미국 포스트모던 대중소설: 폴 오스터를 중심으로

Abstract

It is notable that foreign novels command a majority of popular novels in Korea. Those foreign popular novels are various in kinds from a mystery blockbuster like The Da Vinci Code to the novels that are not simply entertaining but artistically well-written and deep in their meaning. Paul Auster, for instance, is one of the authors who write those novels. Recently, Paul Auster enjoys such a popularity that as soon as his new novel is published in the US, its translation comes out in Korean bookstores. It is indeed amazing that most of his works have been translated into Korean. This phenomenon is quite encouraging, yet hard to understand in some sense. It is because Auster's novels are usually easy to read, while his major works like The New York Trilogy are quite hard to follow. If so, what aspects of Auster's novels have enchanted Korean readers? Can his novels be called popular novels in their traditional sense? If they can't, how should those new popular novels be defined? The so-called postmodern popular novel is what this paper tries to suggest. Its primary definition can be found in its relation to postmodern literature Auster's fiction belongs to. The recent emergence of popular novels owes a lot to postmodernism. Therefore, it would be necessary to examine the relationships between postmodern literature and popular novels and then to study in details what makes Auster's most well-known work The New York Trilogy a remarkable example of the American postmodern popular novel.