Coincidences and chance

Chance and coincidences play an important part in the novel City of Glass by Paul Auster. Throughout the novel, the characters encounter a series of almost impossible coincidences that make the readers doubt whether the events are true.

The novel starts with the main character, Daniel Quinn, looking back at the event that changed his life and thinking that “nothing was real, except chance” (Chapter 1, 0%). Quinn accidentally receives a phone call meant for somebody else, and finds himself involved in a mystery. Coincidentally, Quinn is a mystery writer himself, which is probably what attracts him to the situation and what makes him decide to pretend to be Paul Auster.

The man Quinn is supposed to protect, Peter Stillman, was isolated by his father during his formative years, which made Peter forget how to speak and how to act. He is now incapable of fully adapting to society. Here another coincidence comes into play: Quinn once did a review on a book about the wild boy of Aveyr...