Kyle Bain
March 10, 2015
What’s Cohesion?
ENG-550: Graduate Studies in English Language
Professor Makhanlall

What’s Cohesion? Paul Auster has a rather unique form of writing. Compared to other writers, Auster uses different techniques to draw his readers in. Auster’s use of cohesion, rhythm, and voice play unique roles in Auster’s City of Glass and Ghosts. Auster tends to do things in a very subtle and precise way, he never leads his reader astray and always leaves them wanting more. What interests me the most about Paul Auster’s writing is his use of cohesion (or lack there of). According to Martha Kolln and Loretta Gray in “Rhetorical Grammar:” “The first sentence in a paragraph, like the first paragraph of a chapter or an essay, sets up expectations in the reader about what is coming. Certainly one of those expectations is that the following sentences will stick to the topic. Another is that the sentence will have new information, not just a repeat of what the reader already knows.” (Kolln/Gray, pg. 87). This differs from what Auster does in City of Glass. Paul Auster draws his readers in by saying a little as possible until it is absolutely necessary; he is very literal with his language and does not give away information until it is essential. Firstly, Auster does not name his chapters, he simply numbers them. The beginning of chapter eight is a prime example of how Auster typically starts his chapters: “The next morning, and for many mornings to follow, Quinn posted himself on a bench in the middle of the traffic island on Broadway and 99th Street.” (Auster, pg. 93). The sentence is simple, to the point, and gives very little information away to the reader. Auster’s writing is sometimes cohesive in a standard sense. Everything the he writes about works with everything else. The entire text of Ghosts certainly backs up how cohesive Auster can be. The beginning of this text works as the glue that holds the entire book together: “First of all there is Blue. Later there is White, and then there is Black, and before the beginning there is Brown. Brown broke him in, Brown taught him the ropes and when Brown grew old, Blue took over.” (Auster, pg. 7). This is very similar to what Norm Klassen says about Chaucer’s The Canterbury Tales: “Coherence figures prominently in the opening of the General Prologue before the pilgrim descriptions that constitute its famous estates satire. The first two sentences especially, which in the authoritative Ellesmere manuscript comprise lines 1-34 are ambitious in scope. The opening sentence offers a rhetorical complexity and redescription of the natural world...” (Klassen, pg. 4). The cohesion continues later in the book:
Take Black, then. Until now he has been the entire case, the apparent cause of all his troubles. But if White is really out to get Blue and not Black, then perhaps Black has nothing to do with it, perhaps he is no more than an innocent bystander. In that case, it is Black who occupies the position Blue has assumed all along to be his, and Blue who takes the role of Black. There is something to be said for this. On the other hand, it is also possible that
Black is somehow working in league with White and that together they have conspired to do Blue in. (Auster, 57).
Even though he uses colors instead of names, Auster finds a way to make sure that the names are introduced and reintroduced in a fashion that makes them easy to follow and understand. I believe that Auster tends to use power words to draw his readers in. He uses terms such as “accidental isolation” (Auster, 56) and “enormous strides” (Auster, 120). Even though the word accidental does not seem like a power word, it draws the reader in; it causes the reader to ask themselves “why?” These are subtle examples of his use of power language, however, they are solid as far as Auster’s writing goes; he likes to be subtle but pretty direct in his language. Although this language can sometimes be puzzling and cause the reader to question things, they are simple enough things to figure out. Finally, Auster’s voice is interesting. The idea of metadiscourse interests me; “The word metadiscourse actually means discourse about discourse – signals that clarify the purpose or direction of a particular passage, acting as guideposts for the reader.” (Kolln/Gray, pg. 130). Or, as William J. Vande Kopple puts it in his article “Some Exploratory Discourse of Metadiscourse”: “The basic function of a second kind of metadiscourse, the code glosses, is to help readers grasp the appropriate meanings of elements in texts.” (Vande Kopple, pg. 84). “The other man soon puts a stop to it, however, and though Blue is tempted to take a swing at him, he is too stunned to act quickly...” (Auster, 50). He uses language like this to, again, gain the reader’s attention. Everything that Paul Auster does in City of Glass and Ghosts is, of course, to get the reader’s attention. From cohesion, to rhythm, and voice, Auster does an excellent job of reeling his audience in and keeping them glued.

Works Cited
Auster, Paul. City of Glass. Vol. One. New York: Penguin, 1987. Print.
Auster, Paul. Ghosts. Vol. 2. New York: Penguin, 1987. Print.
Gray, Loretta, and Martha Kolln. Rhetorical Grammar: Grammatical Choices,
Rhetorical Effects. Seventh ed. Upper Saddle River: Pearson Education, 2013.
Print.
Klassen, Norm. "The Coherence Of Creation In The Word: The Rhetoric Of Lines 1
34 Of Chaucer’s General Prologue." Christianity & Literature 64.1 (2014): 3
20. Academic Search Complete. Web. 11 Mar. 2015.

Vande Kopple, William J. "Some Exploratory Discourse on Metadiscourse." College
Composition and Communication 36.1 (1985): 82-93. JSTOR. Web. 9 Mar.
2015.