Destination: New York City
The majority of people who come into Booksmith read books, but what does it mean to read a city? Last Saturday, I traveled to New York City for a day to visit a friend. For the bus ride I had with me Teju Cole's novel Open City, which meant I was strolling the streets of NYC long before I arrived. Cole's narrator spends most of the book taking long walks around the city, sometimes interacting with its inhabitants, but often simply letting his thoughts converse with the city itself. So even as I approached the New York, I suppose you could say I was in tune with the city, ready to hear its voice wherever I went. I was not disappointed.
One of the first things I saw, as my bus pulled onto the island, was a soccer field. The ball was being passed up the field at the pace of my bus, so that just as I reached the end of the field: GOOAALLL!!! I had arrived. The city had greeted me, and, made attentive to its voice by my reading, I heard its welcome.
The conversation continued. At times the city seemed to speak directly into the discussion that flourished between my friend and me as we walked its streets. We wandered around the south end of Manhattan, ending up almost by accident at the site of the World Trade Center. We walked around it, and I told my friend about Cole's impressions of the site as we formed our own. There was so much daily noise going on around us, so much construction within the fenced-in area, that the only space for reflection in that moment seemed to be in the gaping hole between the skyscrapers above us.
It was a relief, then, to stumble into the cemetery grounds of nearby Trinity Church, where a strange serenity reigned in the midst of the tumult of the city. By this time, our discussion had turned to questions of a somewhat philosophical, even religious, nature. Perhaps the church itself had inspired the topic, but it seemed to me that the opposite was the case: that we had initiated the conversation, and the city's spaces--now the warm, incense filled sanctuary of Trinity--had answered in kind.
And when our talk turned to the topic of transitions, it seemed important, even inevitable, that we happened to be making the watery crossing on the Staten Island ferry.
Books like Open City, intimately placed in a certain setting, offer not just the experience of reading a narrative, but also open our eyes to read the world around us. The next time you go somewhere new, learn to recognize its voice by reading the writers who have lived there, walked its streets before you, and have translated that voice into narrative. Then, when you arrive, you will find not just a city, but a story.
Via - brook line book smith
Destination: New York City Google photo
New York City photo
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