In “The New York trilogy” a young Paul Auster uses cleverly the yellow novel genre to explore different items, some almost philosophic. The writer constantly mixes the detective roll with the writer roll. In fact the writer cancels himself in the characters created by him, giving them life, renounce at some part of him . While, the detective cancels himself in the case, in the observed person, trying to enter in the other to imagine what he will do. Moreover the writer has some characteristics in common with the creator, who, following the greek and jewish idea of “logos”, giving name to the things can change the world.
This item is incredible exposed in the first of the three novels, “City of Glass”. Here a Yellow novel writer becomes detective after having received a wrong call. In a new york with metaphysical atmospheres, he will have to spy on an old man who, twenty years before, had closed for 8 years his son in a little room to see if, without contacts with the external world, he would have developed the original language, the language of god. Quinn, the protagonist, will start an intellectual change with the man that end only with the absolutely cancelation of himself, renouncing at his name, his work, his role in the world. He will dedicat his life to understand this man, but he will only can understand that the world he see around is like a theater set design that will fall down soon. In this novel the writer tell us that if we can't describe the world we can know it.