MetaKnigel If the Rule is Broken–Break It.

On Pico Iyer’s ‘Where Worlds Collide’

In his essay, Where Worlds Collide, Pico Iyer analyses the hustle and bustle of the Los Angeles International Airport while transvaluing the associations of the airport culture into current trends of globalisation. Through his long, descriptive sentences, Iyer controls the perception of time to take snapshots of juxtapositions, contradictions, and ironies.

Beginning with a single long sentence paragraph, Iyer captures attention with suspense as the reader tries to figure out who “they” are. He repeats “they” and “them” while providing visual and audial details allowing the reader to put everything together until Iyer finally states the location at the end of the third paragraph. By starting with the perspective of the collective, we get a sense of multiple views while also understanding indirectly that Iyer is only one set of eyes. He uses such a perspective as a device for adding his own experiences into the writing. Through this, he writes with limited omnipresence.

By working through observation and a control of time similar to editing video, Iyer catches many ironies through various juxtapositions in the airport. One such juxtaposition is the contrast between the “American Dream” and reality. While many developing countries invest heavily into their airports to make a good first impression for visitors, the LAX is less appealing and may be a disappointment to those who have heard exaggerations of U.S. wealth. Iyer often induces what people expect and compares it to he thinks they actually experience from the things that he sees. He uses his intuition to role-play how people interact the environment that he sees. In one instance, newcomers experience a gift of a keychain globe (a symbol that, like postcards made in Korea, visually enriches his essay with details of cultural and global interconnectedness) that ends up to not being free at all, but instead a solicitation for a donation. In another example, Iyer mentions the graffiti of “Mexicans go home” scrawled on a bathroom wall that contradicts the international culture within the airport. Through Iyer’s juxtapositions, readers can see both tolerance and intolerance of intercultural relations. On one hand, we see the prejudice against Mexicans, and on the other we see Ethiopians, despite extreme cultural animosity, working along with the Tigre. Iyer suggests that people are “amnesiac” towards historical tensions and much is forgotten for the sake of coexistence, yet he also reveals much of the lingering undercurrents of resentment.  Read more... (912 words, 1 image, estimated 3:39 mins reading time)