Was Paul Auster able to create a real palace for his moon?
The novel “Moon Palace” by Paul Auster is the story of Marco Stanley Fogg`s development and searcg for identity. The protagonist, Marco, grew up at his uncles after his mothers death. His uncle dies soon, leaving Marco behind, totally confused. Marco is not able to manage his life, he leaves school, does not earn money and so looses his appartment. Shortly bevor he becomes homeless, he meets his futural love by chance: Kitty Wu. She is the one who alarmes Marcos only friend Zimmer as Marco disappears. They find him on last minute in the Central Park, nearly death. Pushed back into life, Marco searches a new job- and finds this through an old man in an wheelchair. His name is Thomas Effing. From this point on the story becomes more confused, more and more characters appear and Marco discovers piece by piece his origins and also his identity. And there is the basic theme of the story: the quest of one`s own identity, search for freedom and also for the origins. Some other criticians say ts a parallelbetween American history and Marcos development, but in my opinion it is only agood written life-story. Paul Auster tried to let us observe behind the walls of a persons head. And he get it. “Moon Palace” is a real sensitive and lovely novel, which catches nearly ervery reader who wants to read something more difficult than “Biene Maja”. It seems that the reader himself lives his own search for identity through the eyes of Marco. “Moon Palace”, according to the important role of the moon in pictures, restaurants and histories, is the very best titel could ever been choosen for this plot.
