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Chapters 1-2

Chapter 1

• Open City begins in New York City, where Julius, a fellow at Columbia Presbyterian hospital, starts going for long walks through the city, to get relief from the stress of his job as a psychiatry fellow.

• Julius says that he enjoys watching the migrating birds when the seasons change, and he listens to classical music from non-American stations, which do not surround the music with advertisements.

• From the opening paragraphs, the novel is peripatetic, following Julius’ wanderings through the city, almost like a travel journal, or a flaneur; any hope that this book will turn into a typical novel, with a crisis and characters who struggle for resolution, is quickly dispelled.

• The reader follows Julius’ thoughts from one thing to another, and it is only at the end that we find that Julius has a habit of avoiding certain topics, or changing the topic, to...

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