It was impossible for me to read this book without thinking of W.G. Sebald, partially because the blurb on the back cover referenced it, maybe, and partially because I have Sebald on the brain, but mostly because Open City really is a book about walking, cultural landscape, and historical resonance, ala Rings of Saturn - not a bad model for a novel, really, although a hard one to pull off, and Cole does an admirable job of it. The walking is well described - although I have an admittedly high tolerance for this sort of thing - the history, which focuses on the situation of immigrant (mostly African) peoples in New York and Brussels is by and large fascinating, and the cultural landscape is, on the whole, quite effectively done, especially the descriptions of immigrants and natives in Brussels (spoiler: they have slightly different perspectives on the Belgians' treatment of Africans).

What sets Cole apart from somebody like Sebald is that he includes a great deal of direct conversation between his narrator and various people he meets on his travels, which lends the book a much more natural feel than Rings of Saturn or even the Emigrants. Cole's formal innovation is much more about his slow pacing and the gradual revealing of his narrator as unreliable than any structural maneuvering, which serves his laconic narrator quite well. His pacing is excellent - as for whether he pulls off the unreliable narration, I'm not so sure. You'll probably have to decide for yourself.

While I don't fault Cole for not being a more experimental writer, there's not much risk to be found here - part of what makes saves a writer like Sebald from being boring is that he's risking so much structurally that you're in constant suspense as to whether he can pull it off. One never has the sense that Cole is working very far out of his comfort zone, or ours, and that robs his insights into immigration and mistreatment of marginalized peoples - foreigners (real and perceived), the mentally ill, indigenous peoples under colonialism - of some of their power. Still, a remarkably well-written book. Recommended.