The Moon through the story

The moon has an important role in the book, because it is following the characters in the story and leads the reader through the main story. The first sentence and the last sentence of the novel both refer to the moon: “It was the summer that men first walked on the moon”.
And at the end: “Then the moon came up from behind the hills. It was a full moon, as round and yellow as a burning stone. I kept my eyes on it as it rose into the night sky, not turning away until it had found its place in the darkness". The role of the moon is very important when it’s the factor that witnesses everything.

First, the moon as a symbol of repetition, of the cyclical nature of human experiences:

There are three stories in the book and each one is finally the same as each generation repeats the mistakes of the previous one.

Secondly, the moon as a symbol of journey:

- “Perhaps the word moon had changed for me after I saw men wandering about its surface.“ (p.39)
Marco learns that if even the moon is reachable, he can also reach his aim to find his identity.
- “The American West looks so much like the moon” (p.40)
For Marco the earth around Utah resembles the surface of the moon.
- Marco tells the story about Cyrano de Bergerac’s trip to the moon. (p.45)

The moon as a symbol for the last frontier:

- refers to American history: First, there was Columbus, then there was the discovery of the west with de Gold Rush and finally there was space travel as a symbol for future, progress and technology.

The moon as a symbol of myth, madness and lunacy :

“The moon is the place where the souls of the Humans dwell after death” (p.258)

Framing the story:

Thus, the moon frames the events of the story, while the description of the painting Moonlight occurs in the middle of the novel.(p-138/139)

Otherwise, the relation between the moon and the characters :

For Marco:

The moon is a sign for Marco’s destiny. It accompanies him during his journey of finding his identity and can be called his point of orientation:

- letters from the Chinese restaurant, that spell out the word MOON PALACE ( p.23)
- Moon accompanies Marco in Central Park: his halucination:” two o's of Moon turn into the eyes of god” (p.75/76)
Then, the fortune cookie in the Moon Palace restaurant: “The sun is the past, the earth is the present, the moon is the future.” (p.100) These words had been written by Tesla, the man who had been so important for T. Effing (p.231)
Finally, T.Eifing tells to Marco: “ You’re a dreamer boy, your mind is on the moon and from the looks of things, it’s never going to be anywhere else." (p.215)

To conclude with Marco and the Moon, the moon is ever changing, Marco’s life consists of constant changes as well.
Marco's real life starts when he is looking at the moon at the end of the novel. Now, he has
succeeded his quest for identity and finally realizes how important it is to have a point of
orientation in your life.

The moon has many connections with the characters because it is following the characters in the story:

With Uncle Victor:

Uncle Victor serves as Marco’s link to something larger than himself (p.8), as a point of orientation.
He plays in bands which have names connected to the moon:
- Howie Dunn’s Moonlight Moods (p. 11)
Plus, Victor is in a band called the Moon Men (p. 18)

Baseball is one of the passions shared by Uncle Victor and Marco:
“That was the year of Early Wynn and the go-go Sox, of Wally Moon and his moon-shot home runs.”
(p. 14)

Kitty Wu

Kitty’s visits are as regularly as the circulation of the planets that always happens in the same succession.
"... they (Kitty's visits) were natural events, and they carried the same force and inevitability as the weather, the motions of the planets, or the light that came filtering through the window at three o'clock every afternoon ..."(p. 77)

Thomas Effing/Julian Barber

“A man can’t know where he is on the earth except in relation to the moon or a star” (p.35).
Sends Marco to the Moonlight Picture of Ralph Albert Blakelock the painting Moonlight moon creates peace and harmony between mankind and nature (p.138 to p. 141)

Barber writes about Harriot, the explorer and scientist.
"Did you know that Harriot was the first man to look at the moon through a telescope ?"
(p. 194)

Solomon Barber

“...Radiant Diana, I thought...“( p.38 l.21- 25) Diana is the Roman god of the moon. The male counterpart is Sol(? omon) who is the god of the sun.
“He possessed a great stone of a head, Barber found, a mythological head, and as he stood there
looking at himself in the mirror, it seemed right to him that the vast globe of his body should now have
a moon to go with it.” (p. 240, l. 35)
“He secretly loved it when the young girls mooned around him.” (p. 242)

To conclude:

The Moon for Paul Auster is also the longing for what is not, the unattaible, the human desire for transcendence. And yet it’s history as well, particularly American history. First, there’s Columbus, then there was the discovery of the west, then finally there is outer space: the moon as the last frontier. But Columbus had no idea that he’d discovered America. He thought he had sailed to India, to China.
In some sense Moon Palace is the embodiment of that misconception, an attempt to think of America as China.