Where It All Goes Down
Chicago, the Northeast U.S., Mexico, Europe
"I'm an American, Chicago born," says Augie, introducing himself to the reader. Most of his story takes place in "that somber city," as he calls it (1.1). It's a place of dirty alleys, seedy poolrooms, illegal abortion clinics, gangster shootings, and poor apartment flats. Augie describes his home after his brother George has been taken to a home:
The house was also changed for us; dinkier, darker, smaller; once shining and venerated things losing their attraction and richness and importance. Tin showed, cracks, black spots where enamel was hit off, threadbarer, design scuffled out of the center of the rug, all the glamour, lacquer, massiveness, florescence wiped out. (4.53)
Einhorn expresses a similar though more cynical perspective of the city:
This city is one place where a person who goes out for a peaceful walk is liable to come home with a shiner or bloody nose, and he's almost as likely to get it from a cop's nightstick as from a couple of squareheads who haven't got the few dimes to chase pussy on the high rides in Riverview and so hang around the alley and plot to jump someone. (5.42)
For Einhorn, however, the roughness of Chicago has its advantage. While other great cities, with their public art and other marvels, incline you to think human savagery is a thing of the past, the residents of Chicago should have no such illusions (5.43).
Einhorn owns and runs a poolroom, so he gets to see a fair share of disreputable folks. Augie too sees the dark side of a "cold, wet, blackened Chicago day" (8.7), but he's not so put down by the roughness of the place. You might say he has illusions—Einhorn would—but maintaining hope after life's hard knocks is Augie's thing. He's got that music in his mind saying everything is going to be alright.
Augie occasionally gets out of the city. He takes a trip with Mrs. Renling across Lake Michigan to Benton Harbor and St. Joseph, and stays at the very nice Merritt Hotel. Here he can spy on pretty women at the beach and eat fancy food on Mrs. Renling's dime. Luxury could have become Augie's permanent digs if he had accepted Mrs. Renling's offer to adopt him, but Augie doesn't need snazzy dining rooms or inherited wealth to be content and hopeful for the future. It's no surprise that Einhorn is shocked at Augie's refusal.
Mexico is a very different world. Augie and Thea stay at a house on the edge of the mountains. It has two patios, allowing them a nice view and a place to train the bird. Lizards and snakes are all around. In the mountains, the odor is "snaky," and they seem "in the age of snakes among the hot poisons of green and livid gardenias" (16.60).
Here Augie is closer to nature, but he's not particularly moved by it. He's in Mexico because he wants to be with Thea. When they split, he goes back to Chicago.
Interestingly, the final setting of the novel isn't Chicago or another location in America. Augie, now married, lives and works in Paris. Frazer, an old pal, lives here now as well. To Frazer, Paris represents the hope that "Man could be free without the help of gods, clear of mind, civilized, pleasant, and all of that" (26.55). To Augie, it's mostly just another locale, not terribly more or less important in his life than other spots. For a moment, though, inspired by Frazer, Augie does wonder if Paris could be the place for him. We don't find out.