Paul Auster and metafiction

A writer looking at a writer looking at a writer

I am developing an exhibition that will debut in Mexico City in September 2025. My work occupies the majority of my day, from morning until early evening, interspersed with brief intervals dedicated to coffee, matcha, meals, reading, sunbathing on the terrace, dancing, conversation with the cat, stretching, and watching films. If it happens to be the weekend or Monday, I’m out dancing tango in the park or at Abrazo in the evenings. This is the first time I have undertaken such an extensive exhibition proposal, and thank god I’m not doing it on my own. Juan and I are on it, every single day. The exhibition will be of medium scale, featuring 40 photographs distributed across two or three rooms. The proposal demands a comprehensive justification and description of the process, an execution plan, timeline and phases, the curatorial approach, technical descriptions of the works, research methodology, as well as objectives and focal points. Additionally, we are getting quotes for custom vinyl lettering, frames in various materials and colors (red, gold, black aluminum), quotes for printing on Epson Premium Luster paper, transportation logistics, finding a producer, assistance for mounting and cleaning, and quotes for accent lighting. The amount of intellectual labor required is significant, but overall I am stimulated by the learning curves and the subjects of the exhibition (cannot divulge yet). To maintain balance and protect my eyes from melting, I ensure that I step away from my work periodically—whether by taking walks in the park seeking Devine pockets of light, smiling at children bouncing on a two-headed red horse seesaw, examining missing dog posters and thinking they are kind of cute and king of ugly, or consuming dragon fruit and crushing the tiny seeds very carefully with my teeth to hear the crunching sounds. Besides that parade of relaxation, I find solace in looking into the cat pupils. I try to demystify the vertical slits by resting up close inside the pupils. The pupils of a cat are the ultimate place for respite.

Lately, I have been reading Paul Auster's New York Trilogy, his debut novel. Auster published this work when he was 34, the same year he met his wife, Siri Hustvedt. They married the following year. I told Juan and he said, if that’s so, let’s marry next year. In June, during my last day in Colombia, I discussed Auster and Hustvedt over lunch with him. Juan had read some of Hustvedt's essays from A Woman Looking at Men Looking at Women, and appreciated them. We made a pact: I would read Hustvedt’s essays, and he would read Auster’s The Country of Last Things. Our conversation led us online to discover that Auster had passed away from lung cancer in April, just three months prior. We both shared a brief sadness and concern for Hustvedt and their children. This news sort of stayed incased in my heart all the way to the airport. A friend of mine had taken a workshop with Auster in Argentina. I’ve been discussing Auster and reading his work slowly over the years and I never imagined him dead or alive. He was a writer in his books for me, that’s all. And now I started thinking about him as a man with flesh and bones, and suddenly with closed eyes and a settled heart. As soon as I arrived at the airport, I settled in with a cold Kyoto-style coffee and began drafting a letter to Hustvedt. It was a spontaneous act, the words seemed to come out of me effortlessly. Though the letter remains unpolished and unfinished, I intend to send it to Siri one day.

In the past two months, I have continued my reading of Auster, moving on to Invisible and now nearing the conclusion of the third story in The New York Trilogy. A prominent theme throughout the trilogy is metafiction—the narrator is aware of his own role as a character within the narrative, and thus, he lives his life to write, and writes to live. In the trilogy, at one point, the protagonist, who is also a writer, follows another individual with the intent to document his every action—how he brushes his teeth, his morning routine, his interactions at bars, and his relationships. Writers require subjects to observe and record. The story eventually reveals that the observed individual is also a writer, conducting the same kind of observation on the protagonist. Tell me your head is not burning yet. The narrative blurs the lines between reality and fiction, leaving the reader uncertain as to who is manipulating whom. Writers are akin to detectives, constantly inhabiting others' lives. Do we come to understand our own existence by observing the other? Is observing the other a work of subtraction? Am I less or more myself when I transcend into the other momentarily?

I found myself relating to the character in the second story, Ghosts, as an obsessive observer, everything is worth taking note of, everything is potential for a piece of writing. I am always in the mood of reflecting and reinterpreting the actions and lives of those around me. A discarded lottery ticket, a phone number, the letter C, or a fortune cookie become significant and provide direction for my writing. In the trilogy, the protagonist frequently changes identities : a toothbrush seller, a homeless individual, or a private detective. It allows him to access different spaces and people. Last week, I assumed the role of Juan’s student in order to gain access to a Braille printer at a library in Mexico City. It was a cute and thrilling white lie. I mean, am sort of a student, always with my head in the books and licking museums from head to toes taking notes and never reading them again. I’m an unaffiliated student. The copies are sitting on my desk and it makes me very happy to have them there and to know that I can proclaim to be an astronaut or a scientist and they would let me in the NASA Centers and Facilities at Langley Research Center in Hampton.

Through Auster's work, I’ve also been introduced to the practice of phrenology, which involves measuring the bumps on a skull to predict mental traits. Notably, Walt Whitman donated his brain for scientific study after his death, as he was considered one of the most intelligent men in America. During the autopsy, a mishap resulted in Whitman’s brain being dropped and reduced to a big mess on the floor. I could not sleep at night if I was the mortuary assistant. Fuck.

After flipping the last page of the second story yesterday, I sought out one of Auster’s recent interviews, I needed to see him move and sit in his chair. I found one that was conducted seven years ago. Here’s what stayed with me: completing one polished page a day is a good ratio, leaving space and blanks within a story for the reader to fill in the gaps and be pleased with a little confusion and unanswered questions, and the idea that the writer's fundamental task is to maintain awareness and keep their eyes open. Keeping the eyes open reminded me of a scene in A Clockwork Orange. The Ludovico Technique sequence. In this scene, the protagonist, Alex DeLarge, is strapped to a chair with his eyelids forced open while being subjected to violent and disturbing films as part of an aversion therapy designed to reform his criminal tendencies. To keep Alex's eyes open, a real medical device called a speculum (or eye retractor) was used. It's a metal instrument typically employed in eye surgeries to hold the eyelids apart. I leave you with this image, knowing that this is the work of a writer too.