What do you guys think of pic related?

>>9215630
I remember liking City of Glass. Didn't read the rest.

>>9215630
I enjoyed it, my favorite was the Locked Room, it had a wistful, memory-style of storytelling that I quite liked.

Not exactly my favorite novel/set of novels, but worth the read for sure

Really painful read. Dry, no imagination, cookie-cutter prose.
I recall a joke I made once to a bookclub, I stood up, locking eyes with the finest piece of ass there (a well trimmed man for 63). Our eyes either end of a string I said: "The man's name really should have been Paul Austere". There was a chuckle from at least five directions. I sat down with a not so shy smile on my face and was offered a glass of brandy for my little jape.
This week, we are reading Cynthia Ozick, not to be confused with Ruth Ozeki.

it was ok, like really ok. it was clever and stuff but felt sloppy, like these were writing experiments not fully thought out novels. i liked the third story best but that one is not even really new yorkish or noirish.

it's not bad but you might as well jst read borges

>>9215671
What

Who are the best mystery/crime authors?

>>9215630
I really like it. Especially the first story, City of Glass.

>>9215671
Of all the literature out there to call dry and unimaginative, postmodern metafiction isn't really the first thing that comes to my mind. I agree that the prose isn't amazing anything but it's heavily inspired by detective fiction, so...

>>9216761
It being postmodern metafiction doesn't make it devoid of imagination.

>>9215630
They are interesting, but I read Dhalgren at around the same time, which goes for a vaguely similar aesthetic effect (based around order as opposed to beauty, with a narrative surrealism just subtle enough to be unsettling without obscuring the primary story) and even though they are very different works, Dhalgren absolutely blew me away and I think about it fairly often, whereas the NY trilogy was captivating in the moment but in retrospect, the mysteries feel too hollow.

For example in Dhalgren, although a lot isn't really resolved or is at most hinted at, you feel deep down that the amount of closure given is appropriate to the style and tone, and there are tons of self contained passages that are extremely moving and self contained. The NYT has none of these self contained passages, every single sentence just contributes to the overall mystery and as these mysteries are almost always given open endings, its hard to really maintain interest.

I do certainly think these three stories are more than completely empty - the "extremely soft boiled detective" effect is uncanny, probably the best reason to read them, I don't know if that exact effect is utilised by any other authors but I doubt they would have done it better, before Auster.