I find myself relating to the first chapter of Open City more than any other reading throughout this semester. Not only in the aspect that the protagonist is currently pursuing psychiatry, but also his obsession with the little things he observes around the city. His walks, littered with minute but meaningful observations about the environment and people around him resonate with me, as I grew to appreciate the smaller aspects of what makes up the atmosphere around us. For both of us, walking provides us clarity and a peaceful ambiance from the meticulous and mentally draining work we must complete every day. His habits and daily livelihood is something I wish to incorporate myself, even though I have trouble balancing reading with social media instead. The amount of similarities honestly shocked me, and I already seem to have a keen interest with the protagonist- even considering picking up some of the hobbies and expanding my relationships to broaden my perspectives on events that have taken place outside my lifetime. I resonate with his sense of wonder seen from not just New York City, but from the world:
“Often as I searched the sky, all I saw was rain or the faint contrail of an airplane bisecting the window, and I doubted in some part of myself, whether these birds, with their dark wings and throats, their pale bodies and tireless little hearts, really did exist.”
This line captures what I’ve been discussing- the small, microdetails that many seem to brush off from this world. Birds flying around the sky, airplanes leaving behind vast plumes of smoke, rain gingerly (or rapidly) hitting the pavement we walk on. To me, Open City captures this sense of wanderlust perfectly.
I had a slightly different interpretation of the quote you added here. I felt like it was more metaphoric, commenting on the way that humans rarely deviate from the flow of society. The plane and rain, to me, both represent forces too massive for individuals to handle. That’s why they occupy the sky most of the time. The narrator finds it hard to believe in the birds because they are fragile and have to pass through the medium that is usually dominated by the aforementioned forces, always at the risk of failure. Like these birds, very few people go against societal norms to reach their full potential for the fear of being shunned.
Hey Dylan,
I also find the narrator’s thoughts very relatable like you did. He is a very meticulous person hence notices every small detail around him. In some ways, this makes it very hard for him to adjust to New York City, a city with so much information and things going on. When I read the quote about the birds, I actually thought this was more of a focus on how the narrator struggles to adjust to the city as an immigrant. There are just so many things going on in the city such as the people waking by that he has to ignore certain things. This is especially hard for him considering he is a very meticulous person due to his profession.