Transnationalism in Open City

In Teju Cole’s Open City, transnationalism emerges again and again in various ways. It presents itself in many themes; one such theme is immigration. Many characters in Cole’s novel have been displaced, whether by choice or by the will of others. Professor Saito, whom the narrator befriends during his university days at Maxwell, becomes an integral character, one woven throughout the text. Saito, along with his Japanese family, “was forced to leave England” and return to the Pacific Northwest. “With them, shortly afterward, he was taken to internment in the Minidoka Camp in Idaho” (Cole 9). While we as the readers meet Saito in his New York City apartment, the aged professor holds memories from his travels made throughout his lifetime. His apartment holds decorations such as a Papuan ancestor figure and six Polynesian masks. The professor sees himself thus: “We were all confused about what was happening; we were American, had always thought ourselves so, and not Japanese” (Cole 13). To reference another example, I turn to Saidu, an inmate who the narrator happened to meet while with the Welcomers. Saidu began in Liberia, escaped to Monrovia, hitchhiked to Gbarnga, walked to Guinea, crossed between Bamako and Tangier and Ceuta. He continued his journey in Spain, crossed the border in Portugal where he endured hard work for two years before saving enough money to fly into New York. When he reached New York, officers took him away. His home? “I don’t want to go back anywhere, he said. I want to stay in this country, I want to be in America and work. I applied for asylum but it wasn’t given. Now they will return e to my port of entry, which is Lisbon.” If he is allowed to stay in America, Saidu will be an immigrant. If he is deported to Lisbon, he will be an immigrant. Part of his identity for the rest of his life will be that of an immigrant. There are many more characters who are presented to the reader as immigrants, including Nadege and Moji, two female protagonists who interact with Julius in various ways. We only see glimpses of Nadege’s life due to, I believe, the strain in her relationship with the narrator. As for Moji, we are granted the knowledge that she knows Julius from their adolescent years growing up in Nigeria. Both women seem to have become inundated in their new lives in the United States, but Moji in particular retains strong ties to her birth country.

The narrator has only returned once to Nigeria after leaving to attend college in the United States. Despite a good relationship with his father, he and his mother became estranged, and it’s logical that this is the reason he chooses to stay in the States and, even when taking a vacation, chooses to go to Belgium to search for his oma. The narrator certainly appears to be comfortable and settled in his life in the States, with little or no nostalgia for his birth country.

While Open City is a work of fiction, the settings, themes, and characters (whether major or minor) serve as excellent engagement with the reader. While not a real-life story, it is evident that the text works to seem like a real-life story. It is a believable story, and why wouldn’t it be? There are numerous biographies in bookstores today that parallel Cole’s story. Even when the narrator sits down to a film, he describes the people around him. “The ticket buyers were young, many of them black, and dress in hip clothes. There were some Asians, too, Latinos, immigrant New Yorkers, New Yorkers of indeterminate ethnic background” (Cole 28). Throughout the entire novel, the narrator provides little stories or anecdotes about various people, whether his patients or people from history. Each patient he discusses in detail and each historical personage demonstrate, in some way, an aspect of transnationalism. The book contains movement across countries’ borders, but it goes much further than examining physical location, looking into lives of immigrants and how they’ve adapted or struggled to adjust to their new lives in other countries. The novel presents a multilayered critique on transnationalism.

One thought on “Transnationalism in Open City

  1. I was also struck by how “real-life” the novel was. I continually reminded myself that it was a fictional novel. Cole’s brilliant use of detail and ability to translate Julius’s emotions onto paper were striking. Upon reading the narrator’s stream of consciousness soliloquies, I could feel the solitude and lack of warmth that he portrayed.
    Not only do I think that this quality of Open City is genius as far as literature is concerned, but I think that it demonstrates themes such as transnationalism, displacement, and culture in a realistic manner. By making his novel seem less fictional, Cole shows his readers life-like effects of cosmopolitan human interaction, or often, lack thereof.

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