The story of the bridge
On a balcony, an elderly woman looked at the crowd and threw her hands in the air. On other balconies, there was applause.
“Peaceful,” the marchers shouted. At the foot of the bridge, the security services were waiting, with other plans.
This narrative piece from today’s NYT reminded me a bit of Kapuscinski’s Another Day of Life. Kapuscinski is trying to make sense of a totally foreign city in turmoil, and he does so by observing keenly and describing concretely just what he has witnessed. The result lacks the abstract certainty of expert analysis—instead it has the feel of actual lived experience. Not surprisingly, this headline has slipped down below the more analysis-heavy articles about Egypt on the NYT site.
