Open City follows the routes and thoughts of a man called Julius as he walks in various places.
Books like this are a great way to get acquainted with an author, a character, or as here, maybe, a hybrid of the two. Snippets of their history arrive through prompts in their present, gradually layering times, places, people, and meanings in a different way to traditional narrative.
I read part of the book and made the notes for this review while walking from London Paddington to Tottenham Court Road, choosing a walk instead of the underground because it felt rude not to in the year’s first warm sunshine, but also to absorb whatever this random slice of city had to offer, namely —
— Regency architecture, bright white and balconied; a cut across a perpendicular main road with Arabic storefronts and wafts of shisha in the air; a taxi driver laying down his prayer mat in the layby he’d parked up in.
One opportunity I had to talk - a street fundraiser - that I rushed to get away from. Ostensibly because I had a place to be, a time to arrive and only just enough time to make it, but really because of the inherent awkwardness of talking to strangers in public…
Open City advocates effectively against this type of awkwardness: one of its many strengths. Julius has conversations throughout, all arising from random encounters and many developing into meaningful connections. Other strengths are the variety of place - Manhattan, Brussels, Lagos - and the attention to detail.
There are weaknesses, too: Julius is quick to make unkind judgements of appearance, disproportionately of women, and is dismissive of some people who attempt conversation in a way that sometimes borders on rudeness —
— A zigzag to get back on the eastward track – Bentick, Welbeck, Wigmore – then an overly-grand facade of carved figures, coats of arms and marble pillars, with no obvious indication of what necessitated the grandeur except an ungrand flag up top, the unfurled section of which read, unhelpfully, “bcock”. At the other end of this block – Wigmore and Harley – a building with a fresco and a blank space above it, framed by cherubim, invited some sort of absent explanatory text.
Then, a blue plaque for “Hector Hugo Munro, alias Saki, short story writer” was adequate compensation for the hope I’d happen across a bookshop to nip into that remained unfulfilled.
Every style and era was here on this short walk, snuggled up alongside or layered on top of each other. An architectural palimpsest. All the hints of history, allusions to meaning and context not known or given, make you part of some ever-evolving thing, far bigger and unknowable than you’ll ever know but infinitely intriguing because of it…
Overall I’m most grateful to Open City for the reminder to walk in this attentive way.
Then, at the end of the evening, in a Paddington pub while I waited for my train and lamented being too cold for the late night walk back, I overheard this from a man propping up the bar:
“So she climbed on top and sat on my knob, then reached up and grabbed the air conditioning fan. She span around three times before she fell off.”
Intriguing, for sure, but not the same calibre as the afternoon’s offerings or the things I’d have seen and heard on foot.
I welcomed the last London steps – along the platform, beneath the grandly vaulted glass-metal ceiling and into the train – and looked forward to reading the last pages of Open City.
Why ChatGPT recommended this book
After I wrote this post I asked ChatGPT why it chose this book.
Me: Can you tell me why you recommended Open City? I’d like to include that info in your words.
ChatGPT: I recommended Open City because it resonates with several of the qualities you’ve been drawn to throughout this project: it’s contemplative, structurally loose but thematically focused, and deeply attuned to how a person thinks and feels in motion. Julius’s walks through New York and beyond become a way of exploring identity, memory, history, and alienation — not through plot, but through perception and accumulation.
The book aligns with your interest in literature that blurs genre boundaries, rewards attentiveness over action, and operates on multiple levels at once — psychological, political, and philosophical. It also fits your appreciation for narrative shaped by walking, where the act of moving through space opens the door to unexpected connections, both internal and external.
Open City doesn’t insist on its meanings, but lets them emerge gradually through observation — making the reading experience feel less like being told something, and more like being invited to think alongside someone. That seemed like an ideal fit for how you like to engage with books: reflectively, interpretively, and with curiosity rather than closure.
Was it a good recommendation?
Yes.