“Starting a book is like boarding a train to go on holiday.”
Antonio G. Iturbe
What makes us to love reading on a train?
Reading and trains seem to pair so well. Definitely, the motion of travelling, literally and metaphorically, is the strongest link between them.
In Timothy Williamson’s book «Tetralogue: I'm Right, You're Wrong» four people with radically different outlooks on the world meet on a train and have a conversation about truth, falsity, knowledge and belief. The use of fictional conversation as a way of exploring major topics traces back to Plato, but this time the story is set on a train. Who knows, maybe Plato, as well, would have set scenes of his dialogues on a train, if there were trains in his era. Thus, train journey triggers reflection and can help philosophers develop new questions.
Another book, recently published, that shows the link between reading and trains is Eric Weiner’s ‘’The Socrates Express’’. Every destination a new philosophical perspective, a new reflection and. another figure from the philosophical Pantheon.
Noteworthy, what prevails in a train course is the rythm. According to Goethe: ‘’here is something magical in rhythm; it even makes us believe that we possess the sublime’’. Travelling by train entails change and determined course, order and chaos, the known and the unknown, excitement and stability simultaneoulsy.
Trains have given us some of the best reading experiences. The famous ‘Stilte coupés’, trains converted in reading rooms, in Netherlands intended for people that wanted to travel in silence, because they read a book. The Dutch word ‘’stilte’’ means stillness and silence, calmness and serenity, the feeling of quietitude. Reading requires tranquility but also provides it.
Credit: weibo/财经网
New technology has expanded our reading experience. Now we do not only read a book but we can listen to it as well. So, in Beijing subway trains are transformed into an audiobook library. The carriage prominently features pictures of various novels, with the titles clearly listed on the cover of the books. To listen to them, you would just have to take out your phone and scan the QR code.
Thus, reading and trains inspire us enormously and allow creativity to thrive.
All in all, travelling with a train triggers our imagination as reading a book does. So, let the journey begin and let’s dream with our eyes and ears wide open!
Theognosia Rigopoulou ✍️
Paintings: Augustus leopold Egg, The Travelling Companions (1862)
Deborah Dewit Art, Journey Within Journey
Edward Hopper, Compartment C Car, 1938
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