“From Stones to Walls”: Paul Auster’s Written Groundwork

Abstract

Before devoting himself to writing fiction, Paul Auster wrote and translated poetry. In his book “Ground Work: Selected Poems and Essays”, the author plants a literary field for the stones and walls’ metaphor, and introduces, for the first time, the room where both the fictional and autobiographical character of the writer will enclose himself in later prose. In this article, the intertwining of words and stones allows to establish a metaphor on which Auster’s work is based: The wall as the text and the stones as the words that build it. By referencing, studying, and analysing several of the author’s poems the creative process of writing assumes a myriad of meanings. Some of these are more prevalent such as the solitude and death in City of Glass. The building of the room through text – writing – is the isolation that allows the character-writer to practice introspection and to reflect on the outside world in the safety of his own imaginary world.