Information of the Book
Paul Auster’s 5th long novel published in 1989.
Form, Style & Structure
A story of young man, and it describes and traces his adolescence and its hard life by his first person viewpoint. And it includes many sub-episodes of sub-characters, then they connects finally. I think parts of this story might be based on Auster’s real experiences.
Background of the Work & Author
Summary Synopsis
Marco Fogg was born in Boston. He lost his parents in his childhood. So his uncle Victor brought him up. He managed to graduate Columbia University in a very poor and harsh condition, to keep a promise to uncle Victor. Then he had stayed the Central Park as a homeless for a month, he was founded and helped by Kitty Wu and Zimmer, and he recovered.
Then he found an odd job at the student department office of Columbia. The job was to go with a strange blind old man, Thomas Effing a friend or a speaker, and to hear his life full of ups and downs and to write his autobiography. The autobiography had finished, Effing passed away on purpose. Marco sent a copy of the autobiography to an estranged son Solomon Barber, then he visited to New York to see Marco…
Timeline
1883 or 1884 – Thomas Effing was born.
Thomas Effing lived in Shoreham. (§ 4)
1912 – Effing married with Elizabeth Wheeler. (§ 4)
1916 – Effing traveled the West with Edward Byrne, and painted the sceneries during 3 or 4 months. (§ 4)
August, 1916 – Edward Byrne passed away by an accident of a fall from his horse in a canyon. (§ 4) Effing stayed a cave and painted many paints and drawings. (§ 5)
March, 1917 – George Ugly Mouth, a member of the Gresham Brothers visited the cave. But he mistake Effing for his fellow Tom. (§ 5)
The middle of May, 1917 (after just one year, Effing departed from NY) – The Gresham Brothers visited the cave. Effing made a surprise attack for the three brothers at the night and terminated them. He robbed property of the Gresham Brothers, and left from the cave and went to the town of Bluff. (§ 5)
The end of June, 1917 – Effing reached Salt Lake City, then went to California through San Fransisco. At there, he changed his name Thomas Effing from Julian Barber.
1918 (After a year, he moved SF) – Effing came across Alonzo Riddle, a former colleague of his father at a party and he told the story of Julian Barber’s disappearance, so Effing realized he couldn’t stay in the US.
September, 1920 – Effing emigrated to Paris. (§ 4, 5)
1939 or 40 – Effing left from Paris, was expelled by Nazis, and sailed across New York. (§ 4, 5)
Marco Fogg’s father had passed away before he were born. (§ 1)
Marco Fogg and mother lived in a number of small apartments in Boston and Cambridge. (§ 1)
When Marco was 11, his mother Emily (29 years old) passed away by a traffic accident. Then Uncle Victor brought up Macro. (§ 1)
July, 1958 – Macro and Uncle Victor moved to Saint Paul, Minnesota. (§ 1)
1959 – They were back in Chicago (§ 1)
Autumn of 1959 – By the presence of Dora Shamsky, Marco enrolled a private boarding school, Anselm’s Academy for Boys in New Hampshire and lived the dormitory for 2 years. (§ 1)
1961 – After the second year, Marco returned home because Victor and Dora had broke up. (§ 1)
September, 1961 – Uncle Victor and Howie Dunn disbanded the Moonlight Moods, and Victor started another group the Moon Men with three young men.
The fall of 1965 – Marco (18 old) came to New York to study at the Columbia University. He had lived in a collage dormitory for the first nine months, then he lived in an apartment West 112th street for three years. (§ 1)
Spring of 1966 – When the classes ended Marco left the dormitory and moved to an apartment.
Summer of 1966 – The Moon Men spited up. Uncle Victor lived in Boise, Idaho and became a salesman of the Humboldt Encyclopedia. (§ 1)
The middle of April of 1967 – Uncle Victor passed away by heart attack. Then the funeral was held at Chicago. (§ 1)
June, 1969 – Marco managed to graduate the university, selling Uncle Victor’s books little by little at Chandler’s Bookstore, Marco had read. (§ 1)
Beginning of August, 1969 – Macro came across Kitty Wu at a party of students of Juilliard when he visited the apartment Zimmer had lived (but he had already moved). (§ 1)
End of August – Macro was evicted by the apartment. (§ 1)
Former half of September – Marco lingered on the Central Parks as a homeless. (§ 2)
The middle of September – Zimmer and Kitty helped Marco. Marco had stayed in Zimmer’s apartment more than a month. (§ 3)
16 September – Marco was examined for conscription. (He opened the letter of notice the day before!) But he was given a reprieve by a mental disorder or something. (§ 3)
October – Macro did a translation work free to charge. And it completed at the end of October. (§ 3)
The end of October, Marco found a job at the student employment office. (§ 3)
From November 1969 – Marco worked at Thomas Effing’s house, as a friend or a speaker. He stayed Effing’s house’s small shabby room. He’s job was to read books of travel literature and newspaper, to take for Effing stroll and described the sceneries in detail. Then the job was altered to hear and to write down past stories that Effing told. (§ 4, 5)
January,1970 – The talking of Effing had ended. For 20 days, Marco typed the three versions of Effing’s autobiography. (§ 5)
The begging of March, 1970 – Marco did the revisions and edited the autobiography again and again. The job was done in the begging of March. (§ 5)
Effing had Marco read Solomon Barber’s three books. And at 12, March, Effing asked Marco to send the autobiography for Solomon Barber after his pass away. And Effing told he would passed away just 2 months later. (§ 5)
Reading and stroll restarted. (§ 5)
At 1st April, Effing drew 20,000 dollars, and started hand bills out among people in the town during strolls. (§ 5)
At 0:02, 12, May – Effing passed away by he intentionally had been exposed to rain few days ago and caught a cold, pneumonia and so on. (§ 5)
Late spring or early summer of 1970 – Marco begun to live with Kitty Wu at a large loft, studio apartment on East Broadway. They spent happy days for 8 or 9 months. (§ 6)
Marco sent Effing’s obituary to the New York Times, the long version of autobiography to Art World Monthly. But they were turned down. (§ 6)
The middle of September, 1970 – Solomon Barber contacted with Marco. (§ 6)
A Friday in early October, 1970 – Solomon Barber visited to New York to see Marco by airplane. (§ 6)
(…)
Plots & Episodes (Plot & Episodes)
1 Macro Fogg
2 Thomas Effing (Julian Barber)
3 Solomon Barber
Characters
Marco Stanley Fogg – The narrator of this novel. A young man graduated from Columbia University. He lost his parents in his childhood, so he was brought up by uncle Victor.
Victor Fogg (Uncle Victor) – Emily’s older brother. A uncle of the narrator lived in the North Side of Chicago as a bachelor who brought up the narrator as a parent. A clarinetist, the career started as a member of the Cleveland Orchestra. From February 1958, he was gave lessons to students and played a member of a small combo Howie Dunn’s Moonlight Moods. September 1961, he disbanded the band, and Victor started another group the Moon Men with three young men of drummer, pianist and saxophonist. He passed away in the middle of April 1967, when he was 43 years old. A traveling musician played clarinet and was a band leader. He presented many books in the boxes to the narrator.
Emily Fogg – The mother of the narrator, a short, dark-haired pretty woman with thins wrist and delicate white fingers. She had passed away by a traffic accident when she was 29 years old and the narrator was 11 years old. Her husband had passed away, so, anyhow, Emily used his maiden name Fogg. (§ 1, pp. 3 – 4)
Marco’s father – Emily said Marco’s father had passed away before he were born. The narrator had no picture of father, can’t remember what he looked like and he knew nothing about his father. (§ 1, pp. 3 – 4)
Fogelman – The father of Victor and Emily An emigrant to the US. The word Fogel meant bird.
Kitty Wu (§ 2, 3, 6, ) – A student of the Juilliard School specialized in dance, the girlfriend of Marco and the perfect girl for Marco. A Chinese girl, youngest daughter of a general of Chinese Nationalist Party (Taiwan), grew up in Tokyo, Japan, studied in an American school. Then his father sent her for a boarding school, the Fiedling Academy in Massachusetts, US.
Dora Shamsky (§ 1, pp. 8 ) – A mid-forties widow met with uncle Victor in March 1959, lived with him and Marco.
David Zimmer (§ 1, 2, 3) – The best friend of Marco from New Jersey. He was a small person with curly black hair, wore the metal-rimmed glasses. They got to know at at Columbia University. Graduate student at Columbia in comparative literature.
Chandler (§ 1) – The owner and manager of Chandler Bookstore.
Simon Fernandez (§ 1) – A superintendent of Marco’s apartment.
Frank (§ 2, pp. 62 – 63) – A homeless man tried to rob Marco’s clarinet.
Anna Bloom or Blume (§ 3, p. 86) – A girl, Zimmer loved with.
Thomas Effing (§ 4, 5) – A strange, eccentric and intelligent, troublesome but respectable and charming blind old man had extensive knowledge, was confined to a wheelchair, employed Macro as a friend or a speaker. His favorite is travel literature. His past name was Julian Barber, and he was a painter live in Long Island, then in 1920 he emigrated to Paris. He told his past histories for Marco, and Marco wrote down them.
Rita Hume (§ 4, 5) – A caretaker of Effing. She took all of physical and meal care of Effing. Her husband had passed away 13 years ago. And he has three children.
Pavel Shum (§ 4) – A friend of Effing had passed away by a traffic accident.
Ralph Albert Blakelock (§ 4) – A friend of Effing and a painter painted a tableau Moonlight.
Thomas Moran (§ 4) An old painter. A painter lived in Paris, in the early 20th century.
Nichola Tesla (§ 4) – He built his Wardenclyffe Tower in Shoreham.
Julian Hawthorne (§ 4) – The son of Nathaniel Hawthorne.
Charlie Bacon (§ 4) – A younger brother of Rita Hume.
Elizabeth Wheeler (§ 4) – Thomas Effing’s wife.
Edward Byrne (§ 4) – A man wanted to be a topographer, passed away by the incident of a fall from a horse in 1916.
Jack Scoresby (§ 4) – A companion of Effing and Byrne’s travel to the West. A man around 50 had been a cavalry soldier.
George Ugly Mouth (§ 5) – A member of a band of outlaws, the Gresham brothers.
Gresham Brothers (§ 5) – A band of outlaws.
Solomon Barber (§ 5, 6, 7, 8) – The son of Thomas Effing was born in 1917. A professor of American History who taught some rural second grade collages in the Midwest, Iowa, Nebraska. And a matter of fact that he is…
Locations
Utah to California (§ 1, p. 1)
New York
Boston – Marco was grown in Boston and Cambridge.
Cambridge
Chicago – Uncle Victor lived in Chicago.
Paris
Places
An apartment of West 112 St (§ 1) – Marco lived there. A studio apartment on the fifth floor of a large elevator building. (§ 1, p. 16)
Moon Palace – A Chinese restaurant actually existed near Columbia University. The restaurant with a vivid neon sign of pink and blue, was in Broadway near the apartment of the narrator, and he could see the sign from a window of the apartment. The name “Moon Palace” resembles uncle Victor’s band, and the narrator felt an absolute and spiritual inspire and an inwardness and thought the apartment was an intersection of strange omens and mysterious events, and his right place to live.
Chandler’s Bookstore – Marco sold Uncle Victor’s books little by little, Macro had read at this bookstore to feed Marco himself. (§ 1, p. 22)
Zimmer’s Apartment – Amsterdam Avenue, 120th Street. (§ 1)
Central Park (§ 2)
Zimmer’s new apartment (§ 3) – The second floor of an ancient West Village tenement building.
Abingdon Square (§ 3, p. 89)
West End Avenue and Eighty-fourth Street (§ 3, p. 94)
A cave in a canyon (§ 5) – The base camp of the Gresham Brothers.
Large loft, studio apartment on East Broadway (§ 6, pp. 222 – 224) – Marco and Kitty Wu lived for 8 or 9 months.
Key Elements, Key Words & Key Phrases
More than thousand books (§ 1) – Present sent by uncle Victor. Various themes of books.
Boxes (§ 1) – 76 cardboard boxes packed more than thousand books, were sent by uncle Victor. The narrator made several pieces of “imaginary furniture” in the narrator’s room by the boxes. The element and description may express Auster’s postmodernist, structural and flexible literal thought or philosophy like bricolage.
Name (§ 1, pp. 6 – 7) – Name is a thing of which make fun by children, and a tool of fancy, also is an identity and a pride of a person.
Columbus’s discovery of America (§ 1, p. 12)
The cigar box with the autographes of Chicago Cubs players (§ 1, p. 13)
Suits (§ 1, p. 13) – A tweed suit is made of finest Scottish wool.
Chess set (§ 1, p. 13) – A keepsake of uncle Victor.
Clarinet (§ 1) – A keepsake of uncle Victor.
Egg (§ 1) – It implies shape of moon?
1969 Apollo 11 Moon landing (§ 1) – At the last day Macro sold Uncle Victor’s books at Chandler’s Bookstore, the astronauts landed the moon. A historical event of the human history was carrying out, the narrator spent a misery and very hungry life.
Books were left by Uncle Victor in Boxes (§ 1) – Macro fed miscellaneous knowledge experienced the world of Victor by reading miscellaneous books were left by Victor. And he had read them, he went to sell them at Chandler Bookstore to feed with himself.
A tedious document of about a hundred pages concerting the structural reorganization of the French consulate in New York (§ 3, 87) – A document to translate. A job, Zimmer took on by a French department girl. Marco did it free to charge, he recovered from mental illness and regained will to live.
A work of keeping company with Effing (§ 4, 5) – It’s a kind of trial for Marco.
Taking a walk with Effing (§ 4, 5)
Ralph Albert Blakelock’s Moonlight (§ 4, pp. 131 -135)
Cultural Things on This Novel
Randolph Scott Westers, War of the Worlds, Pinocchio (§ 1, p. 4)
Buck Rogers (§ 1, p. 4)
Around the World in 80 Days (movie) (§ 1, p. 6)
Macro Polo (§ 1, p. 6)
Chicago White Sox, Early Wynn (§ 1, p. 8)
Chicago Cubs, Ernie Banks, George Altman, Glen Hobbie (§ 1, p. 8)
Phileas Fogg (§ 1, p. 12) – The main character of Around the World in 80 Days.
Chappaquiddick (§ 2, p. 60)
the Chicago Eight (§ 2, p. 60)
the Black Panther trial (§ 2, p. 60)
Mets (§ 2, p. 61 ; § 3, p. 88)
Cubs (§ 2, p. 61)
Music
Impressive Scenes & Important Descriptions
Riddles (Mysteries) & Questions
Thought & Philosophy
"I've made my nothing, and now I’ve got to live in it.” (§ 2, p. 52)”, “the park gave me a chance to return to my inner life, to hold on to myself purely in terms of what was happening inside me.“ (§ 2, p. 56) To be a homeless is a kind of rest and cure for Marco’s mind. A method of which his life restarted from zero.
Interpretations, Remarks & Analysis
The first grand narrative by Paul Auster. Many characters, scenes and episodes and various elements. The New York Trilogy and In the Country of Last Things are preparation for full-scale writings.
Macro’s lingering as a homeless in the Central Parks in the chapter 2, is an act by mental bad condition also a kind of his philosophical reflection to life and initiation for his recovery he needed.
Details of the Book
Moon Palace
Paul Auster
Faber & Faber, London, 5 Feb 2004
320 pages, £8.99
ISBN: 9780571142200
Related Posts and Pages
Synopsis & Book Review | Moon Palace
YouTube Paul Auster Commentary Playlist
YouTube Literature & Philosophy Channel