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This test consists of 5 short answer questions, 10 short essay questions, and 1 (of 3) essay topics.

Short Answer Questions

1. What does Julius notice is missing in Dr. Saito’s apartment in Chapter 14?

2. What does Julius say bound him to the boys who beat him up and rob him, the first time he saw them?

3. What does Julius say his generation is the first generation not to be familiar with?

4. When Julius goes to see Dr. Saito in the beginning of Chapter 14, what is Dr. Saito having a hard time with?

5. How old does Julius say he was when his father died?

Short Essay Questions

1. How does Julius respond when Moji tells Julius that she has never forgotten him sexually assaulting her when they were students?

2. What does Dr. Saito tell Julius when he visits him in his illness?

3. How is Julius affected by V.’s death?

4. What is Julius’ relationship like with the character he never names, but simply calls “my friend” (179)?

5. What does the monument to the negro burial ground make Julius think about the reality of people in the past?

6. How does Julius say that he reacted when he saved the boy’s life who had been about to drown?

7. How does the model of New York from the 1964 World’s Fair serve as a metaphor for the book?

8. What odd scene does Julius witness in the diner, where someone is learning Chinese?

9. Why has Julius missed Dr. Saito’s death?

10. How does Julius describe the beating he suffered at the hands of the two youth?

Essay Topics

Write an essay for ONE of the following topics:

Essay Topic 1

The biographical information says that Teju Cole is a “writer, photographer and professional historian of early Netherlandish art” (263). How do these other disciplines affect this novel? What does this book have in common with photography? What kind of photography in particular? What does this book have in common with Dutch art, or the discipline of art history?

Essay Topic 2

Evaluate the ending of Open City. Does it ring true to you? Does it successfully resolve the problems and tensions that preceded it? What would you change, if anything? What are you left wishing for closure on, if anything?

Essay Topic 3

Is this a novel with a moral center and a single cluster of fixations buried in a welter of urban impressions? Or is it a scattered inventory of experiences that never really define a central set of concerns in the author’s life? Is this a book about a man’s psychology, or a book about a man’s views of New York City?

(see the answer keys)

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