Quinn

I read Paul Auster’s New York Trilogy a few months ago. It was fine. Postmodernism Lite. A totally readable bunch of books. About a third as clever and profound as they think themselves to be, but I suppose that is still reasonably clever and/or profound. A case in point, from City of Glass:

 “It’s not that I dislike strangers per se. It’s just that I prefer not to speak to anyone who does not introduce himself. In order to begin, I must have a name.”

“But once a man gives you his name, he’s no longer a stranger.’ ‘

“Exactly. That’s why I never talk to strangers.”

Quinn had been prepared for this and knew how to answer. He was not going to let himself be caught. Since he was technically Paul Auster, that was the name he had to protect. Anything else, even the truth, would be an invention, a mask to hide behind and keep him safe.

“In that case,” he said, “I’m happy to oblige you. My name is Quinn.”

 “Ah,” said Stillman reflectively, nodding his head. “Quinn.”

 “Yes. Quinn. Q-U-I-N-N.”

“I see. Yes, yes, I see. Quinn. Hmmmm. Yes. Very interesting. Quinn. A most resonant word. Rhymes with twin, does it not?”

“That’s right. Twin.”

“And sin, too, if I’m not mistaken.”

“You’re not.”

“And also in—one n— or inn—two. Isn’t that so?”

“Exactly.”

“Hmmm. Very interesting. I see many possibilities for the word, this Quinn, this...quintessence...of quiddity. Quick, for example. And quill. And quack. And quirk. Hmmm. rhymes with grin. Not to speak of kin. Hmmm. Very interesting. And win. And fin. And gin. And pin. And tin. And bin. Hmmm. Even rhymes with djinn. Hmmm. And if you say it right, with been. Hmmm. Yes, very interesting. I like your name, enormously, Mr. Quinn. It flies off in so many little directions at once.”

“Yes, I’ve often noticed that myself.”

“Most people don’t pay attention to such things. They think of words as stones, as great unmovable objects with no life, as monads that never change.”

“Stones can change. They can be worn away by wind or water. They can erode. They can be crushed. You can turn them into shards, or gravel, or dust.” 

Now, one might contend that this exchange ultimately differs little from the passage I quoted from Lorrie Moore’s Anagrams a couple weeks ago, the one that ended with the thing about “meaning, if it existed at all”—and, sure, you would be right that both writers here use names to advance a thesis about words. But where I find Moore’s observations wry and charming (mostly—A Gate at the Stairs was dreck), Auster’s are, I think, ponderously absurd.

And, ’sides, I just disagree with him! For how can I not, when Frank O’Hara’s “Today” will always be my favorite poem?

         Oh! kangaroos, sequins, chocolate sodas!
         You really are beautiful! Pearls,
         harmonicas, jujubes, aspirins! all
         the stuff they've always talked about

         still makes a poem a surprise!
         These things are with us every day
         even on beachheads and biers. They
         do have meaning. They're strong as rocks.