Money Talks: Language, Work and Authorship from The Music of Chance to Sunset Park

This essay explores the various ways in which Paul Auster has written about money in his novels throughout his career, and argues that there are continuities as well as differences which reflect the author’s increased concern for the lived world and the socio-economic forces that shape it. The argum...

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Main Author: Aliki Varvogli
Format: Article
Language:English
Published: Presses universitaires de Rennes
Series:Revue LISA
Subjects:
Online Access:https://journals.openedition.org/lisa/11676
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author Aliki Varvogli
author_facet Aliki Varvogli
author_sort Aliki Varvogli
collection DOAJ
description This essay explores the various ways in which Paul Auster has written about money in his novels throughout his career, and argues that there are continuities as well as differences which reflect the author’s increased concern for the lived world and the socio-economic forces that shape it. The argument focuses on Auster’s treatment of the subject of money and its relationship to matters of authorship, language and work. Much of Auster’s writing since his early days of monetary struggle has returned to the problems of poverty and precarity that artists and authors often face. In earlier works, the material aspect was often de-emphasised in favour of the symbolic or metaphorical, but more recent work has sought to bring the two plains of representation into closer alignment. The preoccupation with the language of money allows Auster’s fiction to be both about representation and about the things it seeks to represent, to be realist and metafictional, and to explore material and immaterial questions at the same time.
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spelling doaj.art-f1e10e4f46f846cdb2151740a9e7fac92024-02-13T14:35:41ZengPresses universitaires de RennesRevue LISA1762-61531810.4000/lisa.11676Money Talks: Language, Work and Authorship from The Music of Chance to Sunset ParkAliki VarvogliThis essay explores the various ways in which Paul Auster has written about money in his novels throughout his career, and argues that there are continuities as well as differences which reflect the author’s increased concern for the lived world and the socio-economic forces that shape it. The argument focuses on Auster’s treatment of the subject of money and its relationship to matters of authorship, language and work. Much of Auster’s writing since his early days of monetary struggle has returned to the problems of poverty and precarity that artists and authors often face. In earlier works, the material aspect was often de-emphasised in favour of the symbolic or metaphorical, but more recent work has sought to bring the two plains of representation into closer alignment. The preoccupation with the language of money allows Auster’s fiction to be both about representation and about the things it seeks to represent, to be realist and metafictional, and to explore material and immaterial questions at the same time.https://journals.openedition.org/lisa/11676economymetaphorauthorshiplanguagemoney
spellingShingle Aliki Varvogli
Money Talks: Language, Work and Authorship from The Music of Chance to Sunset Park
Revue LISA
economy
metaphor
authorship
language
money
title Money Talks: Language, Work and Authorship from The Music of Chance to Sunset Park
title_full Money Talks: Language, Work and Authorship from The Music of Chance to Sunset Park
title_fullStr Money Talks: Language, Work and Authorship from The Music of Chance to Sunset Park
title_full_unstemmed Money Talks: Language, Work and Authorship from The Music of Chance to Sunset Park
title_short Money Talks: Language, Work and Authorship from The Music of Chance to Sunset Park
title_sort money talks language work and authorship from the music of chance to sunset park
topic economy
metaphor
authorship
language
money
url https://journals.openedition.org/lisa/11676
work_keys_str_mv AT alikivarvogli moneytalkslanguageworkandauthorshipfromthemusicofchancetosunsetpark