Gnosticism And The View Of Sin Of Paul Auster’s Novels

Paul Auster(1947-), the contemporary American writer, wrote poetry firstly, then turned for novel composition and translated French works for living halfway. During the study tour in France, he contacted with a variety of modern and postmodern theories. Due to the creation of the atypical biography “The Invention of Solitude” in the early stage, Auster attracted critics.Then he published the masterpiece “The New York Trilogy”, which had being translated into many languages. With the profound educational background, profuse living experience and different thoughts, Auster began to be attractive and got mixed reviews in the later days.Western critics mostly commented Austers’ novels in the perspective of modernity and post-modernity, such as language and identity,subjectivity and contingency. Another evident perspective was narratology.For the metafictionality and reflexivity of Austers’ novels,rich narrative techniques and strategies would be analysed.Among these researchers, excellent critics are not rare. But these studies would be obvious and riskless for researchers who had better and deeper understanding of Auster. Auster had settled in France for several years and was the translator of Sartre’s works. It was not strange that Existentialism, the lauguage theory of Saussure,the discipline theory of Foucault and French novean roman theories occured in his novels apparently and latently. These studies mentioned above frequently regarded Austers’ novels as the dismembered object of some certain theories. Counting Auster as the follower of Saussure and Foucault didn’t highlight the uniqueness of Auster. Writers shouldn’t just pick up what others say, but should restore the duty of the poet: prophecy.As poetry can prophesy, the nature of prophecy can be manifest with the corresponding decoder. At the start of the reading,I never deny that I’m fascinated with the similar Pascal’s sympathy and compassion for human who are abandoned by God in Auster’s works. However, only fascination is not enough.We must know where does fascinations lie in.The way to find the key to the prophecy is not smooth. Familiarity and similarity occurs during the reading of existentialism, and I gradually find answers in Liu Xiaofeng’s book “Gnosticism and modernity”. I realize that similarity I feel has no innovation when I start the reading of Gnosticism.The authoritative expert of Gnosticism,Hans Jonas,tries to make comparative study between Gnosticism and existentialism and confirms their inherence and inheritance. To understand a writer is to put he or she in a suitable atmosphere.We still need to find the entry point to prophecy after finding the appropriate atmosphere.All poets can not get rid of the anxiety of influence except those poets with strong will.We can approximately know who are literary predecessors Auster admires from those paragraphs of intertextuality. Auster appreciates many predecessors.Compared with the job of searching for the right atmosphere,the assignment of finding the entry point doesn’t seem to be easier.Fortunately, this kind of work is similar to find intersection in mathematics.The chance of looking for answers is based on the degree of overlap of sets.Kafka,who is the writer of Trial,Dostoevsky, who is the composer of crime and punishment, the common focus of this two novelists is the sin and guilty people. Auster chooses the detective fictions as his start of literary career.His novels followed generally involve with the theme of sin. Therefore, the entry point is the sin.Atmosphere and entry point,that’s the topic of this thesis, Gnosticism and the view of sin of Paul Auster’s novels. The first chapter is introduction, briefly introducing the creation of Auster and the theory of Gnosticism.The main body of this thesis is divided into three parts.The first part is the reflection of the evil view of Auster’s works, formed by original sin,crime and punishment, views of redeem.The second part focus on the analysis of the relationship of gnosticism and the evil view of Austers’ novels.This part, from the overlap and difference,points out that Gnosticism and the evil view of Austers’ novels overlaps in the negation of heteronomy punishment and the acknowledgement that salvation relies on Gnosis,differentiates in the conviction of crime.The third part is Auster and Gnosticism,the analysis of Auster’s preposed Jewish background and the relationship of Judaism and Gnosticism.Then to analyze Auster’s potential identity of Gnosticism believer.This part will be made up by two aspects: his contact with mysticism, the direct manifestation of Gnosticism in his novels.The last is his writing characteristics of Gnosis writers.The last part is the conclusion.From the angle of religious literature and intellectual history,the dialectic of despair of Auster’s composition is confirmed.