Stop me if you’ve heard this one before.
Life’s too busy; London’s too noisy; there’s always far too much going on. I never have time to…; I can’t see you until…; I haven’t had the chance to…
If city life is so bad, why do so many people live there? Why do city draw people so helplessly, relentlessly if they cause nothing but strain and stress and misery and disappointment and illness to those who live there? It’s self-evident, surely, that there’s good and bad about everything and city life shouldn’t be immune to that. There’s plenty that’s wrong with what goes on there.
But who, apart from those who make money from their existence, celebrates cities now? That seems somewhat contradictory to me; cities are growing effortlessly, continually; and they will always do so. Why?
I’ve always lived in or near cities – the last 10 and a half years in a variety of parts of London; I’ve never dreamt of living apart from them. I’ve always trotted out clichés along the lines of: the diversity, the opportunity, the ease of getting places. But there’s something more – walk with eyes open in the city, and you might say you are never more than the glance of an eye from a miracle, from the beautiful and the echo of eternity.
Jon McGregror spends a whole, breathtakingly beautiful book examining this in “If nobody speaks of remarkable things”; a novel, yes, but also a breathless hymn to the endless beauty, the everyday moments of transcendence of city life. It’s a plea to open eyes, to listen, to stop – to all city-dwellers to become archivists, interacting with the things, the places, the people all around.
There are many who bemoan cities – London especially – as places of darkness. But when did you last listen?
If you listen, you can hear it.
The city, it sings.
If you stand quietly, at the foot of a garden, in the middle of a street, on the roof of a house.
It’s clearest at night, when the sound cuts more sharply across the surface fo things, when the song reaches out to a place inside you.
It’s a wordless song, for the most, but it’s a song all the same, and nobody hearing it could doubt what it sings. And the song sings the loudest when you pick out each note.
Life’s too busy; London’s too noisy; there’s always far too much going on. I never have time to…; I can’t see you until…; I haven’t had the chance to…
If city life is so bad, why do so many people live there? Why do city draw people so helplessly, relentlessly if they cause nothing but strain and stress and misery and disappointment and illness to those who live there? It’s self-evident, surely, that there’s good and bad about everything and city life shouldn’t be immune to that. There’s plenty that’s wrong with what goes on there.
But who, apart from those who make money from their existence, celebrates cities now? That seems somewhat contradictory to me; cities are growing effortlessly, continually; and they will always do so. Why?
I’ve always lived in or near cities – the last 10 and a half years in a variety of parts of London; I’ve never dreamt of living apart from them. I’ve always trotted out clichés along the lines of: the diversity, the opportunity, the ease of getting places. But there’s something more – walk with eyes open in the city, and you might say you are never more than the glance of an eye from a miracle, from the beautiful and the echo of eternity.
Jon McGregror spends a whole, breathtakingly beautiful book examining this in “If nobody speaks of remarkable things”; a novel, yes, but also a breathless hymn to the endless beauty, the everyday moments of transcendence of city life. It’s a plea to open eyes, to listen, to stop – to all city-dwellers to become archivists, interacting with the things, the places, the people all around.
There are many who bemoan cities – London especially – as places of darkness. But when did you last listen?
If you listen, you can hear it.
The city, it sings.
If you stand quietly, at the foot of a garden, in the middle of a street, on the roof of a house.
It’s clearest at night, when the sound cuts more sharply across the surface fo things, when the song reaches out to a place inside you.
It’s a wordless song, for the most, but it’s a song all the same, and nobody hearing it could doubt what it sings. And the song sings the loudest when you pick out each note.
(Jon McGregor: If Nobody Speaks Of Remarkable Things. Pub. Bloomsbury, 2002. Page 1)
No comments:
Post a Comment