Ghost by Paul Auster Reading Reponse 10/27

Ghosts" by Paul Auster reads like a dective novel, its a bizarre mystery where there is no crime. The whodunit aspect is more of a self evaluation of ones identity. Although read like a mystery novel it is not, this wannabe detective novel falls short. For that, Austers book is missing that vital piece. Imagine being a detective  in New York during the 1940s and being stripped of all your normal day to day action. Where all you do is sit in a room and watch a man across the street in another apartment sitting and reading at his desk? That is the synopsis of the story. It often felt like I was reading and I wouldn't get anywhere with the story because his writing dragged on from sentence to sentence. It was as if he wants the reader to  re-invent the characters and plot of the story. Austers sentence to sentence writing for most could run flat but for me he pulled it off well. If this was a piece of artwork it would be a beautiful picture, but it would miss texture and details. Even with his missing component I still enjoyed this book very much finishing it in one sitting because I didnt want to put it down. While reading the book I had this bizarre feeling the entire time, as if I read the book before. What I enjoyed most about the book was the perception I recieved from it. Auster took me into a unrealistic realm, by giving characters names like Blue, Black, and White. The 3 main characters in the story, where White hires Blue to watch Black's every move. Blue is our eyes from a readers perspective from which we peek. Blue is having a hard time adjusting to a new scenery where there is no action. Black simply reads, writes, eats, and goes to the store occasionally to buy things. His routine becomes predictable very quickly. With all this time on Blue's hands he starts to dig deeper into the world inside him, no longer intune with the outside world he has to now face himself. Along with doing so he begins to distract himself by imagining stories about Black and often gets lost in them. He has a hard time staying in reality begining to realize his stories about Black were more about him. Auster did a wonderful job portraying loneliness with just two characters who are imprisoned by one another in a room. Through the course of the writer spying on the other writer, the writers becomes the reader and reads his own story. Auster gives us creativity at its best.