The Starless Sea - finally in person

What a terrific night we had with those who were able to come, it was so fun to be together again after such a long and stressful time. Wonderful food, a gorgeous night in a beautiful setting and great conversation about this unusual book, The Starless Sea by Erin Morgenstern.

A greater number than usual "read" the book by audio, including me. It was a handy way to get access when libraries were largely shut and in this particular case for me was preferable to reading the book. Many of us, certainly not all, thought the book was one long description of a fantasy world that moved as slowly as its namesake sea of honey.

There were lots of symbols and imagery and it was repeated endlessly, but at the end we had no more idea of what they meant than at the beginning. As well, the characters were bland, with seemingly no ability to change their circumstances or impact the possible outcomes around them. While that statement is in conflict with our protagonist, Zachary Ezra Rawlings, who on a whim travels to New York City to find characters in a book he stumbled across, it is nevertheless true. No one does anything in this book, they just float along. There is no plot, no tension, no purpose, no reveal of underlying mysteries.

I know there is supposed to be a conflict of some kind going on, but the dangers were not really spelled out and any battles seemed more like missed connections.

The descriptions were beautiful though, and evocative and imaginative. The image of doorknobs hanging on ribbons in random places was a lovely thought, a bit like Alice in Wonderland. How nice to think you can open an invisible door and find yourself in another universe. Just please, not this one.

Another issue was the interspersed, unconnected stories (or are they supposed to be parables?) that broke up the narrative. These stand-alone tales interrupted any tension the novel might have generated and were just confusing. The overall effect was of a very long book with not much going on.

Someone commented that the whole setup was somehow like a video game, pinging from one place to another and perhaps it wasn't a coincidence that the main character was studying video games in college. Maybe so, it seems as good an explanation as any other.

And so, on we go. Our next book is Disappearing Earth by Julia Phillips and we are going to meet at Karin's place July 21 at 6:30. See you all then.  I often wonder if authors find this blog and read what we thought - if you did Erin, get in touch!