an author encapsulated the form so subtlely and let the audience 'get it' on their own.
As a reader, the beauty of the style and form shines through without me having to be told by the author what he is doing. That is priceless in a contemporary literary world where stunted, choppy, rough prose has eclipsed mastery. I am so glad I have a copy of City of Glass; it is the best book I have read in years.
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