Train Journeys and Border Lines

Abstract

I begin this chapter about trains with a quotation from Coetzee’s novel The Life and Times of Michael K ([1983]1998). In it Michael’s fellow passenger and detainee contemplates the nature of the train—it goes up the line and it goes down the line. It is, however, the journey and the train itself that is the central preoccupation, the destination is, for all intents and purposes, irrelevant. The movement up and down the line suggests the inherent contradiction of the railway, namely that it makes it possible to travel tremendous distances, yet it simultaneously limits and restricts that travel. The gentle tone of “up the line and down the line” suggests the repetitive rhythm of the moving train and also stresses the fact that the train, despite its ability to cover great distances, is tethered to the track. In this episode, Michael—falling into a pattern of homelessness following the death of his mother—is stopped at a checkpoint and detained by the police simply because he is not carrying his permit. He is, however, not detained in a police cell, but on a train. In this constellation, the train carriage is a site of mobile detention and operates as a substitute for the cell.

“Why does it matter where they are taking us?” he said. “There are only two places, up the line and down the line. That is the nature of trains.”

—J.M. Coetzee, The Life and Times of Michael K