Re-read review: The Starless Sea, by Erin Morgenstern
Far beneath the surface of the earth, hidden from the sun and the moon, upon the shores of the Starless Sea, there is a labyrinthine collection of tunnels and rooms filled with stories. Stories written in books and sealed in jars and painted on walls. Odes inscribed onto skin and pressed into rose petals…Old stories preserved while new stories spring up around them.
This tale has very much the same dream-like, richly descriptive qualities as Morgenstern’s first book ‘The Night Circus’, but the structure is very different. Where that was closer to magical realism, this is a “hidden world” fantasy. Zachary Ezra Rawlings is an introverted master’s student who studies video games as a story-telling medium. He found a painted door in an alleyway when he was eleven, which he did not try to open. Then he stumbles on a book called ‘Sweet Sorrows’ that contains that very episode that has long haunted him, and in investigating it he finds his adventure. ‘The Starless Sea’ very much benefits from re-reading, as it is built on stories within stories and it is only the second time around that you catch all the foreshadowing or references to characters you haven’t met yet.
I recently heard a reviewer ding this book for having a bland main character, and now I’m a little annoyed because I actually related to Zachary a fair bit – and not just because if put on the spot to make a Starbucks order by a mysterious pink-haired lady I would make the exact same choice1. Like Zachary, I looked for Narnia or other secret passageways in attics and closets and crawlspaces; when you’re a kid who doesn’t quite fit in, that’s the dream! He has a small number of solid friend and family relationships but realizes as he gets drawn into his adventure that if he died it could be weeks before anyone noticed – a thought I’ve had more than once, realizing that I’d forgotten to tell anyone that I was going exploring. He exhibits far more agency than either of the main characters of ‘The Night Circus’, though he doesn't always think of himself as the protagonist. The choices he make mostly make sense – or at least are the kind of choices I’d make if I suspected I was in a fairytale. He has a deep fear that he’s wasted his 25 years dreaming of adventure, love, and meaning, instead of making his own story; that the story he is in now is just something his maybe-dying brain is telling him to make him feel better. And that is a relatable thought, especially – though perhaps not exclusively - to the introverted and bookish! Also, I appreciate that in this book Morgenstern placed the gay, brown-skinned character at the center and included a variety of other named non-white and/or non-straight characters, some of whom also get POV chapters, namely Dorian and Kat. But there are still some issues with the representation I’ll get to in a bit that could also have made Zachary a more distinct character.
Dorian2 is Zachary’s love interest and is introduced as an unseen storyteller:
Someone else is in the darkness with him…Breathing softly. Smelling of lemon and leather and something that Zachary can’t identify but finds extremely appealing. Then a voice whispers in his ear. “Once, very long ago, Time fell in love with Fate.”
He is somewhat older (a “silver fox in training”) and has an intriguing and never-fully-explained backstory, having switched sides when he failed to assassinate Mirabel, the aforementioned pink-haired lady and painter of doors. His relationship with Zachary has a nice slow build for most of the story, but there is one point where it makes a slightly abrupt jump from “I’d like to kiss you” to “I have dreams about us being married and would be utterly devastated if you died”. Before and after that step is fine, but it feels a bit like there is a chapter missing in the middle. However, considering all the other relationships in the book are fairy-tale levels of sudden, it’s not too unbelievable. Kat is Zachary’s friend and classmate, a bubbly, creative, outgoing queer girl3 who takes on the task of investigating his disappearance, since the police don’t seem to be interested. It is through her that we find out what’s been going on in the upper world while he’s been gone. She goes to visit Zachary’s fortune-teller mother, Madame Love Rawlings, at one point. Love tells Kat that even though neither of them have heard from Zachary in two years, he’s coming back. She was supposed to have two sons and she hasn’t met his husband yet!
There is, of course, a lot of meta-commentary on stories in this tale. A discussion among students throws out some suggestions on what makes a story compelling:
“Change.” “Mystery.” “High stakes.” “Character growth.” “Romance,” the guy in the blue hoodie chimes in. “What? It’s true,” he adds when several raised eyebrows turn in his direction… “Obstacles to overcome.” “Surprises.” “Meaning.” “But who decides what the meaning is?” Zachary wonders aloud.
These are all things Morgenstern tries, and mostly succeeds, to bring to this tale. I don’t think I’d noticed how much some parts of videogames resemble fairytales. For instance: You stand in an antechamber with two niches, one with dice labeled "roll", one with a cup labeled "drink" - do you follow the instructions and, if so, in what order? How to end a story is also a major theme. Does a story need to have an ending to have meaning? If so, does an ending mean the story stops, or just that the reader has a satisfying place to leave it while the story itself keeps going somewhere in “storyspace”? The necessity and nature of endings is actually at the core of the story’s conflict, and several times makes you wonder if Zachary chose the right people to side with.
All that brings me back to the representation issue. Zachary’s “dual minority” status isn’t as integrated into the story as it could be, and as a result some opportunities for character and theme development are missed. To start with the fun stuff, his mother was born Haiti and they both grew up in New Orleans, but the most we get in the way of cultural references is one comment about thinking the orishas were his mom’s friends. Why not have him reference some Afro-Caribbean stories in addition to CS Lewis or the Greek myths? Likewise, as delicious as "all the dumplings" sounds, I know that if I was lonely and disoriented and had access to a magical kitchen I’d probably see if it could make my Abuelita’s black beans and rice or maybe arroz con leche. I’m surprised that Zachary didn’t try ordering “mom’s gumbo” or other culturally appropriate comfort food4. That sort of thing could give the reader a better handle on Zachary as a person and add a bit of spice (literally!) to the narrative.
Regarding less fun issues: Kat’s thoughts about how she wishes her
parents could be as accepting as Madame Love indicate that the “normal” world
really is our world, which contains both homophobia and racism. In the hidden
world, on the other hand, the stories and the inhabitants show no indication of
either. One way to draw that distinction more clearly would be to use Zachary’s
other identity as book- and videogame-nerd. Nerd culture is an…interesting
place if you are anything other than a white straight dude.
On one hand the story
themes are often extremely relatable (being an outsider, found family, etc.)
and, if you are lucky, you will find a real-life community of people who relate
to those same things. On the other, until very recently you would rarely
encounter a character who looked like you while quite frequently
encountering other fans who acted like this was their space, and you would
be tolerated as long as you didn’t change anything.
Considering that the antagonist
of this story is literally a gatekeeper – sealing up entrances to the
hidden world to “protect” it from outsiders – making it clear that Zachary had
encountered that type of behavior before (and there is no way he
hasn’t!) would make the message of why that behavior is bad and
unproductive a lot stronger. Also, there was a party scene that
reminded me disconcertingly of ‘The Master and Margarita’ in the way naked
women were used as decoration – one painted gold, one wrapped in ribbons
printed in fragments of story. It’s very artistic but having ONLY female bodies used that way is a little disconcerting coming from a female author.
There were living statues in the ‘The Night Circus’ but they got to wear
clothes! That kind of objectification is also the root of a huge discourse in
video games right now so, again, it would make sense to say something about it. Of course, Morgenstern was probably leery of bringing anything too "political" into her lush, dreamy fantasy - but a few sentences or symbolic allusions here and there would have been enough to acknowledge these issues without disrupting the overall tone too much. As an example of how to do this, watch 'Revolutionary Girl Utena'!
1. I know other people must order matcha lattes for Starbucks to keep them on the menu - I've just never seen it happen! Also I'm pretty sure anything as corporate as Starbucks doesn't really have a secret menu, but I've started making the pink-haired lady's order for myself: 'Honey stardust' (earl grey, soy milk, honey, vanilla).
2. Not his real name, though he seems to have adopted it permanently by the end. Early on Mirabel comments: “He told you his name is Dorian? How Oscar Wilde indulgent of him, I thought he was bad enough with his drama eyebrows and his sulking. He said I should call him Mister Smith, he must like you better.”
3. Kat doesn’t like specific labels; we learn this in an early scene when she describes Zachary to a girl who was asking about him as “orientationally unavailable” rather than just saying he’s gay. But she has had both girlfriends and boyfriends.
Overall recommendation: If you like fairytales, gorgeously atmospheric prose, hidden worlds, or magical libraries, you will probably really enjoy this book. It is more balanced in terms of character vs. plot and atmosphere than ‘The Night Circus’ was, and has somewhat better diversity. Some issues remain, as discussed above, but I liked this book and will probably read it a third or fourth time.
