For anyone interested in a deeper analysis of how Karasik & Mazzuchhelli translate prose to the comic form, take a look at this blog.Paperback. It is a wonderful synthesis of two different but complementary mediums. They utilized everything they knew about the art of comics into City of Glass, but each panel is designed in a very controlled and thoughtful way. Paul Karasik and David Mazzucchelli were able to take those trademark Auster themes and visualize them in comic form.

After all, City of Glass is one of many novels where Auster explores his trademark themes: the disintegration of reality and identity. But that’s crazy talk since part of the story’s power lies in its deconstruction of narrative and character. I always wondered what City of Glass would’ve been like had Auster stuck to genre conventions because I think it would’ve made a great detective story. At some point, the narrative becomes unhinged and takes a turn toward po-mo existentialism, but compellingly so. Reading the comic made me remember everything about the original novella as I went along, so it was almost like re-experiencing the story in a new way.Īs Art Spiegelman mentioned in his introduction, I was impressed with how Karasik and Mazzucchelli created such an effective comic out of a strange and metaphysical work as City of Glass, which apparently posed a challenge for many to visualize (there have been a number of unsuccessful attempts to adapt it as a screenplay).Ĭity of Glass starts off as a fairly straightforward detective mystery, though with a pervasive feeling that something is a little off.

This turned out to be advantageous since the 1994 comic adaptation of City of Glass recently fell into my hands thanks to my coworker via Olman (the copy was the 2004 Picador edition). My review did not provide any plot summary, so I don’t remember much except the exquisite atmosphere of dreamy dread that permeated each book. I had read Paul Auster’s New York Trilogy a few years ago as separate books ( City of Glass, Ghosts, and The Locked Room).

City of Glass by Paul Karasik