Fiction Friday: THE STARLESS SEA

Beneath the dust jacket

“Far beneath the surface of the earth, upon the shores of the Starless Sea, there is a labyrinthine collection of tunnels and rooms filled with stories.”

Thus begins the book jacket copy for The Starless Sea, Erin Morgenstern’s sophomore novel after the success of her debut, The Night Circus. This was one of the books voted into our book club, and I was glad it was, because I had seen it on new release tables at the bookstore and was intrigued. As it often happens, I misjudge time and have to cram my book club assignments, so I ended up reading The Starless Sea over the course of two days straight, and it was so enjoyable to submerse myself in this world.

First, the book description sounds like Borges’s “The Library of Babel.” Then the book opens with a tale of a pirate held in jail awaiting execution, and a girl who brings him food, to whom he tells stories — which is a total nod to the 1,001 Arabian Nights framing story. We get another short chapter on how the acolytes for the Starless Sea are trained, and another tale about a boy who finds a door in a wall but doesn’t walk through it. Then we finally meet Zachary Ezra Rawlins, the hero of our novel, who is a grad student in media studies reading through the library of his New England college during J term. In the library he finds a book without markings, and starts reading a tale about a pirate awaiting execution telling stories to a girl who brings him food, and about a boy who finds a door in a wall but doesn’t go through it…

…who was Zachary when he was a kid. The story is about him.

So Zachary sets off on a quest to find out what this book is, and what the mysterious bee, key, and sword symbols are on the spine — the same symbols he saw on the door when he was a kid. A first clue leads him to a literary-themed party at the Algonquin in New York City, and then we’re off with Zachary on an incredibly imaginative adventure into doors that appear and disappear, into the underground labyrinth of the upper halls of the Starless Sea, past mysterious statues and paintings, meeting new people who may or may not be friends, and may or may not even be real, as characters in books come alive, and other characters embody symbols from age-old fables. Zachary finally gets to the Starless Sea, a glowing honey-colored mass that has retreated from the shores where once they were parties celebrating it. All the while Zachary’s story is inter-spliced with the stories in the books in Zachary’s narrative.

This sounds like a wild book, you say, and it absolutely is. Think “The Library of Babel” meets 1,001 Arabian Nights, as I mentioned, meets The Matrix in the sense that the characters in the book are real in the world of the book but are also within narratives in the narrative as well, meets Narnia (which there’s a reference to) not just that there are hidden doors in wardrobes to go through, but the doors to the Starless Sea (which someone is trying to destroy to cut off access to the Starless Sea) function like the rings in The Magician’s Nephew in that they jump time and space, meets Arthurian legend, meets the bizarre narrative structure of Danielewski’s House of Leaves. I was hooked into this beautiful, incredibly imaginative ride through this world Morgenstern built.

So is there a Starless Sea, or is there an underground library? Well, once you get past the library you get to the Starless Sea, which is something like the origin of stories or imagination (we talked about it in our book club). The reason the Starless Sea is staunched is because the story — the Story — is stuck and can’t end, or is being kept from ending, and it’s up to Zachary to find out why. And find out why someone is trying to cut off access to the Starless Sea altogether, and erase it from history.

In addition to the literary allusions, the underground corridors, and the inter-woven narratives are all the hints that we should be reading this book like a video game. Zachary’s friend (and probable hero of the sequel) is a video game creator, and the action in Zachary’s sections feel like we’re following his steps as Player 1. His room in the underground library is home base, and he goes down different hallways, tries doors, has to gather elements in order to unlock other doors, meets people with only limited information. There’s even a reference to Zelda to help us along. One of my friends in book club pointed out that when Zachary arrives in the underground library, he has to roll a set of dice with different symbols on them. He rolls five hearts, which is supposed to mark him as a poet, but my friend said it was obvious: Five hearts are his lives that display at the top of the screen while he’s playing. (And that helps you figure out what’s going on at the end.)

If you want an imaginative, thinking fantasy that’s a bit surreal, definitely check out The Starless Sea (which just came out in paperback). Pick up a copy from your local independent bookstore, or from Bookshop.org.