On the Bus Without a Phone by Babak Ganjei
Visual artist Babak Ganjei brings out an idiosyncratic novella of everyday, low-level dread
Bob Green is on the bus, without a phone, on the way to a date. So begins Babak Ganjei’s novella of contemporary daily malaise, which unfolds through a series of scattergun, occasionally interlocking thoughts as Bob rides to the end of the line, his father’s blazer pressing up against a stranger’s shoulder.
Those who know Ganjei’s work as a text-based artist will recognise his deadpan turn of phrase, and the fact that his book reads like several thousand of them put together could be a multiplier in either direction. If you like it, you will love this. But if the inward-looking, self-conscious voice that has come to be associated with the artist-author isn’t for you, neither will this book be. Cover to cover, it is unmistakably, idiosyncratically Ganjei.
For the most part, it is really funny. In Bob Green’s melancholy monologue, there is no opportunity for a gag wasted, and Ganjei demonstrates his ability – though well known by now – to create profundity out of the most mundane moments: a McDonald’s delivery; a stranger playing MF DOOM; a game of over-the-shoulder Wordle.
But while its strongest passages are where humour and tragedy align, by always favouring the punchline, Ganjei does occasionally cut off chapters of high emotional potential at the root, such that even the most avid fan risks feeling alienated by Ganjei’s deflection-through-humour at such an unrelenting pace.
