The Thumbnail Book Reviews
by John Q McDonald --- 23 March 2022
by Lauren Elkin
If you were a teenager growing up in a big city, like this reviewer, you became familiar with riding public transportation, the streetcars, subways and, most reluctantly, the buses that spelled some freedom for a kid discovering the joys of urban life. You may or may not still commute by bus. In pre-pandemic times, we took the subways. But one can't deny the pleasures and dismays unique to city bus travel. One of the pleasures, of course, is the window it offers to watching other people and watching as we, ourselves, move within that press of humanity.
Lauren Elkin, who, in an earlier book, examined the challenges and joys of being a woman who loved to walk on city streets, lived in Paris for many years and during one portion of that time commuted to her teaching job by the city buses numbers 91 and 92. We used to read books and newspapers on these rides. Now we're immersed in our devices, the little bluish screens that hold our attention and shut out the world around us. Using this tool, Elkin kept a diary of brief entries noting events on her morning and evening bus rides. What results, in this short episodic book, is a glimpse of one woman's engagement with other Parisians and with the communal effects of greater events. The year in question spanned the Charlie Hebdo and November 13, 2015 terrorist attacks that between them killed scores of innocents. It also spans a portion of Elkin's personal health drama. These events color much of what Elkin has to say about her commute, digging deeper in to how individuals each have their own dramas, while the community holds its own greater story.
Taking as inspiration Georges Perec and Virginia Woolf, among others, Elkin's brief tale, written largely in the Notes app on a phone, elevates the examination of detail, the small notes on everyday life that ultimately make up the great events that mark history. It's a small book, and has a light touch despite its weighty subjects. But the drift of thought will touch anyone who has had his or her thoughts drift on a bus ride, or who has appreciated the diverse chaos that is urban life.
Also by Elkin: [Flâneuse]