Flights of Fancy: Mannerist Aesthetics in Paul Auster's Mr Vertigo and Contemporary Circus Contexts

There is a tendency, if not a consensus, to rank Mr Vertigo among contemporary chronicles of childhood and maturity, Bildungsromane, and/or parables of American history. This chapter argues for a re-evaluation of Auster’s text by reconsidering its relationship to circus and mannerism. As we will see, Walt’s world is imbued with references to fictional and non-fictional circus traditions. Through his aerial performances, Walt strives for supreme virtuosity and produces sensations of marvel and deception. He topples logic and common sense with the explicit objective to entertain. This is a fundamental quality of circus aesthetics and conjuring shows, and also, as this chapter seeks to clarify, a mannerist strategy. The definition of mannerism continues to be a subject of discussion among scholars of different fields; however, mannerism is generally notable for refined virtuoso qualities, intellectual sophistication and artificiality. For German literary scholar Rüdiger Zymner, mannerism is a transmedial aesthetic strategy – and thus also a narrative strategy – that combines (medium-specific) artistry, striving for expression (effect), and pursuit of impact on a recipient. In the case of Mr Vertigo, these three aspects, I argue, emerge at both the thematic and narrative level from a complex interplay of artful deception, virtuosity and hyperbolic circus aesthetics.