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Teju Cole's Open City

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“Open City” is the debut novel of Teju Cole. The novel is written in first person narrative, from the point of view of its main character Julius. The novel swings back and forth between the present and the past. The present represents the time after Julius came to the United States and while he is finishing his residency. The past represents the time leading up to Julius coming to U.S., when he was in a military school in Nigeria, where he used to drink and get involve with women and picnic etc. living in Nigeria.

Julius is contemplative in nature, and has had a recent breakup with his girlfriend “Nadege”. He uses walking and strolling through streets of New York to get a relief from the work stress and the thoughts in his mind about his …show more content…

It relates to the mental conditionings and the ever increasing accessibility of information which we keep on gathering and fail to relate in our daily life. The author juxtaposes two aspects in the novel, one is about the propensity towards realism and interrelation with historical events and other is propensity towards fictionality and reflexive self- examination. Cole uses Julius as a means to show various aspects of the city, such as the activities going in the city, big tall buildings, restaurants, music etc.

Open City is additionally successful at sensationalizing the connection between objective and subjective experience. In one scene, Julius is stuck on a fire exit, high on the edge of Carnegie Hall. It's evening time. He finds himself lost in relativity, plunged between the wailing of an ambulance "reaching me from seven floors below" and "starlight that was unreachable because my entire being was in a blind spot".

The book's title suggests that that the city is kind of vulnerable, that the enemy cam march in anytime, and keeping this point in mind gives a different perspective about the novel apart from the revelations made by Julius’s contemplations. The book vividly reveals about urban history and Immigrant experience, and also has a taste of intellectual show

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