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

CONCLUSION

Retrospectively considering Louise Bourgeois's drawing, it appears that the whole problematic of confinement in Moon Palace and The New York Trilogy fits into her concentric circles. Indeed, each level of confinement can be analysed in relation to this drawing. The circle being an eloquent graphic representation of the closed space, it is therefore no surprise if this picture turns out to function as a kind of map of confinement in Auster's world. Hence, depending on the location of the point we choose to focus on, the drawing offers us an unimpeded view on the issue of confinement.

Through the process of spatial confinement, we observe that the characters withdraw towards the central circle, gradually leaving the larger circles symbolizing society and the material world. Once they have reached the smaller circle, they are completely cut off from the influence of the larger circles. As a result, they are able to set about a metaphysical reflection. Most of the time, there follows from this philosophical introspection, a rebirth of the characters. Having reached a certain state of harmony with themselves, they soon leave their small circle to stretch out towards the larger circles again. Yet, in the central circle, they have discovered something fundamental: art.

Indeed, we have seen that the central circle is the matrix of artistic creation. It is only once they have reached this central circle that the characters are able to create works of art, books. Furthermore, the act of writing implies two movements First it enables the characters to pursue their investigation on themselves more deeply, thus moving further towards the very centre of their circle. Then it makes the characters reconnect themselves to society, hence moving back towards the larger circles. However, the writing of the book amounts to the creation of an imaginary world inside the real world. On the graphical plane, it boils downs to drawing a new circle within the series of existing circles. In this fashion, Louise Bourgeois's drawing also applies to a study of Auster's encircling fiction. Indeed, the diegeses of both Moon Palace and The New York Trilogy consist in a vertiginous superimposition of a considerable number of narrative layers, like so many concentric circles. This Russian doll-like structure is all the more confusing as some characters seem to be aware of their statuses as characters, confined in a circle of fiction. It is therefore quite naturally that they come to ask themselves Pascal's questions: «Qui m'y a mis? Par l'ordre et la conduite de qui ce lieu [ce cercle] a-t-il été destine a moi ?»^256(*) Attempting to answer these questions, the characters tend to become writers in their turn, thus creating new circles inside their own circles. But this further entanglement of circles complicates the drawing and raises the issue of authorship. Indeed, it seems no longer possible to know who the author is, who controls whom. As a result, we, as readers, are prone to wondering whether we are ourselves, characters confined in some circle of fiction.

Looking at it from a different angle, Louise Bourgeois's drawing can also evoke a galaxy -a grouping of stars that constitutes a system. In the same way, Auster's work is a system whose basic constitutive element is the word. Consequently, we can assert that the words, combined together, constitute a system comparable to a galaxy. Yet, huge as it may be, a galaxy is nevertheless not infinite; as in Louise Bourgeois's drawing, there is a larger circle that encloses all the others. Similarly -as Austerian characters come to realize- the language of words is a closed system that confines us. In order to counteract this confining effect of language, some characters try to create new words, thus widening the lexical circle. Some others rather try to distance themselves from the words, trying to stand above them in order to escape their confining force.

Taking into consideration that the language of words is a small circle enclosed in the much larger circle of the world, it seems natural enough that the characters want to `break' the circle of language to have a direct access to the world. This desire to be able to get through all the circles corresponds to the universal need for transparency and meaning. Once again, Austerian characters seek to answer Pascal's metaphysical questions. But if, at times, they perceive connections between the different circles, it seems obvious that -being plunged into such a complex entanglement- their quest for absolute correspondence is bound to fail.

At this stage, it seems clear that Louise Bourgeois's drawing invites us to a reflection on our position in the Universe. Alone and awake in her Brooklyn apartment in the night of the 24^th of January 1995, she stylized the Universe in a series of concentric circles, rendering -with this apparently unelaborated drawing- the complexity of the issue of metaphysics. Likewise, a few years earlier, alone in his Brooklyn office, Paul Auster wrote The New York Trilogy and Moon Palace, two novels that oddly echo Louise Bourgeois's drawing in their approach to metaphysical reflection. It seems then that the philosophical quest initiated by Pascal still arouses reflection and artistic creation and always will.

* ²⁵⁶ Pascal, Blaise. Pensées. (Paris : Classiques Garnier, 1991), fragment 102, page 189.