Type of bind: Paperback
Format: Bargain Price
Quantity: 1
Page Count: 144
Printing Date: August 01, 2004
Sale Popularity Level: 413279
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Product Description:
A graphic novel classic with a new introduction by Art Spiegelman
Quinn writes mysteries. The Washington Post has described him as a “post-existentialist private eye.” An unknown voice on the telephone is now begging for his help, drawing him into a world and a mystery far stranger than any he ever created in print.
Adapted by Paul Karasik and David Mazzucchelli, with graphics by David Mazzucchelli, Paul Auster’s groundbreaking, Edgar Award-nominated masterwork has been astonishingly transformed into a new visual language.
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Rated by buyers -
In all the reviews I am surprised no one has mentioned Poe's short story "William Wilson," the very definition of doppleganger in literary prose. Here in "City of Glass' we have the same thing, even Auster uses the name William Wilson.
This novel brings back true literature in a culture devoid of anything that smacks of indepth thinking on the part of the reader. Allusions, allegory, symbol, puns, linguistic twists, irony, shifting narrators...it's all here. The play on initials between Don Quixote and Danial Quinn is exquisite; the continual movement of Stillman and the paradox of his name speaks volumes about the craft of the author; the quick syntax of detective fiction when Quinn is Auster is beautifully reminiscent of Phillip Roth; the Socratic philosophical dialogue between Stillman and Auster makes me smile with joy that an author encapsulated the form so subtlely and let the audience 'get it' on their own.
As a reader, the beauty of the style and form shines through without me having to be told by the author what he is doing. That is priceless in a contemporary literary world where stunted, choppy, rough prose has eclipsed mastery. I am so glad I have a copy of City of Glass; it is the best book I have read in years.
Rated by buyers 
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City of Glass is a graphic novel interpretation of Paul Auster's well received book, originally published in 1985. Halfway through the graphic novel I picked up the original book to see how some of the wild imagery was portrayed in written form. I was surprised (though should I have been?) that there seemed to be greater depth to the literary version, which supplemented the imagery as I continued to move deeper into the graphic novel.
The only reason I didn't give this work a better rating was due to the storyline building up in a way that insisted more in the end. I enjoyed the graphic novel, but after reading it I realized I would have appreciated the original even more. I feet it would probably be best to read the original novel and then try the shorter graphic version again...but I honestly have some difficulty committing myself to a detective yarn when I already know how it will end.
Rated by buyers -
Not knowing the book, I bought this comic by chance and was not at all prepared. I've never read a comic like this in my whole life. It goes so deep...it's a miracle.
Rated by buyers -
The real magic here is that, in reworking Paul Auster's original novel, Karasik and Mazzucchelli have produced a true literary adaptation in comics form. This is no "Classics Illustrated"; this is a comic that strengthens its source material rather than diminishing it. The original book's concern with the gap between language and meaning is given further depth and resonance in the comic, which finds a visual language equivalent, and does it in a way that no other medium could have. This is no mere illustrated text, but comics as a formidable language and medium in itself. Interestingly, when the original book and the comic are read together, the comic itself almost becomes a physical character, another in the story's proliferation of literary doubles.
Rated by buyers -
"City of Glass" is not a simple adaptation from the original book, but a real translation, from literature to sequential art. Mazzuchelli's drawings provides a very good trip to Auster's universe, his unusual characters, enlarging at same time the limits of comics language. One of the best comic books ever!
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