The Starless Sea by Erin Morgenstern is a strange book:
a combination of Alice in Wonderland, Ready Player One, and Lost in a
Good Book. It is a fantasy about video games and literature. One
common characteristic of all these books is that they are not typical novels. They
are difficult to enjoy unless the reader is in a compatible mindset. The reader
has to get it. Referring to a video game (a metaphor for the book, or vice
versa): “A lot of people have played it now, but I don’t think anyone gets it.”
Everything
in the book is a metaphor for literature, either reading it or writing it, or
both. Our (occasional protagonist) Zachery Ezra Rawlins goes through a door
(one of many, maybe infinitely many) and finds himself in an underground maze,
library, dollhouse, harbor, place.
“This is
the rabbit hole. Do you want to know the secret to surviving once you’ve gone
down the rabbit hole?” Zachary nods and Mirabel leans forward. Her eyes are
ringed with gold. “Be a rabbit.”
The book continuously
compares “stories” to video games. Some of the comparisons are subtle, like the
way computer graphics add details as the character moves closer to an object or
a scene. In general, the novel is based on video game physics. Time is non-linear
and moves backward and forwards. The same is true for space. Distance has no
meaning, and the inside of a space is not limited by the external appearance,
moving through a door can take you anywhere is time and space.
Because the
book follows video game physics, it is hard to follow, jumping around in time
and space. The multitude of characters assume different roles. No one seems to
know what they are doing or where they are going. I was not a reader who got
it.
The book
regularly compares reality to literature/video games, sometimes ironically. “Kissing,
Eleanor thinks, is not done any justice in books.” Eleanor is thinking her kiss
in this book is so much better than kisses in books?
A strange
book. Readers either love it or hate it. Read the first 100 pages and decide.
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