Paul Auster and August Brill’s solitary rooms: the spatiality of solitude

Abstract

For Paul Auster, a room is in essence “the substance of solitude itself”, a spatially defined solitude. In this respect, the phenomenon has transcended its physical limitations and assumed existential and philosophical significance. In his writings, a room is first and foremost an architectural space that a solitary writer occupies. Besides, it is metaphorized as the mind that is the room - an intellectually constructed space; and lastly, it is a place narrated in his stories where his characters meditate and compose, a space that exists in words. This paper studies Auster’s life writings and one of his fictions, Man in the Dark, to present the complexity of the three forms of solitary rooms and their mutual inclusion in intersubjective solitude.