Reading Response 10/26

The short story, "Ghosts", by Paul Auster is one of my favorite stories we've read so far. I really enjoyed the style of writing Auster used. He is very vivid when he writes which makes it easy to connect with the main character Blue. I felt like I was able to watch the baseball game that Blue was watching because Auster does a great job of giving facts about the game before Blue actually gets there. Auster writes," He rides the subway, rubs shoulders with the crowd, feels himself lunging towards a sense of the moment. As he takes his seat at the ball park, he is struck by the sharp clairty of the colors around him: the green grass, the brown dirt, the white ball, the blue sky above"(189). There is nothing like being at a baseball game on a perfect day and thats exactly what it sounds like. Everything is so crisp in this description that it gives off this picture perfect vibe about the baseball game. But it's really his word choice and use of colors that makes the book an easy read. I also think the constant use of colors plays a big role in how we view each character.

Everybody has a name which just so happens to be a color. But, that being said, every color represents a unique and somewhat juxtaposed personality. Throughout the whole case Blue is questioning himself on a personal level with his future Mrs. Blue but also professionally. He feels that he isn't doing a satisfactory job which I find ironic because normally blue represents confidence or stability in literature. I had similar feelings towards Mr. White and Mr. Black. Mr.White assigns Blue this case without any formal reason which is unlike White. Traditionally in literature the color white represents purity which we don't seem to see in Mr.White. White is portrayed as this honest, hard working guy but in this particular case he is a little bit sketchy. A similar notion is seen in Mr. Black. The color black normally represents power, or even death,  but in this short story it represents a mystery. Perhaps the idea of having all these colors contradict what they normally represent have a greater connection to the grand scheme of the book which to me is essentially, don't go chasing waterfalls.

This whole story keeps the reader turning pages in hopes that some mystery would reveal itself but that never seems to happen. To me, the bigger picture was that sometimes one can search for answers in life but never find them. I felt like this book was about trying to get people to focus on the present as opposed to the future and the past. Blue spends the majority of the book trying to figure out Mr.Black and ends up forgetting who he really is. What I gathered from this book is that self identity is what allows society to progress forward but people seem to forget who they really are because they're so focused on what others are doing.

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.

Ghosts

I actually enjoyed reading this short novel since the last reading had no specific time line in the story. Ghosts by Paul Auster, is actually part of a trilogy so I am looking forward to reading the next two novels.

            Blue a private investigator is hired by White to watch Black, he didn’t understand the purpose of his mission but asked no questions. The mission goes on for a few years, and Blue wrote reports in return for a paycheck. The problem for Blue is that Black simply reads and writes and, occasionally, goes to get something to eat. “For to watch someone read and write is in effect to do nothing. The only way for Blue to have a sense of what is happening is to be inside Black’s mind, to see what he is thinking, and that of course is impossible” (13). Throughout the story we see how Black is actually a reflection of Blue himself. They have more in common than Blue ever thought and they even knew each other. Finding out that Black is actually White kind of shocked me but when I thought about White’s disguises cleared every doubt off.

            One thing that really caught my attention was the usage of colors for characters’ names. I thought this was unique and very symbolic. Black represents mystery or the unknown that fits in the storyline. I'm not sure what the other colors may mean but I feel like each character is given that color because of each ones identity. 

Ghosts by Paul Auster

Ghost by Paul Auster is a novel about a detective named Blue who was assigned by White to spy on a man named Black. Blue becomes skeptical because he's never really told the reason as to why he is spying on him. Blue starts to become even more skeptical after a while of watching him and the inactivity of Black. He starts to question everything and life for him starts to become distorted. In the beginning I had trouble understanding the novel because all the characters were named after colors. When I figured it out I found it interesting and started pondering what the significance of the colors might be.I thought there may be a connection between the colors and Blue questioning his identity. Maybe the author was trying to give the characters a lack substance? The reasoning is actually lost to me, but the book was interesting non-the-less.

 

Ghosts

The mystery book, Ghosts by Paul Auster has by far been my favorite book read for this class. I love the story line and the way that every character in the book is identified by a given color instead of an actual name in order to protect their identity. This is a different approach towards introducing the characters. Usually, the author gives very detailed descriptions about the characters in a book. however, in this book, Auster purposely choses to use colors instead. This sometimes made understanding the story a little bit more difficult.

The story centers around Blue, a detective who has been hired by White, to spy on Black. In the beginning, it appears unclear as to why Blue has to spy on Black, and it becomes foggy when Blue starts losing track of what is real and what isn’t. While reading this book, I picked up on different themes, and the one that stood out the most was the constant feeling of loneliness experienced by Blue. I seemed to me that even though he kept himself preoccupied by doing his detective work, he always felt lonely. I can relate in a way, because I think there’s a lonesome feeling in doing the same thing everyday, without anything different. Blue knows Black’s routine like the back on his hand, and he can even predict what he will and wont do next. At one point, Blue feels that while watching Black, he is watching himself. 

Auster represents time in a confusing way, I think. Before we know it, years have passed in the novel, and Blue is still going on with the case. We see this when he loses connection with the future Ms.Blue, and passes her in the street, in the arms of another man. Much like in the previous book we read, Shoplifting from American Apparel by Tao Lin, it seems like Blue also had a hard time dealing with his expressing his emotions concerning the future Ms.Blue. He found himself debating if he should call her or not, since they were away from each other due to his mission. Later in the book, Blue has a thing with a woman from a bar he went to one night. This only proves how lonely he is feeling, because as he explains, “every man needs a little comfort” (43). 

The title Ghosts, makes sense to me now. For the duration of the case, Blue loses himself, I would say, thus becoming a ghost. 

Reading Response 10/27

“Life has slowed down so drastically for him that Blue is now able to see things that have previously escaped hos attention.”

What was on display in the short novel GHOST written by, Paul Auster was how uncomfortable people can be with themselves, how much we really don’t like it, how irritating loneliness can be, and the desperation that sinks in when we don’t feel like we have a purpose. Both Black and Blue became victims of their own minds by becoming entrapped in it, due to lack of stimulating interactions with other people. There were many examples in the novel of the great lengths people will go through and where their mind leads them in the presence of loneliness. Also about how much of an importance we put on trying to figure out things even if there’s nothing to figure out. We just can’t let things be it seems. How desperate people get when all they have to deal with is themselves is an interesting concept that this novel focuses on.

A good example of what happens when you spend too much time with loneliness can be found on page nineteen in the novel when Auster writes, “He has never given much thought to the world inside him, and though he always knew it was there, it had remained an unknown quantity, unexplored and therefore dark, even to himself.” It seems like the mind must constantly be working. When the external world slows down and the mind has nothing to process, it gets directed inward in self-reflection. When life slows down, as one knows it, one begins to see who they are. Following the vision are many questions about purpose and the concept of being becomes a thought, and not an unconscious action. Like Blue, many aren’t satisfied with just being, they have to figure out why to all their burning questions, sometimes leading down rabbit holes.

Reading Response 10/27

Ghost by Paul Auster was a great reading. It's captivating, creative, complex, yet a easy read. The names of the characters are color. There is Blue, Black, Brown, and so on. It's a mystery reading which keeps you guessing, its not predictable. The story centers around Blue who is send on a mission to sky on Black. He follows the character throughout the story to the surprise that nothing ever happens for a while. Instead of repeating the nothingness throughout the story, blue fills that void of lacking any concrete action from taking place by creating scenarios in his head. Most of the time spend spying on Black, Blue ponders about different scenarios, different situations, creating  situations in his mind and running with it such as White working with Black to actually spy on Blue. White being a rival of Black, Black and White fighting over inheritance and so on. The story takes a big twist near the end when Blue finally discovers that the writing Blue has seen Black do throughout the story were the weekly reports that Blue has been writing and sending to White. Clearly, Black has known that Blue was spying on him, more so he revealed to Blue who was in disguise that he (Black) was a private investigator who is spying on a person who doesn't seem to be doing anything just sitting around and writing. I take that to be that Black is a mirror of Blue, doing the same exact things, to the point where each other know when the other is out and about, and when they are doing nothing. 

The style of writing by Paul Auster in Ghost is unique I would say in that the characters are given very easy names to keep up with. Just one name, no last name and represented with a color. It's helpful especially because the story keeps bring up different characters such as Brown, the detective head Blue works for and taught him a lot, Mrs Future (and Ex Mrs Future) Blue, White who send Blue to spy on Black, and so on, so it made it very easy to keep up who was who and how were they related to Blue. Also I noticed that there were no quotation marks on the character lines throughout the story though that didn't make it any harder to keep up with the dialogue when Blue confronted Black and exchanged words. I am not sure the reason for not including quotation marks but overall the book was a good and thrilling read.

Reading Response: Ghosts

           The book Ghost by Paul Auster is a story about Blue, a detective who was hired by a man named White to spy on a man named Black. The story is told through the third person narrative. The setting is in New York City mostly in Brooklyn. Even though the author writes in the simplest English possible, this book is not easy to read. The readers can actually feel the mysterious atmosphere throughout the story. One thing that is unique about this book is the characters' names and how the author uses the technique of foreshadowing to develop the story. The author gives hints on what will happen by foreshadowing throughout the story. In the first sentence, the narrator already demonstrates the order in which the characters will emerge in story, “First of all there is Blue. Later there is White, and then Black, and before the beginning there is Brown” (7). What is more unique about this book is that all the characters are named after colors such as blue, white, black, gray, green, red, gold, and violet. Another example of Auster foreshadowing is when he states: “Little does Blue know…that the case will go for years. But the present is no less dark than the past, and its mystery is equal to anything the future might hold…For knowledge comes slowly, and when it comes, it is often at great personal expense”(9). This statement gives the reader clues about Blue’s case and its continuation for many years to come. Also, it causes Blue lose a great expense of his life due to his loss of identity.

          At first, I thought the title 'Ghosts' was named because of Blue’s job as a detective. To continue his case, Blue has to become like a shadow, during his undercover time, to follow another person in order to keep watching that person without notices. The word shadow usually associated with the word ‘ghost’. In horror films and books, most people will assumed that it will appear as a black shadow, spirit, or ghost. Also, in all ghost stories, ghosts will follow people and watch them secretly. However, as I continued to read the story, I notice that there is a more significant meaning for the title. The text states: “Writing is a solitary business. It takes over your life. In some sense, a writer has no life of his own. Even when he’s there, he’s not really there” (66). Writing is something that the author has to do alone in order to do it right. In almost all literature and movies, characters that have writing as an occupation will isolate themselves and always be alone while writing their works. I think writers are thinkers. Most of them will always think about their works all the time as if they don’t have an outside life. Being a writer can be considered difficult because most writers have to live in another person's mind while writing, like a parasite or a shadow. They put themselves in the shoes of fictional characters for better emotions and actions. This reminded me of Gloria Anzaldua, the author of Borderlands/ La Frontera, because she also puts herself in the position of her character no matter if the character is human or animal.

Ghosts by Paul Auster

    In the mystery novel "Ghosts" by Paul Auster. My thought from the beginning of the book was that it was going to be a confusing read with all the character names, but in actuality it was a novel of false leads, ambiguous clues, and uncertainty. First, theirs Blue who is a private eye trained by Brown. Then, theirs White who hired Blue to investigate a man named Black on Orange Street. Blue finds the whole case a mystery, but he does it because he needs the work, and so he listens. Blue is watching the right person we know. Only we know less about why he is watching Black. Blue watches Black out the window from his apartment and writes reports to White, hoping that he is focusing on the most relevant information. "The problem for Blue is that Black simply writes, reads, eats, takes brief strolls through the neighborhood." (18) Black's routine is predictable and seemingly tedious.

    Blue not doing well with the boredom starts going out and meets a woman named, Violet at the bar, and begins some sort of "relationship" with her. Although, he has a future Mrs. Blue in his life "he justifies these sessions with Violet by comparing himself to a soldier at war in another country, every man needs a little comfort, especially when his number could be up tomorrow." (43)
The future Mrs. Blue has moved on with her life, and why shouldn't she ? She has not heard from or seen Blue within the year. Blue runs into the future Mrs. Blue on one of his strolls to Manhattan, on the arm of another man. "Blue is so at a loss that he doesn't know whether to bend his head farther down and hide his face or stand up and greet the woman whom he now understands will never be his wife."(49)

    I think Blue feels betrayed by both Black and the ex future Mrs. Blue. It's almost as if Black is making a mockery out of Blue. There seems to be many hidden meanings in the novel from the character names, to identity, and who the self is. One thing is certain: Blue is an author through and through. He tosses Thoreau’s Walden aside as worthless. Who would go live in a forest where there’s nothing to write about, we hear Blue think, as we pity his inability to define himself through anything but his characters. As Black and Blue idly sit and script each other’s lives, the reader can’t help but feel a sense of loneliness descend upon this closed, difficult, two-person world. Are they simply alter egos, or are they author and character (and which one plays which)? By the end, we wonder whether Auster summed up the difficulties of writing best by the way he named his characters: what’s harder for any author to describe than “blue”?


    What I didn't like about the novel was I found the ending unclear or incomplete. It left me with a lot of uncertain questions: Is Black and White the same person ? Because when Blue breaks into Black's apartment "he gathers up the papers with his free hand, saying to himself it doesn't matter, this will be a start, and then makes his way to the door". Blue picks up the papers he has stolen, hoping to distract himself from these thoughts, and there they are, one after the other, the weekly accounts, all spelled out in black and white, meaning nothing, saying nothing, as far from the truth of the case as silence would have been. Blue groans when he sees them, sinking down deep within himself, and then in the face of what he finds there, begins to laugh, at first faintly, but with growing force, louder and louder, until he is gasping for breath, almost choking on it, as though trying to obliterate himself once and for all". (85)

   “Writing is a solitary business. It takes over your life. In some sense, a writer has no life of his own. Even when he’s there, he’s not really there.” To which Blue responds, “Another ghost.” (66) hence the title.

   

Ghosts by Paul Auster

Ghosts by Paul Auster is a bizarre detective story written in third person, about a man name Blue who was hired by White to watch Black on Orange Street.  From the beginning Blue is skeptical about what exactly White’s reason for the surveillance and how long this assignment would last. Blue begins his job immediately, he watches Black from the apartment across the street for a year, sends his report as instructed by White week after week. Blue becomes frustrated with the inactivity and the unknowing because after a year nothing is as it appears.

            Blue’s job of “tailing” Black begins to consume him and he questions the true identity of Black.  He begins to lose a sense of himself so much so that he question “that the man is not really there, that even though he knows he is seeing him, it is more than likely that he is the only one who can”.  Blue creates identities to try and get closer to Black being a homeless man, to the painter and even a salesman. His disguises as a salesman was to bring him closer to understanding but it only begins to make things more complicated. Black reveal to Blue that he is a detective and his assignment is the exact same assignment as Blue’s. Watching Black provided Blue with a sense of freedom, to think, to feel and reflect while in this empty room. It allowed him to no be so consumed in the world because in that room with no TV, cellphone or Internet the world didn’t exist.

            This novel was very interesting because the author wrote everything in the present as basic and as simple as possible, using colors for everyone names, never using quotes for conversations held possibly because they were all in Blue’s or maybe it was Black’s head. Only facts and detailed information provided were those of the past like the stories of his father, and the father and son who built the Brooklyn Bridge, which says that nothing right now is for sure because the present anything is possible. This is said when he writes “but the present is no less dark than the past, and its mystery is equal to anything the future might hold. Like other pieces we’ve read Ghosts is filled with contradictions of not only the words written but also the thoughts going through Blue’s head.

Ghost by Paul Auster

Ghost by Paul Auster

I really enjoyed reading Ghost, it was an easy read. It made me want to read more and more. I would find this book in the mystery section of a book store or library. The book was in a third person point of view. When I started to reading Ghost, it  reminds me of a book I read in 6th six grade. The book I read in 6th grade is called The Westing Game. The book remind me of the Ghost because it had to do something with a mystery case among the characters in the book. The Westing Game was much clear of what kind of case the characters needed to solve. In Ghost it was a bit confusing. I think because all the characters in the book name were all colors. It was weird but yet different then something I ever read, I would get confused to which color name belong to a person. From what that stands out is the person in charge of the color characteristics. For example, “White wants Blue to follow a man named Black and to keep an eye on him for as long as necessary. ” (p 2) The character blue seems he is really serious about his job. He’s like I don’t know whats the back ground of solving the case but I’m going to still do my job. Blue is just learning to his boss order. Blues’ boss seems to be white because he’s the one giving orders to the all the characters. It seems that  blue is spying on Black from the opposite building he is living in. It kind of reminds me of a steak out, detective type of business. I also thought it was a big turning point when blue thinks a missing boy is him. I like how Blue was putting the clues with Black and White together.

I thought it was cute of Blue when he thinking about his future Mrs Blue while on the case. I can tell he really loves her just how he talks about her. For example, “His mind wanders from one small thing to another, eventually settling on the future Mrs. Blue. They were planning to go out tonight, he remembers, and if it hadn’t been for White showing up at the office today and this new case, he would be with her now” (Pg 8)
Some parts go the chapter was very visual. I thought it was funny the way the character were being describes  “The black beard, for example, and the overly bushy eyebrows. And then there is the skin, which seems inordinately white, as though covered with powder” (Pg 5). Another visual part was , “Now and then Black pauses in his work and gazes out the window. At one point, Blue thinks that he is looking directly at him and ducks out of the way. But on closer inspection he realizes that it is merely a blank stare, signifying thought rather than seeing, a look that makes things invisible, that does not let them in. ” (Pg13)

reading response

           Interesting novel but not so easy to read, the author also admits his novels are not the easiest to read by comparing himself to Thoreau and Walden, he initiates you have  to read his work slowly to get a deeper understanding. The story appears somewhat simple at first, like the part when he hires Blue to watch Black and report each week about what has done. I am not so pleased with this book by Paul Auster, his use of color names for all of his characters to differentiate them instead of actual names like John, Paul or even Peter would have been nice and  would have made it more easy to read. He could have been using the color as metaphor, as in white being the absence of substance, Black is the combination of all the light colors put together , while Blue stands for the shadow of Black if you want to look at it that way.

         The way i see  the plot of this novel is that the character White hides his true identity and hires a young private eye in Blue to sit in an apartment across the street  from  his own apartment  to spy. While Blue is duped into thinking he is tailing someone named black and obligingly sends off weekly reports to white  on Blacks actions  Blue had always been a man of action, so doing nothing is difficult for him. Blue’s discovery of stories distracts him from his mission. He becomes more intrigued by the stories he imagines for Black than the activities of Black himself.  Blue often pulls himself back from fantasy to the reality of his mission, but it becomes more and more difficult for him to separate the false from the true as read in the book. It took Blue a long time to realize what is really going on, as it took me the reader a a while to figure out what was really happening. This is not the type of novel you try and read quickly even though it is short but you still have to pay close attention and analyze everything that went on between all the characters to get a better understanding of what the author is trying to derive at.

       There seem to be many  hidden meanings in this novel as there are in most of all Auster's work. He derives joy in making his works complicated and somewhat lunatic. You can argue that , that's his style but I'm not a big fan of it,

Christian P
Ghosts by Paul Auster
Reading Response:

The novel Ghosts by Paul Auster is a story of which I have never read before. From early on, I knew that one of the many charms of this story would be the act of decrypting everything Auster threw at me. A striking facet of Auster's method of storytelling is that all characters had colors for names. Written as a detective tale, the noir-esque feeling throughout the book was essential as it made everything I imagined to be filtered in black and white.

As a fan of detective, mystery and dramatic films, I found myself envisioning the unraveling story that much better to the point where it was hard to put down. But even deeper than mystery, Ghosts can be interpreted as a story of identity and self-belonging where Blue cultivated himself through studying Black and vice-versa. When Blue decided to investigate Black first-hand as Snow, he realizes Black has been toying with him and that Black may even know exactly what Blues up to (Auster 73). Furthermore, it seems as if there is a duality where they are reflections of each other: "My job is to watch someone, no one in particular as far as I can tell, and send in a report about him every week. Just that. Watch this guy and write about it. Not one damned thing more" (Auster 73). On the same page, Black hits the nail on the head when he says he is close to losing his mind, Auster demonstrates the twist as if this was a Stanley Kubrick film.

All Blue knew of himself was his job of learning the life of Black's; it gave Blue a sense of purpose: However, when Blue realized he had been lead on the entire time, he loses his grasp on his own identity and eventually reality itself. This can be attributed to him believing he knew and understood Black for years until everything caved in at the climax of the story. To conclude, my main pet-peeve with Paul Auster's Ghosts relies with his decision to end on a cliffhanger. From experience, the most memorable and impactful of stories of the genre give readers a sense of closure. I know that this is the second in a trilogy, but I think it consists of only spiritual successors and not sequels. The fact that the story ends on the line: "And from this moment on, we know nothing" only leaves me a bit empty when half of a great story is how it ends.

Reading Response 10/27

Reading Response 10/27

Ghosts by Paul Auster is a novel set in New York City about a detective story focusing on mystery and deception. The protagonist in the novel is Blue, a detective who was hired by White to spy on a man named Black. When I first started reading this novel, it was difficult to understand the characters because they were described as colors. As I continued reading, it became easier and I was able to figure out what was going on. Blue was trained by Brown and is now running the organization because Brown retired. He accepts the job to follow Black without asking many questions, because he needs the work anyways. As the spying goes on, black does nothing but read and write and Blue gets bored with the assignment because there’s really nothing to do. Blue gets caught in the deception and is unable to walk away from the situation until the very end.

One thing I found interesting was the representation of time in the novel. Auster symbolizes time in an odd but interesting way. He states, “The place is New York, the time is the present, and neither one will ever change” (7). By stating that neither of the factors will ever change, we are nearly required to believe that time has either stopped, or it is fictional.

The title of this novel has a meaning and I was not able to find a connection until later on in the story. Auster states, “Writing is a solitary business. It takes over your life. In some sense a writer has no life of his own even when he's there, he's not really there" (66). I think the author is trying to show that when you write, you need to put yourself in the story even if its fiction. Writing can take over our lives and can help to the writer connect with other people. One day, Blue breaks into Black's apartment and discover that Black to also spying on someone and writing about it. Things come to a head and the title Ghosts begin to make sense. Throughout all the years of spying on Black, Blue was actually seeing a reflection of himself in Black. Black regulated every condition even though Blue wrote about him.

Ghosts

I really enjoyed the book, Ghosts by Paul Auster. It was very engaging and caught my attention from the beginning, making it a really easy read. This book was very different from the previous novel, which had absolutely no story line. This story was a myster about the main character Blue, who was a private investigator on a case. He didn’t know what he was actually investigating and it seemed pretty boring. Black, the person he was investigating spent most of his time in his room just writing. He never did anything out of the ordinary; he just went shopping, got haircuts and usual things. As the book continues we see that Black is connected to Blue and that they both know about each other. Black turns out to be White, who was the person that sends Blue to spy on Black. In the beginning of the book, Blue mentions what White seems to be in some type of disguise, so this makes more sense. Since this book is part of a trilogy I feel that there might be more to it than what we get by just reading this book. There was a lot of hidden symbolism in this book along with a few interesting things that stood out to me.

            One of the most obvious things that stood out to me was the fact that almost all of the characters in the book were represented by colors. We don’t get any type of description from them or any type of identity. Although this is how the book is written, with just the color I was able to make a description of what the character might actually be like.

            I also noticed that sometime in the book the author writes about something but then transitions into something else. For example on page 29 when Blue is following Black on the bridge, he starts to think about his father, then the bridge itself and then about a different case he was in a magazine. Although these are all different ideas the author does a good job with transition so that all of these separate ideas make sense together.

            Another thing that I found interesting was the mentioning of Walt Whitman, first on page 9 and then again further into the book. It’s always cool when a book mentions something that you knew about.

            On page 64, is the first time where the title of the book is mentioned. On the next page Auster writes “We always talk about trying to get inside a writer to understand his work better. But when you get right down to it, there’s not much to find there—at least not much that’s different from what you’d find in anyone else.” I feel that this quote is important because in this scene Blue begins to realize that Black knows who he is. It might also be describing Black as a writer or even Auster himself. On the next page Black compares writers to Ghost, which was interesting considering that it’s the title of the book.

Ghosts, Paul Auster

Paul Auster’s mystery novel, Ghosts, focuses on the main character, Blue and his experience as a secret-agent in New York City. Blue is hired by White to spy on Black but Blue does not understand the purpose of his mission since Black does nothing but read, write, and go around the neighborhood. However, after many years of investigating White’s case, Blue discovers that Black is actually a reflection of himself. Both Black and Blue realize that they are interconnected and know more about each other than they thought. Although it was difficult for me to capture the deeper or symbolic meaning behind the novel, I was able to notice Auster’s emphasis on the differences between storytelling and writing. Auster describes Blue as a troubled writer having a hard time distinguishing reality from imagination. For Blue, writing reports with facts about Black disappoints him. The lack of details causes him to start making up stories to make his reports sound full of activity. Therefore, through the character Blue, Auster presents to his readers this idea of storytelling giving life to writing.  

In addition, there were parts of the novel that caught my attention because they seemed to share a message with the reader. For instance, when Blue is thinking about the various stories he could add to the report about Black, he says, “This isn’t the story of my life, after all. I’m supposed to be writing about him, not myself” (25). This quote from the novel reminded me of the connection an author has with their writing. Since writing is a representation of the author then one is able learn about an author through their writing. So in the novel Blue is trying to suppress his thoughts, opinions, and imagination in order for his reports to focus directly on observations and facts about Black.

Also, when Blue is disguised as a bum and has a conversation with Black, they talk about how the ghosts of writers continue to roam the world.

“Many great men have gone there says Black. Abraham Lincoln, Charles Dickens-they all walked down this street and went into the church.

Ghosts.

Yes, there are ghosts all around us.” (64). 

This conversation not only gives the meaning behind the title but also explains why a reader is able to put themselves in the mind of an author when reading their books. Auster believes that readers are haunted by the ghosts of writers. Through Ghosts, he is showing how writers leave behind a spiritual force in their writing. 

Ghost by Paul Auster

Ghost written by Paul Auster is novel in the genre of mystery and detective. The characters names' are not revealed, and each character is positioned by a color. Blue is the protagonist of the book, and has the role to watch another character named Black by his leader white. Blue and black lives across from each other and Blue is assigned to watch Black very carefully, writing down his daily live actions. After a while, Blue gets bored of watching and writing about Black because his daily life actions consists of "sitting at a table.. writes, reads, eats, takes brief strolls through the neighborhood,seems not to notice that Blue is there" ( Auster 18). Blue has to give in a report to White and followed by every report is a pay check that Blue is satisfied with, therefore Blue continues to observe the boring life of Black. While observing Black, blue notices that he is also observing himself," To speculate, from the Latin speculatus,meaning to spy out, to observe, and linked to the word speculum, meaning mirror or looking glass. For in spying out at Black across the street,it is as though Blue were looking into a mirror, and instead of merely watching another,he finds that he is also watching himself" (20). In my opinion, I believe that the point Auster is trying to make is that when we are watching someone else, we are watching our ourselves: it is a mirror reflection of ones own self.
The meaning of the title of book Ghost,appears on page 66, identifying that Ghosts are both people in the past and writers. We all are surrounded by Ghosts and writing is the only way we can communicate with one another. Blue realizes that he is putting himself in Blacks live, and to run away from this problem, he decides to get out of it, and live his life the way he wants. we can conclude that this a metaphor of search because Blue wants to experience things for himself rather than being assigned a role. we can also conclude despite the fact that Blue is writing about black, Black is the controlling every situation

Reading Response 10/27

Ghosts by Paul Auster  is a novel whose plot runs as a detective story. All the characters in this book are named after colors. The protagonist Blue, another detective is assigned by White to spy on a man named Black living in an apartment across the street Blue lives. Blue records all of his daily moves and every details about his action. After a while. Blue becomes bored of  writing notes about Black. As satisfied as he is with his paycheck, Blue still continues to write about him. Sometimes, Blue has to figure out what to include in his notes because Black did not do much. Auster reveals the quest for identity in this novel when he states, "To speculate from the Latin speculates meaning to spy out, to observe and linked to the word speculum, meaning mirror or looking glass for in spying out at Black across the street, it is as though Blue were looking into a mirror and instead of merely watching another he finds that he is merely watching himself"(20). Blue's problem is that all Black does is sit at a table and write/read. Months passed and Blue can no longer stand the fact that all Black does is write/read. He begins to engage in Black's life and learns that he too is a detective. I think the point Auster is trying to make is that when we are watching someone else, we are watching ourselves. This is true in fiction because while reading, we engage ourselves with characters that do not exist; a mirrored reflection of ourselves. The theme of mirrored identity and breaks down in communication trying to work into other people's life is what Blue experiences.
The meaning of the title of this novel Ghosts is made explicit on page 66 in which ghosts are both people in past and history and writers themselves. "Writing is a solitary business. It takes over your life. In some sense a writer has no life of his own even when he's there, he's not really there." All of us are surrounded by ghost and writing is the only medium one can attempt to communicate with one another. This novel deals with many of the questions about relationship between writer, character and reader. Blue realizes he is just putting himself in Black's life. In the end, he decides to get out of this dilemma  and be free to live his own life. This is a metaphor for search because he wants to experience things for himself rather than a character assigned to play a role. However, this mystery is compelling and while some of the twists are predictable, the ending is a bit surprising. Not knowing why White was Black and what he was doing to Blue made the ending interesting yet confusing. Despite the fact that Blue is writing about Black, Black is the controller of the situation . His actions dictate what Blue writes.

Reading Response 10/27

            I absolutely love the short novel “Ghost” by Paul Auster, it left me with many wild imagination and it has an interesting main character, Blue who was hired by White to spy on Black. One thing that caught my eyes that Auster did was using color for names. I believe there’s a hidden symbolism behind this. For example Purple, a woman which Blue talks to in the bar to console his loneliness whenever she misses the Future Mrs. Blue(EX-Future Mrs. Blue now) is interesting, because NEXIUM, the Purple Pill, offers relief from heartburn where in this case Purple was being used by Blue to comfort his broken heart. Also the name Black was chosen because of the mystery, deception, and the unknown. Blue is the symbol for understanding, which is ironic because all Blue was doing throughout the novel was trying to understand Black and White and the whole situation.

            In the novel “Welcome to our Hillbrow“ by Phaswane Mpe , the narrator takes the reader to the crazy, dangerous neighborhood(portrayed by media) of Hillbrow located in Johannesburg in South Africa. In the first chapter Hillbrow: the Map the author kept repeating “Welcome to our Hillbrow…” or “There’s Hillbrow for you!” What I find the most interesting that the author did was the way the narration was made, the book is in a third person narrative point of view based on You, the readers are being placed in the story and the narrator is talking to you.

            Both novel intertwine in many ways, one thing that caught my eyes was the use of a certain location and bring many series of story in it. For example Auster told many stories because of the Brooklyn Bridge, this reminded Blue of his Father who’s age is Identical to the bridge, and the last time he stepped in the Bridge was with him. Then Blue’s thoughts transitioned to John Roebling whose name surprisingly has nothing to do with colors, he designed the bridge and died before its completion from gangrene with an ironic ferryboat accident where his son Washington continued his work. Blue’s thoughts again transitioned into his father and how he was a cop and wore a blue uniform, then his thoughts transitioned again to the skin accident where the boy’s father died in a skiing accident then later on found his father while skiing and he looked younger. In Mpe’s novel he relates a lot of historical events to what happened in the Soccer World Cup 1998, and in 1995 when Bafana Bafana defeats the Ivory Coast. Then it transitioned to the story of a man who died of strange illness that was suspected as AIDs that initiated a wide spread of Xenophobes.