Each passenger’s life and thoughts is explore in actually 253 words over three sections as described below.
Outward appearance : does this seem to be someone you would like to read about?
Inside information : sadly, people are not always what they seem.
What they are doing or thinking : many passengers are doing or thinking interesting things.
We work through the characters one by one in each of the seven carriages. As we do we gain a sense of the time moving as people leave and arrive the carriages. In each carriage an incident happens from a shout, to performance art that ripples through the characters thoughts and behaviour.
As you read, you discover connections between passengers, the different reactions of characters to each other and the events. Some story lines are resolved others leave you curious to know more. Several characters make key decisions as they sit and think and some you find out the consequences and some you don’t. All the time as you read you know they are moving to destruction and yet the complexity of their lives continue to unravel. The final carriage and reasons for the behaviour of one of the characters are genuinely moving. In the final sections the crash and who dies is described so ending at random the lives of some the characters and so their stories end but you know the consequences some happy, some tragic some bitter-sweet.
submitted by John (ablueidol)
3 comments:
This book sounds really intriguing! I think I am going to have to read it now!
I remember reading this online not long after it was first written, and being intrigued by the way, if you read it online, you change the entire story by reading in a new order. I remember it was intricate and fascinating and pretty well-written, too. I wonder how much of that would be lost by reading the paper version, where you're naturally inclined to read front to back, and not jump from passenger to passenger...?
And as so often happens online, I long ago lost the link and the author. So thanks for putting it up, now I can reread :-)
--tarsh
I read about half of it. It is, indeed, inventive, but I became tired of it. It's a bit like sitting on a train, yourself, making up identities and thoughts for your fellow passengers, if you have a creative mind. But the train should have been shorter.
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