I have just finished Open City by Teju Cole. I remember reading one of his blogs, aspiring to be half the blogger he was. Then he deleted the whole project, erased it completely from existence. I respected him for that, although I wanted more time to read the rest of his words that carved to the bone. His world of Blogistan.
The book is like that blog, meandering, shocking, quietly waiting for a storm to break. I found the (near) ending disturbing, uncertain, ambiguous. I want to know facts, that cannot exist, as such, in fiction. Choose to fill in the blanks as I like, there is no actual answer. No real ending, no beginning. A walk through an urban landscape, with all the memories bobbing up. As I have my miles of walking Boston, the one aspect of living there I most miss. Watching the city go by at pedestrian pace.
Took me a long time to work my way through this novel. Not a piece of writing to be rushed, not to be swallowed in one gulp. It will stay with me a long time. But I will not read it again.
1 comment:
I started reading Naked Lunch which seems to share at least one characteristic of the book you describe.
Post a Comment