Discussion

Roughly thirty pages into Open City, I strongly disliked the book, and wanted to put it down for good; it seemed pointless with a plot that appeared to be nonexistent. If there was a plot, it was stupid because the story was just a collection of conversations and recollections of past experiences, with no running theme to join them.

I realize now where I failed to understand the simple elegance of this book- Julius, the main character, is able to recount his own experiences and learn from those of others. Cole writes the novel almost as a memoir in a stream of consciousness style. The simple man, Julius, who has encountered so much throughout his travels and daily life is still able to grow and learn from what others have done.

What appear to be random stories and thoughts entwined within the memories and anecdotes of others actually join together to become a cohesive understanding of the dynamics of human life and thought, both past and present. Throughout the book Julius encounters many different kinds of people, including a imprisoned Rwandan refugee and a Moroccan internet cafe owner, and visits many places, including Brussels and Amsterdam, that teach him more about the life he lives through his experiences connecting with them.

Shortly after returning home from a six week vacation, Julius has an epiphany of sorts (honestly I feel that it is Cole speaking how he truly feels through his character) that helps him to understand the dynamic changing world that he lives in. “We experience life as a continuity, and only after it falls away, after it becomes the past, do we see its discontinuities. The past, if there is such a thing, is such a thing, is mostly empty space, great expanses of nothing, in which significant persons and events float (378-379).” Julius knows that his life, and the lives of others including his patients and those he encounters, are rapidly evolving and changing. The stories that he recounts and those that are told to him are bits of the past that that person holds onto. He realizes this and at one point says, “…unimaginable how many small stories people all over this city [New York] carried around with them (376),” realizing that each person carries these memories around with them attempting to prevent them from floating away. When these memories are shared they are, at least for some amount of time, preserved in the memories of others who are around to hear them. The specific memories that Julius can recount are special to him in one way or another, and listening to others share theirs helps him to remember lost fragments of his past.

An example of this comes at a New York grocery store where a woman follows him “like an apparition” around the store until she finally asks if he remembers her. Julius does not, and instead recognizes her as a face of the past that time has prevented him from remembering. The woman turns out to be Moji Kasali, the sister of one of his childhood friends. This encounter causes him to remember his old friend, Dayo, and memories of their youth together in Nigeria. Through Moji, Julius is able to expand his experiences and recover some of this discontinuities of his life. Encounters like this happen many times throughout the book and as a result help to complete the story of Julius.

One question that commonly occurred during group meetings was “why is little information given about Julius’ past?”, while the other characters are thoroughly described by Cole. I believe the answer to this is the meaning of the plot itself. Cole’s purpose in writing was to tell a story of a man who in many ways lives his life again though others and their experiences. Julius resembles Cole in many ways: both are art scholars, are of Nigerian descent, live in Brooklyn, and have interest in literature. The life Julius lives closely resembles that of the author, so I believe that Cole intended to write a fictional story that closely relates to his own life, almost in a autobiographical manner.

The beauty of Open City is that Cole examines human interaction and thought through a fictional character that is heavily based upon his own life. Telling the story through snippets of the lives of others is reflective in how diverse he, and his character, actually are as they have experienced many unique things and ventured to foreign locations.

Although at first I felt strong enough against Open City that I “hated” the book. I now realize how foolish that initial assessment of the text was, as it actually is a very dynamic piece of literature that shows the beauty of the simplicity the human experience. Human thought is something that has revolutionized the world time and time again, and Cole is able to highlight how influential thought really is, and the effect that it has had on him through the actions of Julius.

Jeffrey Carr