Open City - a novel

Teju Cole
my part 2

please read my part 1 from Saturday Feb. 4th

My sense is that Teju is mining underneath for that which is not visible, is not readable for the average and non-attentive eye.  Mr. Cole does not tell, he shows.  This is most excellent writing, and consistent.  He has an agenda, but it is never what you think it is on the surface.  He has this surprising way of using the assets of his life and the world around and uncovering it then in the numinous.

He subtly forces his hand at the last, with an almost cryptic metaphor, but in the second breath that one takes upon finishing the book this way, you realize that it was perfectly executed as a summary; not one you expect, yet a summary of the contents that only an artist could conjure.

Bravo Mr. Cole.  Please don't stay only in art studies, but do please write again.  Will be waiting for another book.

I repeat here the link to his interview on the PBS site: http://tinyurl.com/72ph73f

Agitatus

Forthcoming:
Raw excerpts from a brand new novel
by my good friend
                    Stephen Marks
The Amish Vampire of Pennsylvania

Click here to view that book in a separate blog.

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Update: Hey you readers from Canada to India, I have not lived up to my promise to write about all the other films I've seen.   Not yet.  Circumstances have been taking my time.
I'll try to get to them as soon as I can.
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Thanks again for reading.

Agitatus

War Horse                                                              2011 Stephen Spielberg

Not your usual Spielberg type of topic, a straightforward narrative of history, much like Schindler's List in the ambition to capture the scope of the day's drama, yet also Disney-like in it's mechanism, War Horse takes us within a human drama of innocence lost, loyalty found, and sacrifice.

The story is great.  The thread of the narrative deserves a prize for its ingenuity and originality.  I was only taken back a bit by the obvious way in which many scenes played out, such as when horse and rider are united in the recovery camp in France.  Another thing that was missing was a link between England and the European continent.  I would think that one small scene of the horse on a boat with other horses could have filled that gap for us a bit, but there was none.  The youthful viewer who is not a keeper of historic understanding might believe that the war was just next door from England.

But the drama was good.  The acting was fine.  This was an "ok" movie for youth to see, and would be inspiring.  Much like his film "8mm", the film itself was a bit juvenile, and I suspect that Spielberg, for all his magic moments, has never really grown beyond ET to some degree.  He is forever enthralled with a youthful type of view.  Yet this does not diminish the parts of his films that appeal to the adult, and seriously deal with those topics we avoid, yet love to hate.

(spoiler here) The most poignant moment, most would agree, would be the meeting of the Allied soldier and the German soldier in the center of the battlefield, in order to free the horse.  It was funny, fascinating, sad, and melancholy all at once.  I was reminded of the moment in WWI when on Christmas Eve all fighting purposefully was called to a halt and the soldiers all came out of their trenches to smoke, talk, and share a moment of peace together before continuing the war the next day.  This really happened in history, and these kinds of moments continue to be the hallmark of Spielberg work.

Out of 10, this film must get a 6.5 for delivery, yet an 8.5 for the writing.  Good story.

Open City - a novel

Teju Cole

The ending of some chapters are cryptic and seem disconnected with the paragraph that ends each text.  It is a leading, yet also a pervasive style of Cole’s that he continually prods us on with mystical enumerations and almost prodigal ideas that at once seem disjointed, yet then come together at some point.  When they do collide, they are powerful and leave quite the impression.  He is leading us to a place of openness, that is true, but an understanding that the world is not exactly set in stone.

His mention of the “open city” was one of contrition by the Belgium people, that when they were attacked by the Nazis, they declared their city Brussels an “Open City”, meaning that there was no need to attack or destroy, but in a contrite way would provide open access to whatever the new German regime needed.  The city was then spared of atrocities and physical destruction, and many old world edifices and architecture remained.

Attempting to make sense of the complex world of Europe, Arab, Palestine, Jew, and the American view of it all, Cole deftly handles political positions and opinions by portraying great characters that embody those different worlds, and hands over treatment of their various viewpoints in graphic and rhetorical ways that undeniably make sense of it, without being preachy or heavyhanded.  His use of the experiential viewpoint of the Doctor in the story creates a wonderful platform for petri-dishing the various universes he encounters.  Yet at the same time the central character of Julius has his own definitive view, and does not simply buffer what everyone says to him and hold these opinions as blameless and dispassionate.  Rather, he fairly dissects the arguments and the dispositions that he encounters with grace, yet with disagreement at time, including his own dissection of art.  The fairness of Julius is never in question, and I have quite the great estimation of him half way through the book.  But I’ve only read half, so I’ll write again on this after I finish.

   

So far, as a fellow writer, I am astonished that Cole has been able to sustain my attention, and as intense an interest in the work, with as little action or plot or even relationships that he has developed in the story.  If one was to look at the outward plotting of the book in a linear fashion: doctor lives in the city, feels the need to take a visit to find his mother in Brussels, encounters friends of differing persuasions there, admires art work along the way: this would read in a very dull fashion indeed.  But it is anything but dull.  His insights so far into the soul of culture are worth the visit to this text alone.  More later.

Picture credit and link to PBS website with an interview with Mr. Cole: http://tinyurl.com/72ph73f