Reading on the Train

Reading on the train is a sacred activity. Choice of material is of paramount importance. Marc Auge's book "In the Metro", which I read in the metro, is the inspiration for this blog.

What you read on the metro can make all the difference to the ride. It can make it an experience as opposed to something to get through.

Like a good book, you want the metro ride to be an experience, not just a 'ride'. I mean, most days, the everyday ride we must all endure are the norm. That doesn't mean we should give up the fight.

The best books I've read on the metro? Bolano's "The Return" and Gogol's "Dead Souls". I'm sure there are others, but those two are the most recent. They have an appropriateness for the situation other books, for me, don't have.

Running for the Train

I am of two minds about running for the train.

On the one hand I understand if you're running late why you'd want to run.

On the other hand it never takes that long for another train to come along, and I always work enough time into my schedule to be able to miss a train or two.

For a while now I've had a self-imposed rule: never run for the train. I walk, no matter how close I am to the still open doors. As the others look out at me walking briskly I feel their hearts pounding a little faster, see their eyes saying 'hurry up!'

I've been surprised a few times that I even made it. I'm the only one still on the platform, I don't run, I walk up an extra car or two and have a few seconds to spare after I get in.

Only two, maybe three, times have I been 'shut out' with a door slammed in my face. I've never had the experience of actually being caught sandwiched between the two doors fortunately.

But I've also had times when I felt the need to run. It's only natural. The train is leaving, I want on the train, the doors are still open: maybe I can make it!

So I run. I see others run sometimes to comic effect. You'll see a runner with absolutely no hope of making it running on principle. The train is there: therefore I run. No matter that you just walked around the corner and are a full level above the train which has already been there for a few minutes, is fully loaded, and the platform is empty. Run! You might make that last quarter of a kilometre. You might win the lottery too.