Confinement in Paul Auster's Moon Palace and the New York Trilogy

2/ Between the World and the Self

The inadequacy of the word

In City of Glass, Stillman is a mad linguist. Yet, he is some kind of spokesman for Auster who uses this character to expose some of the fundamental questions he asks himself about language. In the first dialogue between Quinn and Stillman, Stillman brings out an issue that is particularly recurrent throughout Auster's work: the frontier between the `real' world and its modes of representation. In his speech, generally referred to as `the umbrella speech', Stillman exposes his view about language:

`Our words no longer correspond to the world. (...) Hence, every time we try to speak of what we see, we speak falsely, distorting the very thing we are trying to represent. (...) Consider a word that refers to a thing -`umbrella' for example. When I say the word `umbrella', you see the object in your mind. You see a kind of stick, with collapsible metal spokes on top that form an armature for a waterproof material which, when opened, will protect you from the rain. This last detail is important. Not only is an umbrella a thing, it is a thing that performs a function -in other words, expresses the will of man. (...) Now, my question is this. What happens when a thing no longer performs its function? Is it still the thing, or has it become something else? When you rip the cloth off the umbrella, is the umbrella still an umbrella? (...) Is it possible to go on calling this object an umbrella? In general, people do (...) To me this is a serious error, the source of all our troubles. Because it can no longer perform its function, the umbrella has ceased to be an umbrella. (...) The word, however, has remained the same. Therefore, it can no longer express the thing. It is imprecise; it is false; it hides the thing it is supposed to reveal. And if we cannot even name a common, everyday object that we hold in our hands, how can we expect to speak of the things that truly concern us?'^177(*)

Here, Stillman points out the inadequacy of our language of words. Furthermore, he illustrates the classical theory according to which the clarification of language becomes the prerequisite and actually the exclusive task of philosophy.^178(*) This issue is dear to Auster as the `umbrella speech' is echoed in Moon Palace where Effing and Marco encounter Orlando, a man walking with an umbrella over his head, the protective cloth having been stripped off its armature. The same issue is declined in Portrait of an Invisible Man: «At what moment does a house stop being a house? When the roof is taken off? When the windows are removed? When the walls are knocked down? At what moment does it become a pile of rubble?»^179(*) It seems obvious then that Auster resents the gap between the world and the word. Language appears to Auster as a closed system. The representation of the world being the result of the interrelation of resemblances and differences within this closed system. That is precisely the reason why Marco has so many difficulties when describing the world to Effing. Effing makes Marco realize the huge frontier between the words and the world: «I was being plunged into a world of particulars, and the struggle to evoke them in words, to summon up the immediate sensual data, presented a challenge I was ill-prepared for.»^180(*)

* ¹⁷⁷ City of Glass, pages 77-78.

* ¹⁷⁸ Encyclopédia Universalis, la philosophie du langage.

* ¹⁷⁹ Portrait of an Invisible Man, in The Invention of Solitude, page 26.

* ¹⁸⁰ Moon Palace, page 121.