“I used the word 'prose' in the Trans-Siberian in the early Latin sense of prosa dictu. Poem seemed to me too pretentious, too narrow. Prose is more open, popular.”
The prose visibly introduces modernity in 20th century poetry. Modernity is all about mobility and the erosion of time. Cendrars drags us through the longest virtual journey; the journey of life through the Trans-Siberian railway. Cendrars did not write about the joy or the displeasure of the long trip - he wrote a narration of life itself. This attempt to narrate life’s smallest details leads to author’s declaration that “he is a very bad poet”. When it comes to life, heart, or emotions everyone is a bad poet. In a way Cendrars shoves every little memory or thought about love, hate, war, sex, peace, remembrance, affection, perversion, and greed in this prose. The prose is written in very vivid stanzas which make the reader feel Cendrars’ hurt or bliss. The author continuously jumps from time to time, city to city, country to country, or continent to continent ; Cendrars travels throughout time and distance in a single train.
Here is a page where today’s Trans-Siberian railway can be seen:
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