Movement, space and language in Paul Auster’s City of Glass

Abstract

The aim of this article is to show how in Paul Auster’s novel City of Glass, an approach to singularity through language takes place. Nevertheless, this adjustment between words and things fails because of the constant movement and change of things, resulting in failure of the perfect adjustment between the singular and language, turning the language into silence. We think that this is confirmed in the behaviour of two of this novel’s characters (Peter Stillman senior and Quinn the detective), whose only alternative and escape consists of merging with the city, transforming the space into a new linguistic articulation.