According to psychologists, no good will come of the new murals in Moscow's Dostoevskaya underground station. The vast, black, white and grey depictions of Dostoevsky himself, and the characters from his novels, will make people "afraid to ride the subway"; they will encourage suicidal impulses; they're depressing. But as a regular London tube traveller, I actually found myself feeling a little jealous. I think they look pretty great, and while they might not actually brighten up a journey they'd certainly make it more interesting.
I become panicky if I don't have something to read or look at while travelling. If I've timed it so badly that I finish a book on a journey, don't have anything new to read, and have finished/can't bear to start Metro or whatever free paper has been pushed at me, then I will eventually stoop to reading the adverts while waiting for a train. (It's less stressful once I'm on board; I may be lucky enough to stumble on one of the Poems on the Underground posters – as part of my pledge to learn more poetry by heart I have been trying to use my tube journeys to commit them to memory). But how much better would it be to be able to gaze on scenes from Crime and Punishment, or a mural of the great man, instead?
I don't think we Londoners can swipe Dostoevsky, of course: we'd need an author with a more British flavour. I think I might campaign for Dickens at London Bridge to start with – an agonised Pip or a worried Nancy would definitely while away a few delays. In New York at Publishers Weekly, meanwhile, they're wondering about "Paul Auster in Park Slope? Scenes from Bellow's Mr Sammler's Planet in an uptown Manhattan Station? Some kind of snarled John Ashbery mural in the confusing transfer hallways of Delancey Street?" Which literary landmarks would you like to see on the way into work?
