Read my blogpost about Peter Stilman’s theories, it may help with your understanding of this post 
Anyone else noticed the similarities between Peter Stilma Jr. and Quinn? The ending was slightly ridiculous to me and I asked myself at the end of the book- what exactly did it take for an intelligent writer like Quinn to become the huge mess that he is by the end of the book? I could not figure it out. So I decided to take it upon myself, as the reader, to find out. Another reason why I love City of Glass– readers get to play detective too.
I skimmed the book a second time and I discovered these parallels of Quinn and Peter Stilman Jr. that were jumping out at me. (sorry I don’t have all of the page numbers)
In Quinn’s very first entry in his red notebook, he wrote: “My name is Paul Auster. That is not my real name” (66). Does the sentence structure of this quote remind you of a time… say the time when Peter Stilman Jr. ended his speech with “My name is Peter Stilman. This is not my real name.”? What’s with the phrasing?? Well, to me…Quinn is off to a great start and ready to explore the language of God.
Like in my essay, I don’t actually have concrete explanations for any of these parallels (which is really bad LOL).
One of Henry Dark’s (Peter Stilman) theories about the language of God is that it will be acquired as soon as mankind retreat into the pitch dark cubicles of this tower of babel where they will forget everything. Peter Stilman Jr is the product of his father’s experiment which as a result, causes him to lose his ability to speak. And Quinn…in addition to forgetting his agent’s name (196), his world tumbles into darkness(199) and he “felt that his words had been severed from him” (200).
How about when Quinn buys a pen from the death-mute? It came with a label “‘LEARN TO SPEAK TO YOUR FRIENDS’” (84), could this be an indicator of the journey Quinn is about to embark on? One that requires him to learn a new language…the language of God perhaps?
I argued in my essay that Peter Stilman Sr. may have been the one orchestrating the whole episode. It’s either that or Quinn deciding he wants to transform himself into Peter Stilman Jr. HAHA
