Happy World Book Day! If you live in the UK or Ireland, that is. Why they’ve dubbed it ‘World Book Day’ when it takes place almost two months ahead of literally the rest of the world celebrating the same event is beyond me — but as a UK-and-Ireland writer, it seemed appropriate for me to mark this one anyway. Even if it is misnamed.
In honour of the occasion, I’d like to introduce you to my favourite novel, The Starless Sea by Erin Morgenstern. This piece is somewhere between review and love letter, and I hope it piques your interest enough to pick the book up for yourself. (No spoilers, I promise.)
Right then. Anchors aweigh…
It drew my eye from across the room — tugging at my attention before I’d even properly registered its presence, like a beautiful stranger in a bar. I wasn’t wrong to judge this particular book by its cover: the cadence of the words inside captured my interest from — and I mean this literally — the very first page. They had a gorgeously, subtly poetic quality. It was intoxicating. I was, immediately, intoxicated.
It was an attraction that only intensified as we furthered our acquaintance.
The plot of Erin Morgenstern’s The Starless Sea is ponderously slow, fragmented into a kaleidoscope of stories-within-stories, many of which are never fully explained. I happened across one review that described the story as “meandering”, and I agree entirely with the choice of adjective, if not with the derogatory tone in which it was used. The (amateur) critic complained that the author ought to have been quicker “to the point”, which, in my opinion, is a lot like complaining that a Sunday stroll through the park could have been concluded sooner if only you’d taken that shortcut by the pond. Personally, I don’t read fantasy to get “to the point”. I read it to immerse myself in another time, place, person. If the fictitious world is wrought with enough detail and beauty, then frankly, I don’t need any other “point” at all. After all, when I’m walking through an interesting physical place, I’m more than happy to meander. So it is with exploring a book. Especially this book, specifically about getting lost in literary labyrinths, and flitting from one fantastical story to the next. Escapist fiction at its absolute finest.
The Starless Sea is the sort of book — regrettably rare amongst adult literature — that reminds me why, at twenty-something years of age, I still inspect the backs of likely-looking wardrobes and linger a little too long in front of promising looking glasse- I mean, mirrors. Actually, one of the things that most attracted me to it was the hint of something vaguely Carrollian in both the cover and blurb. Later in the story, the allusions to Alice become increasingly self-conscious (a reference to the rabbit hole; another to the mock turtle and the gryphon; a glass filled with a mysterious liquid labelled “Drink”), and I found myself almost disappointed, as though a private joke between friends had been explained to an outsider. Nevertheless, the faint echoes of Wonderland reverberating through the subterranean corridors of Morgenstern’s world are among my favourite features of a story that captured my heart and my imagination from start to finish.
Other favourite features? The characters are rich, the settings vivid, the imagery unspeakably lovely. Morgenstern’s masterful wordsmithing painted exquisite pictures in my mind’s eye that lingered long after I closed the book and set it down — invariably somewhere close to hand, knowing I’d be compelled to return sooner rather than later. Never in my life have I been so enthralled by a story. Nor have I ever found one so emotive. Yes, there are other novels where a particular moment, some twist or tragedy, has evoked a stronger emotion in me than was elicited by any single moment of this one. It didn’t bring me to tears, happy, or sad, or nostalgic. But I felt something, some genuine emotion, at almost every page. That is saying something. There are rather a lot of pages.
It is true that the plot is not the driving force in The Starless Sea. It is also true that said plot is slow, and meandering, and not always tied off in tidy conclusions. Strange, too, perhaps too strange for some tastes. But if you’re happy straying off the beaten literary track; if you see the wonderful in the weird; if you’re keen to escape down a rabbit hole of unbridled imagination; if you never quite gave up on Narnia… This needs to be your next read. And maybe the one after that too.
Have you read The Starless Sea? Please share your own thoughts in the comments!
Adventures of an Anglaise 
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