Paul Auster and The Music of Chance: Building New Stories

Abstract

Paul Auster’s postmodernist writing fictionalizes his own process of self-conscious writing in “The Music of Chance”. This article analyzes the identity of the Wall built by the protagonist - Jim Nashe - as well as its ever-evolving meaning to the character-writer. Addressing the concept of the writer as a literary character, Auster’s metafictional and metalinguistic reflection about the art of writing allows for a definition of literary construction. This idea enables the comparison between a text of this particular rhetorical structure and any other text of any other type.